Current Ramblings
Thursday, May 19, 2005
Dude.
First, some other things:
I've pretty much come to the conclusion now that my poor ulcerated intestines are strongly opposed to me scarfing a big tub of greasy movie theater popcorn in the evening. I seem to be okay if I have it in the daytime (like when we caught Robots at a matinee), but there's something about trying to digest it while horizontal that results in waking up in extreme pain around 5-ish and having to rush to the bathroom for what I have come to call a "jettison". I'm just glad Graham was dead tired, because I'm sure the pained sounds I was making would have caused him a great deal of panic. I mostly force this story upon all of you because I have no short-term memory and no self-control when it comes to food, so at some point someone will have to remind me of this.
And of course once I went back to bed I proceeded to have a really disturbing dream - and in fact even returned to it after Graham's alarm woke me up - because the idea of Revenge of the Sith being a parable about the Bush administration seems to have burrowed just a little too deep into my subconscious. The gist of it was that Bush had just kind of gone crazy and was ordering the military to attack the strange futuristic-y city I was in with a sort of sick Zaphodesque glee, and nobody was fighting back all that much. The scene that stayed with me really well was travelling on a subway train through a tunnel that was for some reason lined with armed guards, and watching the armed guards get taken out one at a time as we moved through the tunnel. I came back to this tunnel with the dead guards later in the dream, too. On the plus side, it's raining here, so the roof work was halfhearted at best this morning and nonexistant right now.
We decided to get comics and dinner before heading up to Marcus Crosswoods on the north side of town, so we got into line around 7PM. The crowd wasn't too bad yet when we got there, and it turned out many of the couple dozen people there ahead of us were going to the "ultra" screen showing anyway, while ended up splitting off from the main line and going inside soon after we got there. (It wasn't digital, just a bigger screen or something.) Our group - me, Graham, Walky, and Steve-o - ended up being the second group in the line once the ultra showing people went inside, but the line became pretty impressive as night drew closer. I talked Walky into bringing his new Tablet PC so we could look for unsecured hotspots (Isn't there a term for that?), but we didn't have any luck from the line and he didn't really want to walk all the way to the Starbucks just to post to his LiveJournal. So we read our comics, discussed our comics, played DSes, used DSes to send crude drawings of genitalia to each other from two feet away, and played a pretty good game of Apples to Apples, during which a guy came by and gave us free Red Bull. I may have to make Red Bull my official coffee substitute, since the aforementioned ulcerated intestines go into revolt over coffee. We got into the theater a good hour and a half before the movie actually started, but by that point we were pros at killing time.
I'd also like to say one thing about the trailers: I don't know if all of you got the trailer for Stealth, but our whole theater thought it was the funniest damn thing they'd ever seen. It's like super-serious action-packed Short Circuit.
Okay, so here's the good part: the movie itself. Skip this part if you don't want to be spoiled.
When I was little, the original Star Wars trilogy was one of those things I'd try to stay up and watch with my dad whenever he put it on, even though I'd inevitably fall asleep somewhere near the beginning of Return of the Jedi. I've never read any of the novels, but I've loved the movies for about as long as I can remember. So it hit me kind of hard that this would be the last such event I would be taking part in. Usually I can't stand overmarketing, but I've embraced this because it's the end, at least of the big stuff. It makes me smile to see three commercials for three different things that all involve Star Wars tie-ins while watching Adult Swim. I want a good hot day to walk to 7-11 and buy a Darth Dew Slurpee. So this movie had a lot to live up to. And I think it did it quite well. My only real complaints are the complaints I had against Attack of the Clones: Hayden Christensen is not a particularly likable Anakin and Padme seems much too stiff and distant, and it makes their romance - the focus of the tragedy - hard to really feel. Ironically, though the whole prequel trilogy was intended to show Darth Vader's humanity, the moment when I truly felt that was at the very end, when Anakin wakes up in the familiar suit and asks, in that familiar James Earl Jones voice, about Padme. That was the moment that drove the entire idea home for me, and it wasn't until the end. I just wish he had been more likable before that. Also: How did Padme not know she was carrying twins? Do they not have obstetricians in space? But those things aside, I was floored by the movie. A couple times I got a little teary-eyed, like when Yoda felt the massacre of his fellow Jedi, and when the "younglings" were killed. Mace Windu's fight and fall against Palpatine and Anakin left my jaw literally dropped. It was just an amazing, emotional movie, problems with Anakin and Padme aside. I should totally go see it again.
And Steve: They totally didn't show Shaak Ti get killed. Time for fanfic about how she survived! :D
posted@2:27 PM by:Trixter: 0 comments