A LONG TIME AGO

I have refrained from posting anything related to Star Wars here - so far.

I enjoyed the hell out of Star Wars when it came out in 1977 - the summer of my wedding to She Who Must Be Obeyed. Saw it in the theaters three times, when seeing a theatrical release more than once was something I rarely did (or do today, for that matter). The sequels - The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi - were reasonably good follow-ups, with yet more special effects.

Yet special effects were not what drove the story. The first movie was an unabashed homage to the action-adventure and science-fiction serials of the 1930’s, complete with all the right Filmic Archetypes: The Young Hero, The Raffish Sidekick, The Wise Elder, The Vulnerable Princess. And in that movie, each Archetype played its expected role perfectly.

In the later movies (I’m still talking First Trilogy here), the Archetypes were put through the mixmaster a bit. More bang, more zoom. But they weren’t the same. They didn’t have the excitement of the Completely New Thing.

As for the second trilogy, of which we have seen two thirds so far, George Lucas seems to be either merely going through the motions, or he has bought in to his own mythos. These movies have been “kinda, sorta” entertaining, on a superficial level, but they just don’t Do It for me.

Maybe I’m just getting old.

Anyway, this is a long-winded introduction for something I snarfed up from Pete at A Perfectly Cromulent Blog:

Darth Vader’s Blog.

Yep, Darth has an Online Journal. And the entry titles will give you a nice flavor of the enterprise:

* I Am Surrounded By Idiots
* Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner
* Haste Makes Waste
* Lunch Surprise
* And Me, With A Pain In All The Diodes Down My Left Side
* New Probe Droids
* My Sinister Agents Have Failed Me Again

Gotta love it! It may just get me interested enough to see Revenge of the Sith when it comes out. I do so hope they impale Jar-Jar Binks on a spit and roast him over a slow flame...