Okay, so where's the mode where it ignores you for half the day and sleeps? Or unravels your toilet paper? Or jumps up on the counter and licks the dirty dishes?

Here.

So, I saw Star Wars 3/6 last night. Now, granted, I'm not the target demographic for this movie -- I'm not a huge Star Wars fan. I didn't see the first sets of movies until I was 14, and I think I've seen episode 4 3-4 times, the others twice (including the rereleases), and then the new ones once each. I got a friend of mine all tetchy by asking if Mace Windu was Billy Dee Williams' character, Lando Calrissian (I couldn't remember either Billy Dee Willias' name, or the name Lando Calrissian). That type of uber-geek, I am not.

I'd spoken to a friend or two who'd seen the movie already, and I'd read a few articles on the subject. I wasn't going in looking for spoilers, but I was curious about people's thoughts -- people who'd invested a lot more time thinking about this than I would.

So now I'm going to go ahead and share my thoughts on the subject with you all. :) If you don't want to know anything about the movie, skip down a few paragraphs until something appears written in bold. If the stuff I wind up writing actually works out to be spoilers, well... maybe you didn't find the whole thing as transparent or obvious as I did.

Let's start. Episode 1 introduced Senator Palpatine. I looked at him and thought, 'Huh, he must be the Emperor we know from episodes 4-6.' Yay, I was right. Obvious.

I still don't think much of Nathalie Portman as an actress. She was okay in Closer, but she's really not very good in these movies. Maybe it's the dialogue she's given, maybe it's me just wanting to pinch her to see a genuine reaction to something, but I disliked her in episode 1, and she never won me back.

I was not especially convinced by Anakin's turn to the dark side. It was somewhat believable in the second movie (revenge for his mom's death), but in this one? You watch the Emperor kill bad-ass Mace Windu, you want to learn how to keep Padme alive, and so you agree almost right away to slaughter everyone? Um, okay. Nice to know a conscience is that easy to remove.

And younglings? Argh! They're children, they're young, they're anything other than younglings. Made me think of chicken. :P

I liked that General Grievous had a cough. That was funny. But I don't get that Yoda wanders around with a cane, Grievous coughs and hacks and limps a bunch, but when it comes to a fight, there's no problem flipping around everywhere and kicking twelve different kinds of ass.

Now, maybe it's just because I knew what had to happen in this movie to set us up for the next one, but I didn't get worked up over any of the action sequences, except maybe Mace Windu's death, 'cause I didn't know how that one was going to play out. But he didn't sound too upset over having his hands cut off, I have to say. I react more than that when I see a spider. :P

But... Obi Wan's in peril. Big whoop -- he's still around in the next movie. Yoda's fighting the Emperor. Whoop de shit, they're both around for awhile. Oh look, they're going to a lava planet, I wonder how long it'll be before Anakin/Vader gets all burnt to shit. *yawn*

Granted, kind of a gruesome end for him, that was not how I expected it to be. I'd read that Lucas made the Vader suit slightly too small and with lifts in the shoes (partly to accomodate the need for more height) in order to show that Vader's new and not the competent bad-ass we meet later, but we see him move in the suit twice, for brief moments. Hard to see him as awkward that way.

Also hard to believe that he actually feels any kind of agony over 'killing' Padme... who, when she was being choked -- I'm sorry, bad acting. Same with, "You're breaking my heart Anakin!" Blargh.

I will admit, I made some choking noises during one of the 'romance' scenes. They've improved somewhat from last time, but otherwise... eh. She didn't seem to care too much about her babies either, but what do I know from motherhood?

The robot that delivered them amused me -- he made me think of the Simlish that Sims speak. :)
Final minor complaint -- when did R2 cease to be so tricked-out? I think sometimes, with all the technology we see in the new movies, that Lucas has forgotten that these movies are supposed to take place some 20 or so years *before* the ones we all know. They look more like sequels than prequels to me, unless the galaxy magically lost about a hundred years of technological evolution in the twenty or thirty years it takes for Luke and Leia to grow up.

Anyhow, overall, I didn't love it, I didn't hate it. It was just yet another movie, more than much else.