Ladies and Gentlemen: He's Done It

If you have not yet been to see Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith, stop reading this right now and go see it. I mean it. Drop whatever it is you are doing: tell your boss you are ill, take the kids to the sitter, turn the lawnmower off, get off the phone, take your hand off your dick...whatever it takes, and get thee to the nearest movie theater. Because George Lucas has done something wonderful.

I know, I know. Twice burned you were. Trust in George you do not. A bunch of crap lately he has made.

Listen. The Force is strong in that one. He has turned back to the good side, and just in time for Anakin to turn away. I cannot express to you properly how impressed I was with that film. The best I can do to illustrate is to tell you that I have completely forgiven him for Jarjar, indeed, for Phantom Menace in it's entirety. What I saw, at 12:01 on Thursday morning was truly, truly a Star Wars movie. Without spoilers, here is my review:

Anakin Skywalker's descent into darkness is absolutely heartbreaking. Peeps, the kid tried so hard to do the right thing, but in the end he just wasn't strong enough. He did all the wrong things for all the right reasons and it cost him absolutely everything. Watching the original trilogy will be for me like watching brand new movies, because I will now see them through the filter of what Anakin went through to become Darth Vader. He is finally a three-dimensional character, rather than the two-dementional character that I grew up with.

And speaking of Darth, the scene where he first suits up is everything I ever dreamed of. There was complete and utter stillness as the entire theater held their collective breaths and watched the mask go on, the helmet come down, a pregnant pause, and then...he take his first hollow, mechanical breath. But it doesn't end there. I don't know why this didn't register with me, because I knew it would have to happen, but when they tip him upright and Palpatine asks him, "Lord Vader, can you hear me?", hearing the answer come from the voice of James Earl Jones rocked me through to my core. It felt like I had been waiting my entire life to hear that sound.

Palpatine, by the way, steals the show. Steals it. That guy is just such an incredible actor. He is so evil I actually felt colder whenever he was on the screen.

Yoda too. Yoda rips some shit up in this one in a way that makes his battle with Dooku look like an afternoon at the ballet. I would not want to mess with that little green dude, I shit you not. The things they can do with CGI these days, I'm telling you.

Natalie Portman. It is ri-fucking-diculous how incredibly fucking hot that chick is.


The viewing itself was an interesting experience. I'd talked this thing up for weeks, and when the day finally came, my boss showed up at the office with a HUGE cake for me as a surprise. It has little action figures of Obi Wan and Jango Fett from their fight scene in Clones, complete with a backdrop. He had written "Happy Premiere Amber!" on it. By the way, did I mention that my boss is cooler than your boss? He is.

I took the cake with me over to Heather's house where I prepared for the movie dressing up as Padme, making Heather take pictures of me sitting outside in the grass like the scene I copied my outfit from, eating the cake and doing shots of DayQuil with Jim since we were both feeling shitty.

We headed for the theater early and were in our seats nearly two hours before showtime. As was almost everyone else. We sat and we sat, until finally two nerds generously offered their fancy, hundred dollar lightsabers up to any volunteers who wanted to duel. The most popular duel was the one between two girls in their pajamas. By the way, if you're a single gal who likes pimply nerdy guys who have never been laid, midnight premieres of sci-fi fantasy movies are the place to be. Dudes outnumbered chicks by my estimate at about 6 to 1. If was a festival of self-abused sausages in there.

Few people were dressed up, although I did see a 4 year old Vader (It's midnight! WHAT ARE YOUR PARENTS THINKING?), but it seemed like everyone had a lightsaber. I had left mine at Heather's and felt slightly left out, but being that all the geeks treated me like it was Padme Appreciation Day I didn't dwell on it much.


Hey! What are you people still doing here? Didn't I just tell you to get your ass off the internet and go to the damn movies? Scram, and may the Force be with you.