The reading for my play was tonight. Thank you to all of you who left comments, by the way.
It took three hours to get through sixteen ten minute plays. Well, less than sixteen; some people did not even present. So, that leaves us with 12.
I'm not a math whiz, but OK, 10 times 16...
Right, got that, now, 10 times 12...
Subtract
Subtracing,
Subtracting,
...
Getting the calculator.
Got it, now we simply convert to hours-
I think some people decided they deserved to write longer than the rest of us. I can't believe we wasted an hour between readings.
I saw Star Wars the other day, and it was definately worth the money, but then, I did get in free to a matinee. Actually, I even would have willingly paid five bucks because those movies do look like crap on a small screen.
Although, I saw the originals (well, when Lucas brought them back out in the late 90's) on an enormous old Cinerama screen. The theatre I was just in was maybe twice the size of a home projection screen, but, still, the scope of those films simply cannot be the same on a 28" square lighted box. (Curse you fullscreen!)
Anyway, the final chapter makes up for the saccharine and childishness of the previous two. Though Amidala and Anakin still make me want to retch, Jar Jar Binks is not allowed to talk. (As a side note, if they had chosen to make his race sound like stereotypical Native Americans rather than Italians, there would have been an outrage.) The film ties up almost every single loose end left between the old and new trilogies, but some details are still left unexplained.
There are a lot of moments in the movie that feel like, "Oh, well, if you knew anything about Star Wars outside the films, you would understand this." Personally, I don't believe that's the point of making a movie.
A lot of time was spent putting in danger the lives of people we all know make it. I'm sorry, but if you're seeing the new trilogy without having already seen the previous, you're either seven and don't care anyway, or you've recently come out from under a rock. Obi-Wan doesn't need to face impossible situations and countless dangers because every single audience member knows he turns into Alec Guiness in eighteen years or so. Sure, Yoda's hanging by his fingernails from a cliff, but the tension isn't as great because we know he scoots around the marshes of Dagobah with Luke only two movies later.
I wanted a little more explanation about the sudden switching the clones do. Maybe I don't remember some choice details about the previous film, but I wouldn't have thought that Palpatine had quite that much clout with them. I understand that they aren't quite people because they were genetically mutated, but I can't believe that they were as bad as to turn upon the Jedi just like that.
The scene with Windu, Palpatine and Anakin was too fast for my taste, especialy as it was probably the climax of the film. I really like a lot of clear build up to things and lots of reasons, but too many modern shows (theatrically or cinematically) fail to give me enough information to convince me that the stakes were indeed high enough for the reaction.
I wanted to see more of Anakin's struggle: it seemed like it peaked really fast, especially considering the amount of confusion and wishy-washyness he displayed prior to that. Think Hamlet's rouge and peasant slave speech; I think Anakin needed one of those moments and he never had the chance to take it. He made the quick decision in the chamber, but I didn't feel he was at the point to really be able to make the quick decision.
On the other hand, I suppose he is called a heedless, irresponsible, untrustworthy guy throughout the whole movie, but I'm still not sure where that came from because the little seven year old he was in Phantom Menace took forever making decisions, and the seventeen year old in Clone Wars was, well, a pissy teenage. Same problem I have with Harry Potter's most recent highjinks- yes, we're all like that at some point or another, but it's hard to respect or admire or give a damn about people who act like that constantly. I feel sorry for parents of teenagers everywhere.
This last one's an out and out spoiler for anyone who is still with me but hasn't seen the film. I do not understand any of the deal with Amidala's death. If they say she lost the will to live, why did she wake up and tell Obi-Wan there was still good in Vader? That kind of hope suggests a belief in her husband that would not be conducive to a complete loss of the will to live.
It looks like I said a lot of bad and not a lot of good. Well, in my opinion, everything I didn't mention was pretty good. The film is infinitely superior to the last two, but I want to see the original three again before I make comparisons there.