star wars: revenge of the sith - updated

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saw revenge last night with smockdaddy and bigD (our 9 year old son). unlike kingdom of heaven, revenge of the sith did count as my last "before bedrest" flick. the movie was good, i'll even say it was really good as far as star wars films go, but the experience of the film was even better than the film itself.

after five other episodes, what's left to explore? i mean, really. especially when your own special effects company has topped itself so many times, there's nowhere else to go? what more can there be? and still, this was a good show. i will not give any of the movie away, so y'all will just have to take my word for it and see the movie yourself.

i have one caveat: we were told by a friend of ours, who happens to be a pastor and quasi-level-headed, that he felt sure it was okay viewing for our nine year old son. although i don't regret taking him with us -- because he is mature for his age and has a better than average grasp, we think, on fact vs. fiction -- there were two scenes in which i leaned over and covered his eyes, much to his chagrin. in fact, he's still griping about it.

after hearing reports of all of the never-ending lines and reading the stories about how impossible it would be to get in to see the movie on opening day, we ordered our tickets in advance, got to the theatre almost three hours early, and (being the pregnant one) i was the one voted on to be camped out while the boys played gauntlet at the video arcade. i think i had more fun than they did! every demographic possible was represented in that line, and just watching the fans as they waited and speculated and laughed and acted goofy was worth the price of admission.

the theatre admitted us thirty minutes before show time. everyone was very orderly and polite about finding seats. it was nice. anyway, about two minutes into the previews the film onscreen skipped. there was nervous laughter as the film picked back up again. but then the film slowed, stopped, and ... as we all waited with bated breath, the thing actually melted and caught on fire. you can imagine the audience's initial response.

once we realized that there wasn't anything that we as an audience could do about it, we settled back into our seats and started introducing ourselves to the people around us. i was sitting between my two boys, so i started reading a book i'd brought to read while in line. bigD got to be on the receiving end of obvious, but harmless, flirtation from some very cute and giggly sorority types. they were asking him all about himself, his favorite characters, all of his star wars acumen, and then gasping with delight at all his answers. smockdaddy offered to switch places with me to help out the bigD, but it didn't float. after awhile, the natives started getting restless again.

about ten minutes later, fearing a riot might break out, one of the "higher ups" with no spine sent in a little usherette to say they were having technical difficulties. really? about five minutes after that, a rather large manager came in followed by several ushers with free "re-admit" passes. there were groans from some in the audience, a few “no ways” and heavy sighs from others. the manager loudly and promptly promised the passes were only for our inconvenience; we weren't being sent home, but they did expect another fifteen to twenty minutes of delay. well, by this time apparently a lot of us had already nervously eaten our ways to the bottom of our popcorn bags, so about half of the theatre emptied out and swarmed back to the lobby to pay another $40 for a large popcorn, an icee, and two cokes.

the movie finally began -- to thunderous applause and shouts of joy -- about forty-five minutes late. we weren't even daunted. And the audience as a whole seemed to have great fun.

i will admit that when we left, smockdaddy and i both said it was really good -- though not "the best episode ever" that it was being hailed as. we asked bigD what he thought: "it was AWESOME! except when mom kept covering my eyes. mom!"

my bottom line: yoda rules, i’m glad lucas finally had his entire dream realized, and this episode was worth the price of full admission...but still i wonder if it wasn't the overall experience of the evening that made it so much fun.

i don't know about y'all, but i'm a purist at heart and i don't think anything will ever top the original star wars. i cannot even force myself to watch lucas' updated version of the original because to me dickering with the original f/x is like... well, it's like coloring black and white films. horror!

5 Comments

Glad to hear the good buzz. We're going to wait until next weekend instead of braving first weekend crowds.

Zteen and one of his buds are going to the 6:15 tonight. They're excited!

Thank you for the excellent post! I bought the old Star Wars (updated) movies on DVD and screamed at the screen (shocking my kids) when I saw the Lucas had altered the scene where Han shot the bounty hunter under the table so that the bounty hunter shot first. Such revisionism! Han was a scoundrel for thirty years and then Lucas goes and tries to redeem him.

I can't wait to see this new episode, though. I'm glad the political statements I've read about don't seem to be very obvious.

j & i need to go see it. ugh i hate technical difficulties. especially now that im on the end that has to fix them. they aren't fun!! we do the passes thing too if movies are late for whatever reason.

Ok, I only have one comment and it's not giving away any surprises, it just struck me as funny. How is it that such a technologically advanced society has Padme going through her whole pregnancy without knowing she has twins? I mean come on people! It just struck me as funny that they have all the cool gadgets but they can't tell that she's packing 2 Vader babies instead of one!

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This page contains a single entry by smockmomma published on May 20, 2005 11:46 AM.

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