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To Paraphrase Eric Cartman...
May. 17th, 2005 10:18 am"I've seen Revenge of the Sith, who wants to touch me?"
Ever since I got tickets for the Premiere a few weeks ago, I've occasionally sidled over to look at at eBay - where tickets are busily swapping hands for five, six hundred pounds and more - and thought very seriously about selling mine. After all, that's ten times my money I'm looking at : a holiday paid for, at least, and not just that but did I really want to spend sixteen hours of my life crammed into a hot room full of people who were willing to spend that sort of money to see Star Wars a couple of days early?
On the other side of that coin was a thought - just how often in my life would I get the opportunity to watch all six Star Wars films back-to-back, topped and tailed with speeches by George Lucas plus associated members of the cast and crew?
The answer to that one was simple: Once. So I went.
I got out of bed at five thirty in the morning to be at the cinema for opening time at seven. I couldn't help but laugh at my own crap fanboyishness, but really compared to some people who were there that was nothing - there was a Darth Maul I got talking to who got up at 3:30am to put his makeup on, and I got the impression that some people had bought tickets online and travelled internationally to be there. A twenty minute ride on the tube was nothing, really. Getting into the cinema I found they'd sold me a ticket for a seat which did not exist. I was in seat 95. No row had more than 50 seats in it. You can imagine me in my very best "I've had five hours sleep to be here" good mood trying to explain this to the cinema staff but, much to my surprise, there were empty seats in the house by programme start and so I ended up being given a far better seat than I otherwise would have got. Presumably some of the people who were selling on eBay didn't sell and didn't want to come to the cinema, or something. Touts, eh? Wankers. But at least I got a seat pretty much slap-bang in the centre of the auditorium so their loss was my gain.
I'll cut a long story short. I watched Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi back-to-back before mid-day. I had to force myself to stay awake by the end of that sequence, but fortunately The Phantom Menace was directly after lunch so I ate and then went back to the cinema for a good long nap, catching up on my sleep and missing the worst of Jar-Jar Binks' comedy capers in one go. (I woke up once or twice, mainly due to loud booing from the crowd whenever Binks ambled onto screen.)
Attack of the Clones came and went and then there was about an hour and a half before the main feature so we wandered out and watched the London Philharmonic (playing music from the films all day in the centre of Leicester Square) for a while before taking our seats. We were 'treated' via live camera feed to a sequnce of the stars arriving on the red carpet, and then to a 'Star Wars Musical interlude' (I kid ye not) with music and images from Revenge of the Sith played and projected onto the cinema screen. Given that above half the people in the theatre plainly had been avoiding spoilers - or any trailers at all - this led to several hundred people with their eyes closed and their fingers in their ears whilst the rest of the crowd, appreciating this, booed loudly and chanted "Off! Off! Off!". We were promised the film at 8:30, and so by 8:40 the slow hand-slapping had started, whistles, chants of "We want the film!" and it could all have turned ugly.
And then Rik MacAllum arrived, introducing Ian McDairmid and Hayden Christensen and then - to a rapturous, standing ovation - George Lucas. Over a thousand fans, most dressed up or waving lightsabres, and most of them by now in their mid thirties or older. There were a lot of people in the audience who had waited for more than 25 years to be there. It was remarkable.
Cheers, applause, Chants of "Three More Films!" (not going to happen - according to George, the 'Tragedy of Darth Vader' is now over and next he's dedicating his time to the fourth Indiana Jones), and cries of "We love you George - but we haven't forgiven you for Jar Jar!". And so the film.
You've probably read the reviews by now. All I'll say is that it is the best of the prequel trilogy by a considerable margin. Watching them all in one go just served to highlight precisely what a pile of crap Phantom Menace is, and just how ambitious but flawed and uneven Attack of the Clones is. Revenge of the Sith recaptures something of the taut, snappy action of the original films, and by golly is it dark. Despite my being a cynical and somewhat bitter and over the hill fat bloke, some of the scenes carry an emotional weight that even I found affecting and at times even shocking. It's a good film. I wasn't sure I was going to say that, but it is. I shan't say any more and spoil it, but even Hayden rises above his plank-like acting and carries his role well.
Watching all the films together, it really strikes me just how different, tonally, thematically and stylistically the two trilogies have been. Lucas says that the prequels are more the films he wanted to make but didn't have the technology first time round. I'm glad he didn't. The originals are fast, fun, snappy action films that work so well on the big screen. I can't help but agree with the critics who said that access to technology which allowed him to show anything on screen led to the creativity and imagination of fighting against the boundaries of the possible which made the first three so good being subsumed and lost in flabby shopwmanship. Revenge of the Sith almost recaptures some of the original magic; if it doesn't quite make it that is because it's so much darker and pessimistic in tone.
I'd recommend it.
And then, at the end, Lucas came back for his second standing ovation, and was mobbed by fans. If he didn't deserve it for Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, he did this time.
Ever since I got tickets for the Premiere a few weeks ago, I've occasionally sidled over to look at at eBay - where tickets are busily swapping hands for five, six hundred pounds and more - and thought very seriously about selling mine. After all, that's ten times my money I'm looking at : a holiday paid for, at least, and not just that but did I really want to spend sixteen hours of my life crammed into a hot room full of people who were willing to spend that sort of money to see Star Wars a couple of days early?
On the other side of that coin was a thought - just how often in my life would I get the opportunity to watch all six Star Wars films back-to-back, topped and tailed with speeches by George Lucas plus associated members of the cast and crew?
The answer to that one was simple: Once. So I went.
I got out of bed at five thirty in the morning to be at the cinema for opening time at seven. I couldn't help but laugh at my own crap fanboyishness, but really compared to some people who were there that was nothing - there was a Darth Maul I got talking to who got up at 3:30am to put his makeup on, and I got the impression that some people had bought tickets online and travelled internationally to be there. A twenty minute ride on the tube was nothing, really. Getting into the cinema I found they'd sold me a ticket for a seat which did not exist. I was in seat 95. No row had more than 50 seats in it. You can imagine me in my very best "I've had five hours sleep to be here" good mood trying to explain this to the cinema staff but, much to my surprise, there were empty seats in the house by programme start and so I ended up being given a far better seat than I otherwise would have got. Presumably some of the people who were selling on eBay didn't sell and didn't want to come to the cinema, or something. Touts, eh? Wankers. But at least I got a seat pretty much slap-bang in the centre of the auditorium so their loss was my gain.
I'll cut a long story short. I watched Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi back-to-back before mid-day. I had to force myself to stay awake by the end of that sequence, but fortunately The Phantom Menace was directly after lunch so I ate and then went back to the cinema for a good long nap, catching up on my sleep and missing the worst of Jar-Jar Binks' comedy capers in one go. (I woke up once or twice, mainly due to loud booing from the crowd whenever Binks ambled onto screen.)
Attack of the Clones came and went and then there was about an hour and a half before the main feature so we wandered out and watched the London Philharmonic (playing music from the films all day in the centre of Leicester Square) for a while before taking our seats. We were 'treated' via live camera feed to a sequnce of the stars arriving on the red carpet, and then to a 'Star Wars Musical interlude' (I kid ye not) with music and images from Revenge of the Sith played and projected onto the cinema screen. Given that above half the people in the theatre plainly had been avoiding spoilers - or any trailers at all - this led to several hundred people with their eyes closed and their fingers in their ears whilst the rest of the crowd, appreciating this, booed loudly and chanted "Off! Off! Off!". We were promised the film at 8:30, and so by 8:40 the slow hand-slapping had started, whistles, chants of "We want the film!" and it could all have turned ugly.
And then Rik MacAllum arrived, introducing Ian McDairmid and Hayden Christensen and then - to a rapturous, standing ovation - George Lucas. Over a thousand fans, most dressed up or waving lightsabres, and most of them by now in their mid thirties or older. There were a lot of people in the audience who had waited for more than 25 years to be there. It was remarkable.
Cheers, applause, Chants of "Three More Films!" (not going to happen - according to George, the 'Tragedy of Darth Vader' is now over and next he's dedicating his time to the fourth Indiana Jones), and cries of "We love you George - but we haven't forgiven you for Jar Jar!". And so the film.
You've probably read the reviews by now. All I'll say is that it is the best of the prequel trilogy by a considerable margin. Watching them all in one go just served to highlight precisely what a pile of crap Phantom Menace is, and just how ambitious but flawed and uneven Attack of the Clones is. Revenge of the Sith recaptures something of the taut, snappy action of the original films, and by golly is it dark. Despite my being a cynical and somewhat bitter and over the hill fat bloke, some of the scenes carry an emotional weight that even I found affecting and at times even shocking. It's a good film. I wasn't sure I was going to say that, but it is. I shan't say any more and spoil it, but even Hayden rises above his plank-like acting and carries his role well.
Watching all the films together, it really strikes me just how different, tonally, thematically and stylistically the two trilogies have been. Lucas says that the prequels are more the films he wanted to make but didn't have the technology first time round. I'm glad he didn't. The originals are fast, fun, snappy action films that work so well on the big screen. I can't help but agree with the critics who said that access to technology which allowed him to show anything on screen led to the creativity and imagination of fighting against the boundaries of the possible which made the first three so good being subsumed and lost in flabby shopwmanship. Revenge of the Sith almost recaptures some of the original magic; if it doesn't quite make it that is because it's so much darker and pessimistic in tone.
I'd recommend it.
And then, at the end, Lucas came back for his second standing ovation, and was mobbed by fans. If he didn't deserve it for Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, he did this time.
