F H card letter b

Tuesday, May 17, 2005

The obligatory 'Stars Wars' post, yes?

While I'm not rabid about it as, say, Harlan Ellison who once answered the question about why he disliked Star Wars so much with, "it makes people stupid," friends are surprised that I've never been much of a SW fan, even before The Phantom Menace. For the record, I thought the first movie good Space Opera, the second the best story, and the third Lucas' remake of the first movie. I found the last two so unimpressive that I don't have an opinion about them at all.

The line above about "Space Opera" has something to do with it. Like deciding whether you're a Ginger or Mary Anne, Superman or Batman (I'm a Mary Anne/Batman - actually I'm a Mary Anne/Green Lantern, but that's too geeky to try to explain), tomato or tomahto kind of guy, you can roughly separate skiffy fans into space opera and hard science fans.

I'm more of a hard science, 2001 sort of guy, at least when it comes to movies. Heck, I even liked the sequel to 2001, 2010 ("Attempt no landing there," Peggy and I have been known to warn cats appraising forbidden places to jump) better than I did Star Wars. It wasn't so much the whole let's ignore physics, we made that planet in twelve parsecs thing as it was the pseudo-Republic Pictures story and dialogue. I can get into serial homages. I love the Indiana Jones trilogy, but I guess I'm more into Tarzan than Buck Rogers when it comes to serials, which makes me yet another sort of guy.

I'll probably go see Revenge of the Sith (piece of useless trivia here. Did you know that "Return of the Jedi" was originally "Revenge of the Jedi"? I used to own a promotional poster with the original title that I eventually sold) on the big screen, especially if I can talk Peg into it because I'm pretty sure that if not loving it, I'll at least like it. But all in all, I agree with Tom Spurgeon's "Ten Reasons I May Not See Star Wars III -- Revenge of the Sith," especially reason #3

Too young to imagine having sex with Princess Leia; too old to imagine having sex with Princess Leia's mom.

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