Okay, I realize I'm a day late with this one, but I've was totally zombied yesterday as a result of..... (Surprise!) staying up late to catch the midnight showing of Star Wars Wednesday night. First, a little social geek commentary: I went with Jason and Jessica (you guys rule, by the way) to the Colonial Heights theatre to stand in line for an hour with various other freaks to wait for the movie. Now, in my opinion, there's nothing wrong with going to the opening show of Star Wars dressed as Anakin Skywalker, so long as you remember one crucial point: You are a nerd. Not in a bad way, mind you, but allow yourself no illusions; your homemade jedi robes and lightsaber you got from Wal-Mart do not grant you any additional cool points. At all. I say this because in the paper this morning they had interviewed a lot of people at the midnight showing, and among them was this one fellow, pudgy, round-faced, and dressed like Grand Moff Tarkin who has this look on his face that said, with no hint of irony, "I am a total Badass" Sorry, Myron, I'm afraid you're not.

Which brings me to my next point: If the paper interviews you about what you thought of the movie, do not say something like, "When Yoda said goodbye to Chewbacca, it brought a tear to my eye as I realized how heartfelt his compassion was for the plight of the wookie people." If you say this, I'm afraid it is my sad duty to inform you that you are a complete tool, and never again will you know the touch of a woman (if you're that guy, sorry but better that you hear it from me now). Rather, when interviewed say something like "I thought when Yoda gave the Emperor a force wedgie, it was totally sweet!" This is what real humans say when they see a movie, don't try to be all deep, you don't have the Jedi Mind Trick, it's not gonna fool anyone. And definitely don't be like the poor girl in the paper who said "It was great, but I missed about 20 minutes of it while I was in the bathroom." I'm sorry, but first off, we didn't need to know that; and secondly, what took you that long? Unless you were making out with Boba Fett, you've probably got a few issues that don't need to be printed in the Richmond Times-Dispatch. The high point of the night (in terms of social dysfunction at least) was when we were still sitting in the theatre waiting for the movie to start and I (my chronometer having broken while I was traveling in hyperspace) asked if anyone knew how long it was until midnight. Jessica replied, as a normal person might, "About fifteen minutes."
At that moment, the guy in the row ahead of us turened around and said, in the perfect likeness of Comic Book Guy, "Actually, it's twelve minutes until midnight." I was dorkstruck. I mean, I really almost spewed jelly beans all over the guy (I managed to smuggle them in by telling the usher that they were really Bantha nuts, and if he didn't like it, well, I had a thermal detonator).

I'm sure being the usher at the midnight showing of Star Wars is the worst thing ever for these people, and I truly believe in my heart of hearts that if they could have ripped every person to tiny pieces with a rusty spoon who said "May the Force be with you." to them as they took their tickets, they would have. In the interest of full disclosure of my own social disability, I had planned to go as a wookie myself, but at the last minute I didn't care that much and instead just didn't shave for a couple of days. I received many compliments however, on my realistic costume and gratuitious back hair.

Now onto the actual movie. I won't tell you there are spoilers coming up, because if you're the sort of person who would actually care, you've already seen it. It was good, far better in fact than either of the other two prequels and well matched in quality to the original trilogy. I'm beginning to thinkmthat the awesomeness of a Star Wars movie is directly related to how many arms get cut off in it. In the original trilogy for example, there was exactly one arm cut off per movie, and as a result they were all quite good. In Episode One, however, no arms we cut off. In Episode Two, Anakin lost an arm. In this one however, there were at least six different arms taken off in lightsaber fights, and as a result, it was a totally sweet movie, which you ought to go see right now (you know you want to).

Really, except for a couple of things, it was a great movie. For instance though, how come it appearently take them nearly 20 years to build the first Death Star, while after it's destroyed it takes them about a week and a half to build another one. Also, is it just me, or does the Emperor look suspiciously like Joseph Lieberman? I mean, I'm not accusing anyone of anything, but if one day they find Bob Dole all crispy on the Senate floor, I think none of us will really have a right to be surprised. And really, if you live in a world where they can replace any part of you with a sweet mechanical one that lets you do everythnig with it that you could ever need, why don't they have the surgical skill to make you less messed-up looking when you fall into a pit of fire?

Well, I was gonna do a post on the Mystery Alligator Across the Street tonight, but it's late, and I'm sure you don't care that much, so it can wait until tomorrow. (If I don't post then, it probably ate me, oh well)