Monday, May 23, 2005

Talking Star Wars

It's all over and I feel kind of hollow and empty. I'm kind of unsure what to do with all my childish anticipation. It's childhood's end. Yes, I'm talking about Star Wars.

I wasn't going to write anything about Star Wars, but I couldn't help myself. I honestly thought the wait was worth it. Sure there was lots wrong with 'Revenge of the Sith', biggest gripe being the whole romantic back drop between Natalie Portman's Padme and Hayden Christensen Anakin does not come off. They are just not convincing, no Han and Leia, but that's just a small drop in the galactic sweep and overall the final movie got a lot more right than it got wrong.

The film was all foregone conclusions: about power corrupting, about the decent to the dark side and about death. The funny thing was that even though I all knew it was a fait accompli, that the Jedi's would lose in the latest round of the long cyclical battle of good versus evil, I was willing it not to happen. Crazy stuff. Despite previous petulance, I found myself rooting for Anakin as his fellow Jedi Knights shunned him pushing him inevitably towards the clutches of evil and inadvertently being responsible for the demise Samuel L Jackson's Mace Windu - who gets my vote for the coolest Jedi yet to grace the screen.

Of course, it was senseless rooting as I already knew how it was going to end for him in a whirl of crappy dialogue (Harrison Ford's quip to George Lucas "George, you can type this shit, but you sure can't say it" is still true) and an awesome light sabre fight that was the final step on the road to the dark side for young Skywalker. Talk about legless.

This is the geekiest thing I have ever done, but I thought hey, I'm out (so to speak) and proud.

Top 10 Things that I liked rather about Star Wars

1. One of the best movie moments of all time: " Leia and Han in the 'The Empire Strikes Back':

Leia: "'I love you."
Han: "I know".

You just don't get to do that in real life.

2. Yoda, how cool is he? "Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering". He gets most of the good lines.

3. Obi Wan Kenobi: "Mos Eisley spaceport. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious" - he really wasn't underestimating the problem.

4. Hoth, it's cold there's no skiing or hot tubs just big evil Empire AT-AT walkers delivering one of the best cinematic battle scenes of all time.

5. Princess Leia as every nine year old had a crush on her - and I think I'm still a little short to be a Storm Trooper. Sniff.

6. Darth Vader - he's black and very very bad " Search your feelings you know it to be true".

7. Han Sol, he might be the owner of a piece of junk called the Millennium Falcon, but he floors it through asteroid belts. Haven't you always wanted to do that?

8. Jedi Knights -spiritualism, light sabres and rather cool looking robes and of course the force. How can you not love something that "binds the galaxy together" and lets you control the weak-minded.

9. Family ties, if you think about it, the plot reads like a day time soap. Luke and Leia are sisters, Darth is your father. If only they hadn't killed off the mother for a fun illegitimate child spin-off.

10. The Empire Strikes Back, is the best by far of the six films. It's dark, the bad guys win and at the end of it you feel like you've been through the mill. Okay, that's just me.

Favourite Star Wars moments anyone? You know you want to.

2 comments:

Questrist said...

350,000 Jedi Knights at the last Census... and god knows we need 'em.

Dan said...

Hmm, ten points, you have, but forty has the dark side. Win, they do. Again.