So on Thursday night Denis and I took advantage of a babysitter and went to see “Star Wars: RotS” on opening night.
Because I get home at 6:30 p.m., we planned on meeting at the theater, but then I got to my truck around 6:15 p.m. so I went home and we decided to go together. But then our sitter ran a bit late and we didn’t actually get out the door until after 6:30 p.m. for the 7 p.m. start time. Fortunately, we already had our tickets, but I did need something more than M&Ms, so while Denis parked the van in the massively packed parking lot (he ended up parking in the nearby grocery store’s lot because the theater’s lot was full) I got in a surprisingly fast-moving food line.
Once armed with lots of carbs (yum!) we walked into the theater. And found absolutely no seats together except for the very front row. There was no way I wanted to sit in the front row, so after telling Denis we didn’t have to sit together, I went on a mission to find two individual seats. About three rows from the back I found one, and then three rows in front of that I found another. I asked the people next to those seats to hold them so I could get my husband, and by the time I had waved him up to where I was, this group of guys reconfigured themselves and faster than you can say, “Hey thanks – nerds DO rock!” we had two seats together!
After twenty minutes of commercials and trailers the movie finally started (but not until after a guy did his Chewbacca impression three times and another guy told a really bad SW joke to the audience and got booed (good times).
I have to say that I was pretty impressed with the flick. I’m not a huge SW fan like some people I know (pointed stares at the hair buns on the side of Denis’ head). I much prefer the LOTR trilogy. However, I set aside my supreme bias and enjoyed the ride. Infinitely better than it’s previous two chapters (which combined are some of the most trite and over-acted trash in all of cinematic history), RotS had some fun comedic scenes, much better dialogue (courtesy of uncredited playwright Tom Stoppard, I’ve been told) and good battles. Sure, I was disappointed by some stuff (some bad dialogue DID cause me to roll my eyes exactly three times (as opposed to over a dozen during AotC), not enough Wookie, Padme (who was so “strong” in the first one, comes off as all needy in this one). But there was a lot of good stuff (I spotted the Mill. Falcon in one scene, Yoda’s power when approach Palpatine, The First Appearance of Darth Vader (which gave me chills it was so cool), and some fun R2-D2 stuff at the beginning which ended just before it became boring). I got sick of various Jedi saying “listen to your feelings” and felt force-fed (no pun intended) with Lucas’ religious vision of “The Force”.
Other than that, I really liked it. I would definitely see this one again, whereas I would only watch AotC and the other one (what was it called?) when forced as part of the six-pack.
4 cheers for Jar-Jar Binks only being in one scene and having NO DIALOGUE out of five.