1. Destiny. I happened to have the day off and wasn't planning on seeing it today. The plan was to wait a week or two and then go on some random Tuesday when the kids were out of school on break. Just ease in, no pressure. I'm a grown up. I can wait. I've been through some lean years and some mean years. Just being off is great, I can sit and think and finish off the last 5000 pages of 'It'.
2. Got the kids on the bus and made some eggs for Stephanie and me. We were sitting and drinking coffee. She asked me what I planned on doing with the day. I shrugged, "Absolutely nothing. Why ruin a perfectly good day off by doing something?" She was going to record a hypnosis session, so needed the house quiet. "Why don't you go see the new Star Wars movie?"
3. All that sober maturity flew out of me. With shaking hands, I fumbled my phone and checked the showtimes. Why am I sweating? There! There was an 8:30 AM show! 2D IMAX! Assigned seating, there would be no way I was going to get a good seat. But! I was going alone. Right in the middle of the theater, a single chair remained. You believe in fate, boy? Drove to the theater in a frenzy. A Star Wars soundtrack mix playing on the car speakers. What if the car breaks down? What if I get a call that a kid is sick and needs to be picked up from school? My head spun with all the possibilities that could go wrong that would keep me from making this screening.
4. But I made it. Sat right between two couples in my black hoody, the creepy Star Wars loner. The waves of geek radiating off me blistered their skin. I was in nuclear meltdown mode. It happens every Star Wars opening day. I think I'm going to be cool, but I never am. There is this hope that you are going to be transported, but even if it ends up being terrible, this movie will go on to generate hours upon hours of conversation. Complaining about The Phantom Menace has bridged generations and peoples from every continent. Whatever the outcome of The Last Jedi, it will merge into the shared consciousness that all fans are a part of. It's sick and sad, and I know I'm being pandered to by big business, but Star Wars movies are my Pavlov's bell. That first trilogy ruined me and I keep going in the hope of feeling a little awe again.
5. Did I like it? Gut reaction? I loved it. Loved it! Rogue One left me cold. It was better on rewatch, but I left that screening feeling gross and used. Force Awakens? I liked it a lot, and it was better than the prequels, but I've had no interest in watching it again after that first time. I don't own it. It was fine, but it told you everything you wanted to hear and didn't break any new ground. A beat for beat remake of A New Hope wasn't what I was looking for. But it wasn't as bad as the prequels, so that seemed like a miracle. The Last Jedi is on par with Return of the Jedi, maybe better. Nah, nothing is the original trilogy. Those are burnt into my DNA. But for post-1983 Star Wars, this is the best.
6. The characters are so likable and charismatic. Just the type of people you would see in a Pepsi commercial. I like being around well adjusted charismatic people, even if they are make-believe. They seem so freakish to me. It's like I'm watching a freak show. How are these people so cute and lovable. What happened to them to make them so amiable? Yeesh. Darkness. They look like JC Penny back to school catalog models playing spaceman. My mind boggles that they grow people like this. Actors are like unicorns.
7. Thanks to the internet, filmmakers are now directly bombarded by vicious nerds who fill their Twitter feeds with anger and bile and nitpicky criticism. And like an end of year performance review, the producers tabulate this data and form a plan to improve before the next evaluation. Some of the dialog in The Last Jedi sounds like transcripts of disgruntled fans bashing The Force Awakens. Characters mention Kylo Ren being an annoying angsty brat and his goofy helmet. They complain that Ray had never held a lightsaber but was able to defeat him in battle. All the internet jabs at The Force Awakens are given lip service here. It is odd. It's like getting an apology letter from a restaurant that you wrote a bad comment card on. "Sorry you had a bad experience, please come back for some free Jalapeno Poppers."
8. It doesn't sound like I liked it. But I did. I loved it. It is so well paced. Some Star Wars movies have this middle bulge where they plod along and it takes forever to get the story back into the groove before the final battle. None of that here. It has a great beat and rhythm and tells an interesting story filled with failure and hardship, and it was new enough where I wasn't sure how it was all going to work out at the end. And when it gets to the climax, I was terrified they were going to pull the rug out from under me and not give me an ending, to save it for the next one, but nope, they wrapped it up enough so you don't feel that end of Empire TO BE CONTINUED moment. I was in Star Wars heaven for 95 percent of the movie. It has the best opening of them all. One person against impossible odds. And Rose, a new character, is fantastic.
9. Seeing the story of what happened to Luke after Return and to have Mark Hamill own the screen again, it all felt so good. No longer the blond-haired pretty boy, to see Luke as a grizzled old has been, who has seen all that he fought for fall apart. To have that millstone of regret hanging on him, like Kenobi did in A New Hope, that is the best. It is Mark Hamill's movie. I wish he was in it more. Possible Spoiler!!!!.....
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DON'T READ...(Yoda is in this, and it's a puppet, and the scene with him and Luke is movie gold, best part of the movie).... DON'T READ
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End of spoilers.
10. The funniest thing that happened was after the movie I walked to the next door sandwich shop for lunch. I placed my order and scanned the store and saw two other members of the black t-shirt gang also waiting. One wore a Force Awakens shirt. These two other's were not together, but as we waited for our food, I asked if t-shirt guy had just seen the movie, and he had, and I asked if he was okay. The other guy jumped in and we all had lunch together and unpacked the movie. It was random and funny. We didn't give names or facebook pages, we just shared our geeky enthusiasm as we ate and then went our separate ways. A perfect thirty minute impromptu Star Wars fanclub meeting. That is what's so cool about Star Wars. It is a common language. If you and that perfect stranger are both down with the force, you can talk for hours. For fans, a person's politics or religion or what they do for a living is irrelevant. A common love for Yoda bridges all gaps. Star Wars, bringing maladjusted introverts together since 1977.
Just because it's the internet, here are a few angry nerd nitpicks. Possible coded spoilers.
- How fast can a fleet of star destroyers go?
- They don't have scanners on the bottom of their ships?
- Carpenter did that in Escape from L.A.
- Did going to that rich planet advance the plot at all?
- How many AT-ATs does it take to blow up a half dozen land speeders?
- Hey, something just like this happened in the original trilogy! And this! And this!
But seriously folks, the movie is awesome. See dat movie!
FIGHT EVIL
Sam Drog
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