I’m not going to go into the “why” since it’s a stupid (and long) story, but last night, I re-watched something called “Star Wars”. I’m sure you may have heard of this film by now.
If I had to guess I’ve probably not watched this movie in roughly ten yrs or more. To be frank, the movie last night was not the original version – this one was from a DVD (non blu-ray) collection of all 6 movies, and this version was (at the time of purchase), the “latest and greatest” director’s cut, which included the changing of the film’s name to “A New Hope, Episode 4” (a name change that has caused SO MUCH CONFUSION!) as well, as Mr. Lucas adding in significant CGI “creatures” to the desert town scenes on Tattoone, etc.
I guess I’m a bit jaded, for several reasons, and I really do not know why. First, let me share, this WAS my all-time favorite movie when it came out in 1977 (I have this wonderful memory of sitting in a Burger King booth with some of my closest HS friends, and they were telling me about this incredible new movie which I’d hadn’t heard of), and for many, many yrs afterwords. But, I am now jaded and I do not know why. Is it because I’ve seen this movie dozens of times, and I’m just now “over it”?, OR, is it due to the fact, that it looks REALLY HOKEY since it was made forty yrs ago, and I’m now so use to seeing current “state of the art” special effects, etc.? I also think (now) there are more than a few scenes and dialog that are so cheesy…(case in point, the last scene where Princess Leila is giving Luke and Han their medals and everyone seems to be smirking).
Anyway, I probably started watching this a bit too late in the evening, and with only thirty minutes left to go until the end, I moved from the comfy lazy boy in the den to the (more comfy bed in the) bedroom, and watched the next 20mins or so, before nodding off, missing the last few minutes…I even missed the blowing up of the Death Star, and Darth Vader getting his ass kicked by Luke. [woe is me.]
I also want to let you know I’m more of a original Star Wars fan, and really didn’t like the second (prequel) trilogy of movies as much as I liked the first trilogy.
This, as you can guess is all in anticipation of seeing “The Force Awakens” (EP 7) in a month or so. I still need to re-watch Eps 5&6 (“The Empire Strikes Back”, and “The Return of the Jedi”), in the new few weeks, before going to see EP 7.
Ok, last thing I’ll share is this: During the late ’70s and early ’80s, I was truly more of a Star Wars fan than I was a Star Trek fan – in fact, I wasn’t a fan at all – I had never seen any of the Star Trek (1 thru 4) movies until I started dating Gail (my [ex]-wife) who “made” me take her to see “The Final Frontier” (yes, I know, not the best one by a long shot, but she was a huge Star Trek fan, it was our very first date, and I subsequently got her to marry me – but THAT is a different story), but I really became a fan with “The Undiscovered Country” (along with the set of STNG movies too). And, I personally think the JJ Abrams reboot movies are the best Star Trek movies EVER.
We’ll see if “The Force Awakens” will convince me to come back to the Star Wars realm…
Stay tuned – same Bat-time, same Bat-channel.
