The Saga Is Complete

Or so says the blurp promoting the new star wars film. Face it, Star Wars mania is sweeping across the globe. Flipping through a business magazine, some tax specialist was lamenting the fact that Vader wasn't evil, just an unfortunate victim of circumstance. You know a movie's really made it when the people steorotyped as boring start discussing the film's perks and pitfalls.

Personally i found the third episode disapointing. The fight scenes were overdone, expecting audiences to enjoy watching Anakin killing, killing and, oh yeah, more killing. Count Dooku was eliminated very quickly in the film's opening moments, surprising, considering he sliced off Anakin's arm in the last episode, send Obi Wan flying with impressive Force firing, and distracted Yoda from carving him into popsicles. It was as if 'ol Lucas wanted to kill off all the remaining bad guys and wrap up the movies as fast as possible (hey, he is an 'uncommunicative' director. (whatever that is....)

Okay, so i'm not a loyal Star War's fan. But contrary to the majority of reviews (they said episode 1 and 2 to be lousy, episode 3 great) i found the opposite to be true. The very first Star Wars film was described by a certain film association as the best movie ever made, and many people still agree that Lucas never made anything as good as that one spectacle of beauty. but perhaps it wasn't all that great.

Perhaps it was the fact that Star Wars was part of the childhood of so many people growing up, and that sense of nostalgia blinded them to the true quality of the movies. Run a search online for the movie reviews, and most of them start with "When i was (insert number less than 20) i was greeted with splendid orange text scrolling up the screen and knew life would never be the same again ..." or something to that effect. And a lot of people hated episode 1 and 2, just because it was so different from the first three movies. The design, creatures, and architecture (no more freaky white ships that moved precariously though space) were new and they didn't like it. Why not cut Lucas some slack? He was pushing the boundaries of the Star Wars universe, why hate it?

And now the third episode contained traces of the old movie (notice that the ships progressively look more old-fashioned throughout the movie) and miraculously, BAM! good reviews start streaming in.

Then again i shouldn't be that cynical. The acting is generally good, the sondscape awesome, the special effects so good it had to come from the dark side, and the story one of the best ever told in cinematic history. Now, at least, we can wait for the next big thing to redefine moviemaking.