star wars revisited

one cool thing about having kids is that you can rediscover things through their eyes - fireworks displays, christmas time, the addams family....

the latest item rediscovered is star wars. largely due to the outrageously good star wars lego video game, star wars has become an obsession in our house... i mean, i have always liked star wars - though i would not describe nyself as a fanatic )no light saber (though a real one would be cool - not a cheap toy, i have not, until recently, even owned the dvd's....)

after seeing revenge of the sith twice (i'm not going to make anymore links this post - you either know them, or don't care), i'm kinda hooked - the revenge of the sith video game (with real people, not legos - is very good) - getting into the clone war animation (done by the guy that does the excellent samurai jack, i think) , changed my name to qui-mike jin (j/k about the last one)

the conventional wisdom seems to be the original trilogy was great and the prequel trilogy sucks...well, the conventional wisdom is wrong - both trilogies follow a basic pattern - good beginning, weak middle, strong ending - and if the prequel's opener (phantom menace) was weaker than the original, the revenge of the sith, imho, was stronger than the return of the jedi...

i think people tend to forget (prolly because of their age when they first saw them) that the originals were kinda campy and goofy - and as such criticize the prequel trilogy for it's campiness and goofiness - to paraphrase what someone said about hugo leaving in the matrix, harrison ford in the original seems to be the only actor who realizes he's in a b movie.

each set has it's plusses - yoda seems to practice Chogyam Trungpa's crazy wisdom in the empire strikes back, which is very refreshing - compared to his dourness in the prequels (all those years living alone) - on the other hand - he kicks far more butt in the prequels - natalie portman/carrie fischer - hmmm - pretty even - with fischer's bikini in return of the jedi while being jabba's captive prolly giving her the win at the buzzer (shows how old i am) - c3po and r2d2 are relatively consistent - with c3po EASILY the most annoying character in the star wars universe - and yes, that includes jar jar binks - i admit - at first, i was swept up on the anti-jar jar bandwagon - upon further review (as they say in the nfl) he's kinda cool... prequel has some great villians - darth maul and general grievous - though they go down easier than i would expect

anyhow - since i have slipped into total geekdom- here's my star wars ranking:

1. episode 3 - revenge of the sith (answers the greatest question in cinematic history, namely, how can a dweeb like anakin skywalker turn into the greatest bad ass ever, to my complete satisfaction) - this leaves only one unanswered question - how is it that chewbacca's language consists entirely of loud grunts, yet he seems to be an effective communicator- plus r2d2 kicked ass
2. episode 4 - a new hope (star wars, to the non-geeks) - hey, you gotta get some points for the being the first
3. episode 6 - return of the jedi - i'm a sucker for happy endings, and vader's redemption by luke's faith in him, was touching - sniff - someone get me a tissue - ok, i'm back - and the aforementioned carrie fischer scene
4. episode 1 - phantom menace - most underrated star wars movie - it's really not bad - in fact, it's pretty good - qui-gon jin deserved a better fate - perhaps my favorite jedi - and stop trying to be cool - you *know* you get a chuckle from jar jar
5. episode 2 - attack of the clones - hmmm - prob a toss up with episode 4, but natalie portman's white space suit which, um, unfortunately, gets ripped is the tie breaker...
6. episode 5 empire strikes back - hohum - though we do like squirrely yoda...

anyhow, in one respect, it isn't right to rate the movies individually as they all play a role in the story - to paraphrase, say, p diddy - "it's all good" - ok - think i'll watch the clone wars cartoo...uh, i mean, "animated feature" - again...