I Love It When A Plot Comes Together

So, it's been a total of three days now since Trent and I went to see Star Wars: Revenge Of The Sith. Trent really enjoyed it as displayed by his wiffle ball bat light saber impressions. As for me, I'm still thinking about it- sign # 1 of an extremely good movie (in my humble opinion, of course). Any movie that stays in my thoughts for more than a day after viewing and affects my emotions somehow (sign # 2) is what I consider a movie worth my time. Whether I'm disgusted (Irreversible), humored (Sideways, Big Lebowski), enraged (Paradise Lost 1 and 2), sadenned (Magnolia), frightened (Exorcist), inspired (Elephant Man), enlightened (Supersize Me), or all of the above (A Clockwork Orange), I love a movie that makes me feel true human emotion and has me in deep thought during the dull moments of my day. For 72 hours, I've been processing how the annoying yet innocent little boy from the computer-generated muppet land of The Phantom Menace becomes Darth Vader, the most notorious villain of my childhood memory. Wait, did I just give it away for you? Nah, you knew that. Everyone knows how it ends. As Brett stated, "It's the most predictable movie ending since Titanic." What's important isn't THAT Anakin Skywalker becomes Darth Vader, but HOW he becomes Darth Vader. I'm not going to go into details to avoid spoiling it for some of you, but let's just say that every expectation that I had for the movie was met and exceeded. My expectations were lower than most Star Wars fans (excluding Star Wars nuts because they dont't discriminate) due to the fact that I didn't like the first movie of the newer series. The second was much, much better for me, but I'm not crazy about the special effects of either of the movies. I definitley prefer the old school method of rubber masks, men in robot suits, and small scale models. When I look at something tangible, it's more believeable that it exists, but when I see the actors' eyes unconvincingly gazing at the general location of an obviously computer generated character, it's so apparent that the person or thing is not standing there. Granted, the graphics aren't as bad as the ones from the Xena and Hercules shows, but George Lucas got a little carried away with the special effects in these movies, and the newest installment is no exception. To add insult to injury, instead of bringing the budget down and making the newer movies look like the older movies through an old school special effects approach (real robots, little people in costume), he goes ahead and remasters the original three for their DVD release to make them look more like the newer movies. Is nothing sacred? The cult sensation of the original movies is what made these newer movies so successful, so why tamper with the intergrity of the originals? I guess 4, 5, and 6 didn't make him rich enough. I digress. Anyway, I could stomach the computerized f/x in episode III due to the intense plot and dark story line, which was very interesting to me. I heard that before this movie was released, they were toying with the idea of giving it an R rating, which after viewing, I'm not surprised. They could have gone a lot further with some of the more brutal moments in this movie, but to keep it family oriented, it's good that they trimmed it down to PG-13 standards so that all ages can see how it all comes together.
I think the thing that made me enjoy this movie the most was how it linked the first two movies to the three earlier movies that I grew up on. They were definitely my favorite movies growing up along side of Time Bandits, Something Wicked This Way Comes, Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory, Wizard Of Oz, and the Indiana Jones movies. And, I think I owned every Star Wars action figure, base, and infrastructure (minus the Luke Skywalker from A New Hope...I also had 4 Chewbaccas because I kept losing him, and he was my favorite...I wish I still had my Boba Fett due to recent, cute references to Bella). Watching anything related to fonder memories of my childhood gets me into it that much more. I gues I'm the sentimental type. As humans, we associate certain images and sounds with moments of the past when we first experienced them, so hearing the mechanical breathing of Vader and seeing how he came about was definitely a blast to the past from the present. So, I gave the new Star Wars movie 5 out of 5 stars, but I can't guarantee that everyone will have the same kind of viewing experience. We're all different. Next up? Bring on Johnny Depp's perma-smiley Willy Wonka!