Star Wars and Fans

I went to see Star Wars at midnight. Before I get to what I thought, let me explain the photos above. The top one is of the eight hardest of hardcore fans I saw. I got on line with Lady at about 10p and those folks were already being courted by NBC and CN8. I walked over and snapped that shot of them. And no, I have no idea what that girl made the head tentacles out of. We also drove to the theater behind a Camry with a R2D2 in the trunk. The trunk was taped shut around the large R2 unit. I have no idea if it was a full costume or what as we were brought inside at 10.30p.

The second shot is of the CN8 reporter... in a Darth Vader helmet... with a light saber... doing the news. Chronkite is probably rolling over in his grave. Oh wait, that old guy is still around being angry. The reporter's assistant brought over an über fan for a light saber fight on camera and prompted the folks in line to start cheering for either side. Lady was outed as an official geek; we were both probably on TV last night - sorry Lady, it's true. She even pointed out how reporter Darth's light saber was the wrong color, even though it wasn't lit up - 633k.

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What did I think of the movie without any real spoilers...
I really liked it. I think the prequels were like the Godfather films, but in reverse. By that I mean it's as if Sophia Coppola was in the first two Godfathers ruining scene after scene she was in with her "acting" and then in the final one, she just shut up and was on camera only once or twice for posterity. The first two prequels were just horrible. Horrible. There is no other word for them. Horrible I say!

This one is darker. It has wookies it has Natalie Portman croaking [I can't stand her], it has Jimmy Smits all over the place! Oh yes. Jimmy Smits is in about 30% of the film. How can you not like that? There were some horrible lines thrown in there between Skywalker and Padmé, but that was to be expected. There were some pretty cool fight scenes. "Force" battles. The original X-wings. The list goes on. All of the ships, weapons, animals, etc were awesome. Lucas made me very happy.

Now if I could just get my hands on a non-edited version of IV, V and VI to watch again, I feel the need.