I really don’t have the energy to check the punctuation of the title of this post. Just as I don’t have any creative flow to even post a picture to accompany these sad words.
Can you hear it? The soft muffled weeping of millions of thirty-something men (and 27 or so women)? It has taken all my strength not to begin to cry myself this dark and cloudy morning. I went to see the latest and last installment of the Star Wars saga at 10:30 last night. Not that George Lucas would ever admit that he needed it, but it’s virtually impossible to find any paths to redemption when you end a story badly in the middle. There is just no where else to go.
Perhaps I suffer from the perfect alignment of age and personal development, having been eleven years old when the first Stars Wars movie was released. I saw it 12 times that summer. I waited with excitement for second (and best) movie of the series, The Empire Strikes Back. I knew that the story needed to end, but it just didn’t need to be as furry and cuddly as it was in Return of the Jedi.
I guess I never needed the back story. The orphan to prodigal father line of the original three parts (well, part 4, 5 and 6 now) were enough for me. I didn’t want to think of Lord Vader as just a lap dog of the emperor, even if that’s what he’s been all along. I certainly didn’t need to see his development from a little crybaby pod racer, to a young republican, to the lapdog of the emperor. I felt his pain, wanted scream along with him at the end of Revenge of the Sith, “Nooooooooooo!”
I’ve heard that the studio wanted to release the movie all over the world on the same day to prevent piracy, but I really think that they just didn’t want anyone that was caught up in the excitement to know how bad the movie was. I know it’s just the sound of their names, but I kept seeing Thomas Haden Church as the mechanic from Wings when Anakin was speaking. Didn’t anyone working on this movie think that his acting needed some digital editing? I felt more motivation and emotion from Yoda than Anakin.
Dreams and memories of youth die hard, falling from the shelves of our minds onto the dirty floor of life. You can pick them up and dust them off, holding on to the illusion, ignoring the cracks and lies, or you find something new and perhaps more real to remember.
I still want to play with the Yoda action figure I got from Burger King yesterday. He does a backflip when you wind him up!
