The In-Laws were in town today, with the addition of The Lady's brother, Arie. He'd flown in from the left coast to surprise his mother on her birthday and they all came to C'ville for the day. We had a great day up on the Mountain, with The Lady doing a great tour for us, including a trip to the Dome Room. I always enjoy going up there.
After coming off the Mountain, we got the In-Laws checked into their hotel before heading to Fleurie for a superb dinner. More on that in another post...
After dinner, we dropped the 'rents off the hotel. The Lady, Arie and I went to see the 9:40 showing of Star Wars III: Obi-Wan Rides A Huge, Unbelievable CGI Iguana.
We were underwhelmed.
It was better than the first two. I'll give it that, but that's not saying much. I thought first two were abysmal. The third one was slightly better, if only because Yoda kicked butt there for awhile, until Lucas screwed up that scene, too.
The acting was shameful. Totally absurd, insipid dialogue. Only Ian McDiarmid showed a lick of talent and managed to steal every scene he was in. He was freaking Olivier by comparison to the rest of the cast. It's a bad sign in a movie when the computer geeks turn out a better actor with Yoda than the director does with his entire cast.
But the computer geeks should not be let off the hook. This movie really proved that there is such a thing as WAY too much special effects. There are so many special effects in any given scene, that the whole effect gets lost in a blur. There's too damn much going on. It's impossible to take it in. Initially, it all looks awesome and then it just goes nuts! Even the Great Climactic Battle turns into a complete letdown. In the old SW flicks, there was a sense of grace in the fight choreography that is completely lacking in these new ones. The light saber fights become disco strobe light shows. The light sabers become two dimensional, with no definition. In ANH, you actually believe in the light sabers. In ROTS, they just become another busy, overused piece of CGI. Frankly, they hurt my eyes.
Stuff I liked included the betrayal of the individual Jedi knights. That was a fairly well executed montage. Yoda and Palpatine deuling in the Senate chamber, at least until Palpatine decides he'd rather play cosmic Frisbee. Then it sucked. Obi-Wan's merciless butchery of Vader at the end of the Great Climactic Battle, until I realised that Obi-Wan could easily finish the job with a simple coupe de grace, but he can't, because that wouldn't make sense, now would it?
The other two hours were a mind-numbingly horrible waste of good talent and money. Dooku? Christopher Lee looked relieved to lose his head and finally get out of this picture. Who thought up that name, for crying out loud? General Greivous (speaking of names...)? Lame, and with smoker's hack to boot. A stupid, giant, and really speedy iguana? What the hell was that all about? Cinnabon hair on Padme? Sorry, I'm not buying it.
I went into ROTS expecting to be disappointed. George Lucas fufilled my expectations, and then some.