(No spoilers. I promise.)
I've still got more vacation tales to relate and they're coming but I'm going to take a break from that and move on to a horse of a different color for a bit. (The vacation tales will come along later but fill in order by the date so you'll have to scroll back to them if you care.)
Everybody's talking about Star Wars 3. Did you like it? Did you hate it? Did it meet with your expectations? I've probably already spent hours discussing it myself. I don't want to blog too much about it though. Hearing too much of other people's opinions before seeing a film that has been so long and eagerly expected can have disasterous results. So I'll limit my comments to the following: I thought it was the best of the three. I sat next to one of my best friends in the galaxy in the theater. She thought it was the worst of the three. I totally understand her point of view as well. (As Obi Wan himself said, "You'll find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.") The entire band of us agreed that it was still nothing to the original three. Go see it for yourself and make your own opinion.
I did enjoy the Star Wars experience. It's hanging out in line in front of the theater on opening night with other geeks like you, eating pizza out of the box with Darth Vader and Princess Leia. You expectantly glance at your watch and watch the faces of the folks coming out of the theater before you, all the while trying not to overhear their conversations. You process into the theater with your band of friends, trying to commandeer enough seating in the right arrangements. The theater is loud. Everyone is there with their best buddies. They've been waiting for this for years. There is a great thrill in suffering through the previews until the Lucas Arts logo pops up on the screen and then the entire theater errupts into applause as the familiar music starts up and the screen fills with "Stars Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith." It's about leaning over and snickering to your friends about how that character's costume designer should be shot or how that was the worst line in the history of cinema. It's also about cheering when the good guys do something bad ass. How long has it been since you've been in a movie theater where people are so into the film that they cheer and shout and clap?
That's why geeks wait hours and hours in line to see a movie even though they know it very likely won't live up to the impossibly high expectations they have created for it. It's an experience. It's anticipation. It's a bit like what it used to feel like the night before Christmas or a birthday when we were all little. You have to tap into that hope and excitement every now and again. It keeps you young.