2002-05-31 - 11:16 p.m.

A Galaxy Far, Far Away

As you might guess, tonight Lily and I saw the movie "Star Wars Episode II." Therefore I must proclaim loudly WARNING!!! SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

I'm not a big Star Wars fan, but Lily is, and she insisted that we should see it in a theatre. However, we both wanted to avoid the huge weekend movie crowds, but we kept forgetting to plan to see it during the week. So, we decided to go to the local mall tonight, and if it was too crowded we'd just see it another night. As it turned out the theatre was about 3/4 empty, even on a Friday night.

When Episode II first came out I read a review of it on Slate that began, "You know, this movie isn't as bad as everyone says it is..." and then they proceeded to utterly trash the film. Therefore, my expectations were very low and I was slightly pleasantly surprised. There were parts of the movie I thought were really cool (the battle scenes) and of course the special effects were amazing.

The acting wasn't as bad as I'd heard either. Natalie Portman and the actor who played Adakin Skywalker were a little stiff but dear Lord, the lines they had to deliver! And here we come to the biggest problem - the writing! It really sucked! The dialogue was dreadful and the movie had plot holes you could drive a starship through.

The biggest problem for me was that the big romance between Adakin and Amadala, the centerpiece of the whole movie, just did not work. For starters, she has to be at least 24 and he is 18, and usually 24 year old women are not digging on 18 year old guys except in a very casual way. Lily thought Adakin was hot, but he obviously had a lot of baggage.

If the movie was written by someone with SOME skill the romance might be believable, but in the movie one minute they have a younger brother-older sister relationship and the next minute they are tonguing it up, with practically no transition. The big fireplace seduction scene practically had me and Lily laughing. Amadala is all surprised that Adakin is coming on so strong, but ANY man would be panting and drooling considering that her breasts were about to pop out of her high-pressure low-cut dress. Good God almighty!

However, there was some acting that was able to transcend the material: I felt that Christopher Lee practically stole the movie. Perhaps a lifetime of delivering B-Movie lines gave him the ability to wring some drama out of George Lucas' ponderous twaddle.

The short form is: because my expectations were so low, I was actually entertained. The three hours went by pretty quickly.

However, my biggest complaint had nothing to do with the movie itself: it had to do with the audience, specifically the people sitting behind us. It was two young boys and (I guess) their mother. The two boys were, literally, constantly talking throughout the whole movie. I think their mother shushed them once after I gave her a poisonous look, but it was the only pause in a never ending stream of commentary.

What the FUCK is wrong with people? Are they utterly without manners? Why are incidents like this so frequent when I go out to the movies? Doesn't it occur to them that they are in a theater full of people who've paid $8 each to see a movie, and not at home sitting in front of their television? This makes me want to severely limit the number of movies I see in a theater.

After the lights went up I was planning on yelling at these idiots, but they hot-footed it out of the theater really fast. Maybe they knew they were on my shit list. Ah well. In retrospect their talking would have been a lot more annoying if the last third movie hadn't been so loud.

And there was a little surprise waiting for us when we got outside - some joker had hidden an empty twelve-pack of beer bottles under our car. If I hadn't spotted it before we climbed in, it could have been quite a nasty mess. What the hell is WITH people?

Makes me wish I had a REAL light saber.