I saw Star Wars: The Revenge of the Sith tonight with my second son. He's eight years old, and wore his Darth Vader mask/voice changer to the theater. There's a clue to how to enjoy this movie. Check your cynical, thirty-forty-something a$$ at the door.

We had a great time. After one viewing of ROTS, here's how I would order the Star Wars movies, in order of preference:

1. Star Wars
2. The Empire Strikes Back
3. Revenge of the Sith (Wookies instead of Ewoks, thank the Maker!)
4. Return of the Jedi (die Ewoks, die!)
[tie] 6. Attack of the Clones (spaceships with laser cannon all over the place, but no initial air support for the Jedi assault on the droids in the arena?)
[tie] 6. The Phantom Menace (die Jar Jar, die!)

I'm working on a more descriptive review, together with some "final thoughts" on the whole series of movies, and will post that at GNXP Science Fiction when ready, hopefully later this week.

In the meantime, go see the movie, and don't take any politics into the theater with you; they're just not there. Instead, take an eight-year old and have fun watching the cool spaceships and lightsaber battles. Start your birthday and Christmas lists with all the LEGO sets you want to get. Lighten up...

P.S. The movie previews have me looking forward to the summer lineup: Serenity, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and Batman Begins all look promising. And The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe looks like a sure hit next Christmas.

Update: Owlish reminds me in comments of The Fantastic Four, which also looks to be quite entertaining (they showed the trailer, I just didn't retain it).

Update 2: Despite my general dislike of Tom Cruise, I have to say that the trailer convinced me to see Spielberg's version of War of the Worlds, too.

Posted by: JohnL at 11:51 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
Post contains 317 words, total size 2 kb.

1 Not The Fantastic Four?

Posted by: owlish at May 24, 2005 08:12 AM (sBj9U)

2 Meme love!

Posted by: Rhianna at May 24, 2005 09:27 AM (JS0AK)

3 You got to see the trailer for Serenity in the theater?! You lucky, lucky..... I do think The Lion, The Witch, etc looks kinda cool though.

Posted by: JP at May 24, 2005 04:35 PM (Atvm8)

4 Sorry, but I don't see how a remake of War of the Worlds can be anything but $#@%!. After "Independence Day," anything less than the wholesale nuking of the planet or legions of human-eating arachnids spilling out of spaceships is going to lack menace. However, with Spielberg at the helm, it will be better acted and directed. Also Tom Cruise is getting less and less mileage out of his smirk as he ages. His last halfway decent acting turn was in "Collateral." In WOTW, it looks like he's playing Tom Cruise again. Sigh. Why are we getting yet another remake of an H.G. Wells novel from 100 years ago? Would someone please go throw obscene amounts of money at Lois McMaster Bujold or David Weber to have ANY of their books made into movies? Is Angelina Jolie the only veteran actress hot and tough enough to play Honor Harrington convincingly? Somebody please offer me a substitute, I'm having trouble getting the picture of her in the eyepatch from "Sky Captain" out of my head. Ishy

Posted by: Ishy at May 25, 2005 12:38 PM (WIFkt)

5 Sorry, got off on a rant. RotS rocked. It even made up for Episodes I & II.

Posted by: Ishy at May 25, 2005 12:40 PM (WIFkt)

6 There were extremely excellent and the best scenes in the movie "Revenge of the Sith". Good originality and great imagination, great story in this movie! Here's Photo gallery for Hayden Christensen(Anakin) of this movie. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0159789/photogallery-ss-0 I love Star Wars series the most!

Posted by: Creford at July 10, 2005 05:45 AM (Y5I00)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

A couple of Stormtrooper pics that have grabbed my fancy recently:

Happy Trooper (via Wizbang):

Female Trooper (via Michele Catalano):

I just got an idea for a theme costume for my wife and me next Halloween...

Posted by: JohnL at 11:00 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 44 words, total size 1 kb.

Only two-and-a-half weeks to go before Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith hits theaters. So let's jump on the Sandcrawler bandwagon and build some hype:

Do you have questions? Read the script to find the answers. It actually reads like a well-paced movie with some fantastic action scenes and only a small amount of franchise-appropriate cheesy dialogue.

Challenge yourself with some obsessive fan trivia, while perusing a serious SF analysis of the screwed up values reflected in the Campbellian (non-Enlightenment) universe of Star Wars.

Of course, you have your outfit picked out for opening night, don't you? (Just make sure it's bathroom-capable!)

The Dark Side's not your style? Then try this, Rebel scum.

More links to follow as we draw closer to opening day...

Posted by: JohnL at 08:52 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 136 words, total size 2 kb.