falling into place

finally, i've seen all 6 episodes of the star wars saga, all on the big screen. walang mintis!

i was 6 when i watched star wars. at the time, it wasn't called episode 4 or the new hope yet. i must have watched this film more than thrice in my lifetime. i was 9 when i saw episode 5, the empire strikes back. subsequent viewings revealed dynamic scenes, something that would be reprised in episode 6, which i watched still another 3 years later, when i was 12. when the prequels started coming out in the 90s, i realised why episodes 5 and 6 remain the best of all the 6 episodes. george lucas had not directed those films. no wonder.

i don't remember when i watched the phantom menace but it was in one of the high tech makati theaters. same with the clone wars. both left me cold and bored. liam neeson was a drag (good thing darth maul got rid of him in a hurry, sorry qui gon) and it was hard for me to picture any chemistry happening between the kiddie-anakin and queen amidala (who, strangely, looked demoted in rank by the time this film got rolling). it was pretty much the same in episode 3, the revenge of the sith. the love between padme and anakin left me cold. i can't imagine how they even got themselves pregnant. there was more heat between portman and owen in 'closer'. that's one of the things i didn't like about episode 3. the love angle. completely sappy and corny. walang libog. the kisses were perfunctory. the second thing i didn't like about episode 3 was anakin himself. hayden was lacking in intensity all throughout the film. his costumed counterpart in the classic trilogy (eps. 4, 5, and 6) did a much better job! the supposed conversion scene --- the decisive turning from light to dark, from good to evil --- was over in a flash of an instant that had me and my moviemates wondering, "ha? yon na yonnnnn? ambilis!" my best friend and i thought that he had been dark from the start; the inner battle was not played out well in his character. perhaps lucas didn't even notice. i might have told hayden, had i been there, "take your time, dear, these things are life-changing moments!" but the scenes were only to happy to shift to another with the baduyic wiper effects reminiscent of the classic trilogy.

i couldn't hate the stilted dialogue. that is part and parcel of all star wars films. you don't enter the theater expecting pulitzer prize exchanges or woody allen wit. but i did expect more characterisation from anakin. after all, he IS the heart of the prequels! and he IS redeemed in episode 6 --- i had to see the battle raging in his heart as the force tore him apart. but i didn't.

there was more to love about this film. the avid star wars fan in me felt utterly geeky, making connections to all my unanswered questions from the previous episodes, more like the last 3, which i had seen more than 20 years ago. (well, a little lie there. i had seen the digitised versions in the last few years, also on the big screen hehehe) S lost the battle to shut my mouth from all my explosive, "aaaah, so that's how his lungs gave out on him..." or "aaahhh so that's why obi wan came back to life in star wars..." or "so that's why leia is a princess and luke is some impoverished dude" or "aaaaah so that's how leia got her mickey mouse hair" and this and that.

i enjoyed the CGI characters, definitely more than the humanoid jar jar binks or chewbacca! when they featured chewie in episode 3, i was snickering like a schoolgirl does over some pathetic loser. i can still remember han solo delivering his wry lines and chewie going, "arrrggghhhh" mundanely. mwahahahaha it makes me chuckle just to think about it. i still enjoyed watching yoda jump all over the place and royally kick ass with his light saber, even if sidious outdid him in the senate showdown. i thought mace windu (samuel jackson) looked terribly out of place in his jedi costume and flying through the air after a bolt of force lightning; i guess i just can't shake the image of him stealing a stradivarius violin in another film i love, "the red violin". and well, he was the voice of frozone in "the incredibles", so this should have hooved closer to his mace windu prowess in the movie. but it didn't quite cut it for me. i thought ewan mcgregor had more pizazz acting against a blue screen than hayden --- and this will prompt my best friend to say, "naman. ikumpara pa ba si ewan kay hayden???" hey, let me, even if it's totally non sequitur. after all, hayden got top billing for this film. heck, in the count dooku scene, christopher lee's 5 minute-moment on screen eclipsed hayden's prequel exposure! you could see so much more happening in lee's eyes when palpatine ordered anakin to kill him than you could see in hayden's eyes just before he decapacitated the unfortunate sithy lord.

and my last word goes to ian mcdarmid. he was fantastically evil as the ultimate sith lord. his face contortions, his malefic laugh, hooowow, he would give ian mckellen's magneto and christopher lee's (yes, the overturned apprentice in this film) saruman quite the comparison... well, no, of course magneto and saruman were the more compelling villains, but in a film as two-dimensional (my euphemism for 'flat') as this one, the archetypal approach to the cackling evil man outshone anakin's flatline presence. (grabe, even the young padawans in the jedi temple had more intensity!) still, i'm glad he played the role of sidious aka palpatine. it helped to give the film the feeling of evil and darkness it needed to lay down the final bricks for episode 4. when i saw the bare skeleton of the death star in the starry universey sky, i swear, my cheesy heart quickened its pace. i could actually see harrison ford doing hyperspace with his millenium falcon in the succeeding episodes!

enough of lucas ltd! i wanted to write about another film that had me crying with joy last night, except that this decidedly more sentimental one beat out the other one. but i will most definitely think longer and harder about johnny depp in "finding neverland". if anything, johnny depp is one of the actors i truly appreciate and lust over --- yes, even from his eddie snipping hands days.

my tummy's rolling gases around --- again --- and i must try to get some earlier shut-eye. i am going to attempt to rehearse on a real piano tomorrow morning. if i wake up early enough and if i can fish out my bach books. and that czech guy with the weird melodies. believe it or not, i'm off to catch the sexy christian bale and tom cruise's latest floozy in "batman begins" by the afternoon. this has got to be one of the craziest movie weeks i've had in a long time! nighty.