And Finally, There was Revenge of the Sith

I survived.  I made it through all three movies and I survived.  The good news is that I never thought this movie was nearly as terrible as the others, so I wasn't dreading it as much.  Maybe someday I'll bust out the prequel special features discs, but let's not get too crazy. 

For whatever reason I feel as though it has been the longest since I sat through this one start to finish.  I remember renting it or something (did people still rent stuff at the video store in 2005?  I can't remember anymore) and watching it with some people, but I don't think I tend to catch this one even accidentally on TV when it's on.  What I had remembered most was that there were actually some good moments in this one.  Of course interspersed with some crappiness.   (My computer doesn't seem to agree that crappiness is a word, but we're just going to have to agree to disagree there.)

So things finally slowed down enough for me to sit down and watch this one.  It started with yet another lengthy intro that made me feel like I was watching the beginning of a video game rather than a movie.  I feel as though you can't really open a movie in the middle of a huge battle, even with the opening crawl I haven't been given a chance to really care what's going on.  We care even less when everything we're seeing is so obviously computer generated.  Picture the ships flying around in space during the big battle at the end of Return of the Jedi.  Those were tangible, filmed things.  They may have only been models, but they looked real.  This is all just so blatantly fake.  Even Artoo is computer generated.  It's like they got too lazy to shoot any real things, ever.

Let's see, then Anakin and Obi Wan infiltrate this big ship, and Artoo does his thing, in CGI form, as well as suddenly being able to like fly and set stuff on fire, proving that really and truly nothing in any of these movies could've worked without him.  They rescue Palpatine and Anakin has a good final fight with Count Dooku that ends when he has a choice whether or not to kill him, and Palpatine tells him to, he thinks he shouldn't, but he cuts off his head anyway.  Honestly, the rules seem kind of fuzzy to me on when it is or isn't ok to kill someone for a Jedi.  I suppose at that point Dooku was unarmed (literally, Anakin had moments prior cut off both his hands) so maybe that makes it not ok to kill him.  But if he'd killed him first rather than cutting his hands off first maybe it'd be ok?  I mean, later the Jedi kill all kinds of guys, and that seems to be ok.  Even Yoda kills people.  So really, I'm just not super clear on how the rules work with that.

Then Anakin goes home and finds Padme, and they're apparently still hiding the fact that they are married.  It seems like it'd be hard to hide something like that from Jedi, especially when you are living in the same apartment and only hiding behind a pillar when you meet up.  So she tells Anakin that she's pregnant, and I remembered that I always hated the acting in that scene.  It also made me mad that we'd never get to see a similar scene for Han and Leia, one that was much happier.  But whatever. 

General Grievous happens somewhere in here, too.  He seems to me an excuse for a cool action figure with four lightsabers.  Does anyone know why this droid-like guy has a heart and apparently asthma?  It makes for an interesting lightsaber fight, but that's about it.  Which is silly, because there is a freaking ton of lightsaber fighting in this movie, so there's not a lot of reason for sticking this kind of pointless one in there.  Also, Obi Wan shoots him in the heart and kills him.  And for whatever reason, that's totally cool.  Again, what are the rules for when it is and isn't ok for a Jedi to kill?

Anakin starts having bad dreams, basically knowing that Padme will die in child birth.  This I thought was actually a decent catalyst for making him turn eventually.  But can we talk about Padme for a minute here?  All right, in AOTC, sure, that movie was terrible and mostly pointless.  But Padme does at least here and there get to kick a little ass.  She unlocks herself from her chains and climbs up a big stone pillar to evade these giant monsters, she shoots her way out of stuff and basically doesn't need the boys to help her.  Now, maybe we can just blame it on the fact that she's pregnant, but she basically spends this entire movie staring off her balcony and looking worried or upset.  She barely even talks.  She also wears the most elaborate nightgowns I've ever seen.  That can't be comfortable.  Oh, and I almost laughed to myself at the scene when she is brushing her hair on the balcony.  Not just because the dialog is horrendous ("You're so beautiful."  "It's because I'm so in love."  "No, it's because I'm so in love with you!"  Are you kidding me?) but because I was thinking, sure, I always go out to the balcony when it's time to brush my hair.  Doesn't everyone?  Also, she just looks weird in that scene, I'm not sure what it is. 

So, let's see, Yoda goes to Kashyyyk as an excuse to get Chewie in the movie.  And Palpatine starts manipulating Anakin.  To be honest, this whole thing sends chills down my spine, and in a good way.  Well, not good so much, but the creepiness you feel as he talks and pulls him in deeper is a big part of why this one movie isn't that bad.  It really is pretty well done.  The scene at the opera where he tells the whole story of the Sith and how he can teach him to save people from dying is actually really well done.  And it's sort of nice to see that they do some regular recreational stuff, just to see a different side of the universe we've seen to this point.  That guy did a tremendous job and I really don't see him as an actor playing Palpatine, but as the Emperor.  It's pretty cool that they got the same guy and he did such a great job falling back into the role, which must've been difficult without all the crazy makeup and the hood.

But, if you remember correctly, everything gets really bad, really fast.  I recall having the sudden realization before heading into this movie that knowing what we all knew about the OT, inevitably the bad guys were basically going to win.  That thought was both cool and unsettling.  It becomes more unsettling the more bad stuff starts to happen.  And it all seems to begin with killing Mace Windu.  If Sam Jackson isn't around to keep things in order, you're in trouble!  Well, actually first they realize that Palpatine is a Sith and go to arrest him, and then he fights Windu and two other Jedi who are apparently really, really terrible with lightsabers because Palpatine kills them really, really easily before it turns into a one-on-one fight.  This is of course when the dark side lightning comes out and makes Palpatine's face the grossness that we all remember from the OT.  By the end of this showdown Windu is dead, Anakin has chosen to stand with Palpatine who has promised to show him how to let Padme live, and dubs him Darth Vader. 

Oh, so much more badness.  Anakin goes back to Padme and tells her a shady version of what's going on, and she's suddenly dumb enough in this movie to believe him.  She is also the skinniest pregnant women you've ever seen.  I mean, supposedly nearly full term with twins?  Based on what I see, she has maybe a single, 3-pound baby in there.  That's it.  You're really stretching the lengths of my willing suspension of disbelief, here.  She runs around like it's no big deal. 

Time for Order 66.  I have no idea what the heck the point is of having a stupid, numbered name for it is, but it means it's time for all of those clone troopers to start killing the Jedi.  You see a lot of Jedi get slaughtered.  You probably also remember that this is the part when Anakin slaughters the younglings himself.  Yeah, this movie is not really for kids.  Fortunately at least Yoda is safe on Kashyyyk, and it is kind of cute when he crawls up on Chewbacca's shoulders. 

The final battle between Anakin and Obi Wan is pretty cool, and ends in kind of an excessively gruesome way.  Oh, wait, but before that Padme confronts Anakin.  She is like 2 hours from giving birth to full sized babies and has a baby bump the size of a grapefruit, but whatever.  All Anakin wanted to do was save her, but now he force chokes her.  I think he's gone off the deep end just a tad.  But whatever, because by the end of this scene, Obi Wan chops off his legs, his other hand, and leaves him to die just after what's left of his body catches on fire.  Did I mention excessively gruesome?  Although I suppose it was necessary to have a reason for that elaborate suit he winds up in.  And I do remember hearing vague stories as a kid long before we even knew there were going to be prequels about Vader getting scalded by hot lava in a lightsaber battle with Obi Wan.  I have no idea how we knew that, but we did.  And this brought it to life. 

Oh, hey, excitement, as it's time for Luke and Leia to be born!  This is kind of cool!  Except... what is this about losing the will to live?  Are you serious?  That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard!  Please don't ruin this moment with that ridiculousness!  Ugh.  You ruined it.  Well, the babies are born, and Luke comes out first and she gets to name them.  It also seemed unclear to me whether she actually birthed them or if they were removed through some sort of operation.  They had this weird thing covering her legs.  Anyway, she has what is supposed to be a poignant moment when she tells Obi Wan that there is still good in Anakin, but it's all ruined by that whole losing the will to live nonsense.  Talk about turning a strong character into a weak one.  How about staying alive for the sake of your children?  You don't need that psycho man!  Having her die in childbirth could've been a perfectly fine plot point if you'd just had her have some actual medical complication.  Would that have been so hard?  Seriously, Anakin still could've had the bad dreams and all that stuff and nothing would've changed except I wouldn't have to cringe every time I even think of that moment when the droid says she's lost the will to live. 

But, wait, interspersed with that we have basically the creation of Darth Vader.  This is another moment that is both kind of cool, and kind of cringe-worthy.  Anakin is in rough shape and they get him all suited up and we have that really sort of awesome moment when the mask is put on him for the first time and we hear him take his first breath, that sound we all know so well.  Ok, that gave me chills.  But, of course then they had to ruin it after he asks about Padme and Palpatine tells him that he killed her when he choked her.  Ok, well, I can see him telling him that just to make him more mad.  But then he has this whole Frankenstein's monster thing where he walks off the table and then.... and I still remember watching this and thinking, no, please don't do it... don't do it... don't.... damn it, he did it.  Yes, he dramatically leans back and holds his arms out and yells over dramatically, "Noooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"  Ugh.  I felt like doing the same thing when I heard him do that.  But, hey, Darth Vader is born. 

In the end we have Padme's funeral, which is quite sad.  Then we have something I'd totally forgotten, when Yoda tells Obi Wan that he can converse with Qui Gon.  I seriously didn't remember that and I have no idea if there is any reason that that was put in there.  They show Vader and Palpatine looking off the bridge of their ship at what appears to be the framework of the Death Star.  Ok, that doesn't make sense to me.  Are you telling me that it takes them 18 years to build the first Death Star and for anyone to know it exists (it seems to be a major surprise to Luke, Obi Wan and Han when they find it after it blows up Alderaan, so it seems relatively new) and then it took like two or three to build the second one?  I mean, I know it wasn't totally finished in ROTJ, but it was pretty darn close.  I think they thought audiences would think it would be a cool thing to see, but honestly, given the timeline, that just doesn't make any sense to me.

Yoda goes off into exile, and the babies are split up.  I admit I do in fact get a little choked up when Leia and Luke are given to their respective caregivers.  It just brings the whole thing full circle and I thought these were very nice moments when Leia is there with the Organas on Alderaan, and Luke is with Owen and Beru starting at the sunset on Tatooine.  Yes, I'm a little sappy like that.  And that's where it ends. 

So, there you have it.  I survived the prequels.  Maybe I'll even sit through them again in 16 months when it's time to prepare myself for Episode VII but I'm not going to watch them by myself again, I don't think.  This one is exceedingly dark, I think, which in tone for a Star Wars movie is pretty rough.  But I guess it's good to know that they fix it in the OT. 

And on the Second Day, She Survived Watching Episode II

Yes, not only did I make it through Episode I, but on the very next day I sat through Episode II.  My biggest gripe with this one in more recent years was that I couldn't really remember what it was actually about aside from a few "turning point" moments when Anakin shows his first dark side tendencies and somehow, through absolutely no help from the script but merely by necessity of plot, Anakin and Padme "fall in love" and get married.  I didn't even remember Anakin had lost his hand in this one. 

Ugh, where to begin?  Well, I guess the beginning.  Anakin and Obi Wan are older.  This is apparent by Anakin being played by an entirely different actor and Obi Wan having a beard and no longer having that stupid Padawan haircut that poor Anakin now has to sport.  Am I the only one who thinks it's lame to have a specific haircut they have to have during that?  The dialog, right from the beginning, is dreadful.  Anakin is already speaking in ridiculous monologues about how he's been thinking about Padme every day for ten years (and by thinking, I mean obsessing in a stalker-like manner) and you already feel a little violated on behalf of Padme. 

Even Padme seems more than a little put off by Anakin's creepy stalker vibe.  Seriously, the way he looks at her and talks to her for the most part is downright creepy.  It makes you wonder if George Lucas has any idea how relationships work or how people fall in love (he's been married more than once so you'd think he'd have some idea, although when you have like, billions of dollars the rules probably change a little bit) because any sane woman would not fall in love with someone who acted like that.  More likely, they'd be asking for a new body guard to be assigned to them.  Also not attractive at all is his whining about Obi Wan holding him back.

Seriously, all of their interactions in this movie are terrible.  I thought I remembered it being bad, but after so long I wondered if maybe I was being unfair, because you just can't compare to Han and Leia.  But honestly, upon this most recent viewing, it's like it's even worse than I remembered.  Even Padme herself early on asks him to not look at her like that because, "It makes me feel uncomfortable."  And then when he apologizes he watches her walk away with a serial killer-ish look on his face, which of course is much better.  But hey, eventually they giggle and laugh in a field for some reason, and somehow she lets him kiss her after more ridiculous, over the top dialog, but then she says she can't because of the whole Jedi thing.  Right, the Jedi thing.  And not because he's actually given you zero good reasons to actually fall in love with him apart from maybe being considered marginally attractive, but no level of good looking supersedes that much creepiness. 

Oh, wait, what else was going on?  Um, Obi Wan goes to where they are making all of those clones and we learn that Boba Fett was basically just another clone, and all of those clone troops are just like him.  This came after an assassination attempt and an almost-cool sequence where we get to see lots of Coruscant and people walking around and a fun chase through the city.  This whole thing on Kamino with the clones and Jango Fett (who, thanks to that new movie, I kept thinking in my head was Django Fett) just seems like a way to reel in all of those Fett fans.  But then he goes somewhere else for some reason and gets all captured and stuff.  I kept waiting for General Grievous to show up but hadn't remembered that he wasn't actually in this movie. 

I still don't like the idea that Owen Lars married Shmi Skywalker.  Especially when early nerds such as myself remembered that in some material prior to the prequels, it came out that Owen was actually related to Obi Wan, not Luke, but whatever.  The whole thing where Anakin goes and finds his mother near death and quite obviously having been pretty tortured was fairly disturbing, even before he turns and kills all of the Sand People.  I guess they did do a decent job there of giving him a valid reason to start turning to the dark side.  She seemed a little too tortured and bloody for a Star Wars movie.  I mean, for all of the deaths in these movies, there is remarkably little blood.  I mean, it took me until I was in my 20s after watching these movies dozens of times before I even noticed the tiny bit of blood on Han's fingers after he helps Leia when she's singed by the blaster in ROTJ.

However, his outburst of telling Padme all about it... I don't know, that didn't really seem to work for me, either.  It seemed more like he was saying it all out about murdering the women and the children was more for the benefit of the audience so that we knew how serious it was rather than something he'd actually say to Padme.  For some reason she still doesn't go running from this raging psycho. 

So then they have to go find Obi Wan.  That doesn't go well, but at least by having gone back to Tatooine now they have Threepio with them, which means when they all get thrown into this droid making factory there is opportunity for comic relief in the form of excessive puns from Threepio.  Ok, even in the OT he cracked some groaners, but they were sparsely sprinkled throughout, so it wasn't so bad.  Four awful puns in like ninety seconds of screen time might be just a little much.  Oh, also, suddenly Artoo can fly.  I remember discussing this with my brother when these movies came out, like, when did Artoo suddenly get all of these new cool powers that he never had 20 years later? 

One other thing I noticed in this movie was of course, once again, excessive CGI.  I mean, scenes where they really just as easily could've just had, you know, actual people walking around in the background they turned them into cartoons.  Once again, at times I felt like I was watching a video game.  There was one part during this droid factory scene where they show Padme when she is stuck in this container thing.  This is probably the one shot in the movie that is quite apparently actually not altered in any sort of way with any sort of effect.  It's actually visually jarring to see it, it feels so out of place. 

So, then we get to this whole scene where Obi Wan and Anakin and Padme are captured and about to be put to death in an overly complicated spectacle of an execution.  Usually these scenarios are just to give the good guys a chance to escape.  But wait, first Padme has to tell Anakin that she loves him.  Why?  I don't know.  At least partly because they are about to die.  But she doesn't just love him... "I truly, deeply, love you."  Ugh, really?  This whole thing is so absurdly forced and the characters have zero chemistry, but anyway...

So, good guys escape and eventually a whole bunch of Jedi show up and admittedly it is pretty awesome to see dozens of lightsabers throughout the crowd.  Although man, can we get a few different options for lightsaber colors beyond green and blue?  Mace Windu gets purple and nobody else does, and apparently red is reserved for bad guys.  But there are other colors, you know.  Somewhere in this spectacle we get the one moment I remembered because it was so ridiculous and overt, when Padme's shirt is ripped exactly perfectly across the bottom to expose her midriff.  Although honestly, if my midriff had ever looked anything like that I would probably want it exposed most of the time, too. 

Um, escaping stuff, and eventually they come across Count Duku, or Sarouman the wizard from Lord of the Rings.  He's a bad guy doing bad guy stuff (we know he's bad because his lightsaber is red and has a curvy handle for no reason) and he speaks all evil-like.  So Obi Wan and Anakin are fighting him and not doing so well, getting singed pretty badly or, in Anakin's case, losing your hand.  But then Yoda shows up.  And this isn't the same Yoda we usually know, this is badass, crazy spider monkey Yoda.  I had actually forgotten this until it started, then I distinctly remember laughing during this part when Yoda suddenly starts flipping all over the place and going insane with his lightsaber.  And when I say I laughed, I actually don't mean because I thought it was ridiculous and dumb, I thought it was pretty cool. 

Anyway, good guys win, bad guys lose, but Clone Wars have begun or whatever.  Oh, and then at the end Anakin and Padme get married.  I guess we're supposed to be happy about that but since this is the worst love story of all time, it probably would've made just as much sense if either of them had married Artoo.  And my final gripe with that is Anakin's prosthetic hand.  I get that this is like 20 years or so before the OT, but given how every other bit of technology in these movies seems just as advanced (or even better) than what we had seen before, it just seems hard to believe that at this point in time he had that ridiculous fake hand when not too long after his son had a hand that was basically human. 

I don't really remember what I thought of this when I first saw it.  I'm sure I hated the love story and thought that was terrible, but I'm not sure just how much I disliked it.  I don't think I tried to make myself like it or held onto the same level of denial as I did after the first one.  At this point I think I'd maybe come to terms with the fact that these movies were generally going to be pretty bad.  And once again I was left wondering what the heck it was all about anyway.  And wondering what else they could've done to make it better.  Just so much worse than the OT. 

So, that's it, I finally watched this crappy movie again.  The love story is as bad or worse than you remember.  The plot is as convoluted as ever.  The acting is just as bad, except for Obi Wan.  The CGI makes you feel like you're watching a cartoon.  But there are a few ok moments, at least.  Not enough to make it a good movie, but whatever.  Maybe now I'll have an easier time answering the prequel questions on my Star Wars DVD Trivial Pursuit if anyone would ever play it with me. 

As mentioned, I'll be watching Revenge of the Sith soon, but not for another week or so because I'll be quite busy, but I'll get to it.  Especially since I know that one has a fair amount of good moments in it.  Like, 5% good moments, 95% bad as opposed to the even more skewed ratios in the first two, but I'm not as annoyed at the prospect of watching that one as the other two. 

I Finally Watched My Episode I Blu Ray

It's been 15 years now since your hopes and dreams were smashed and replaced with the huge disappointment that was Star Wars: Episode I.  That makes this particular rant more than a little bit outdated, but it's been nearly that long since I seriously sat down and watched the entire thing and since we are fairly well hurting for content on here lately, I'm going to go ahead and write at least a few of my thoughts.

First, it's kind of amazing that it has been nearly two years since I got my box set of these and am just now getting around to sitting down and re-watching the prequels.  I told myself that I would at some point sit down and watch them all again, and for some strange reason yesterday I finally decided to go ahead and pop this one in.  Aside from glimpsing a few scenes here and there during those almost monthly Star Wars weekends where they show all of the movies on Spike, I haven't watched this one since my VHS copy that I'm sure I tried to force myself to like just because it was Star Wars before finally having to admit to myself that it is complete crap. 

So, what did my recent viewing remind me?  That yes, it's still pretty darn bad.  Half of it plays off like a cartoon or a video game.  I mean, I literally felt like I was watching the intro scenes on my nephew's Lego Star Wars game a few times.  It's really hard to feel anything for characters when you don't feel like anything you're watching is real.  And it still astounds me that space battles created with visual effects in 1977 can look more realistic than the cartoon CGI creations in this.  I've said it before and I'll say it again here: the special effects in the OT were used as a service to tell the story and were quite well done and never felt like showing off or overdoing it.  This whole movie seems like a commercial for ILM to show how far technology has come and how much more they can do now.  The only problem is that none of it looks real.  I think in the back of our minds we know when we're watching ANH that we're not actually seeing an X-wing flying through the trench of the Death Star, but it just looks so much more tangible.  In this movie there is not a moment where we mistake what we're looking at for anything but computer generated. 

Jar Jar might be worse than I remember him.  Not just the cutesy comic relief, but the fact that for absolutely no reason at all he is given the rank of general and left to help lead a pretty important battle.  Really?  Um, yeah.  But hey, he goes on to wipe out lots and lots of battle droids totally by accident.  Seriously, he does absolutely nothing due to any bit of competence and only takes them out because he gets his foot tangled in some wires or something.  Look, it was kind of funny when Han Solo "killed" (debatable, I guess we'll find out soon if he did or not) Boba Fett by accidentally hitting him while he was blinded, sending him into the Sarlacc pit.  But I think we would've lost a lot of respect for Han if everything he did was accidental.

Oh, Jake Lloyd.  Look, I feel bad for the kid because I'm sure he did the best that he could and was just following George Lucas's terrible direction.  He never should've been cast in the first place.  I really find it difficult to believe that there wasn't a better choice out there.  Or even a hundred better choices.  In the history of movies with important child leads there are plenty of examples of kids who you almost wouldn't even guess were "acting."  So it seems impossible to me that there were literally no other kids out there who could've done a better job. 

And the plot and the trade routes and senate and no confidence votes and... what the heck was going on there?  Maybe it's just because it all bores me so much I don't pay enough attention, but all of that crap is just plain confusing.  I'm not even entirely sure what the final battle was all about beyond the fact that the people of Naboo/Gungans are the good guys and the... uh, other guys (the ones with the vaguely Asian accents) were the bad guys and the Emperor, or at this point, Darth Sidious, had something to do with them.  I don't want to watch it again to see if I can make this all more clear, but it's possible that before Episode VII comes out I'll try and have a marathon viewing and watch all six movies again.  We'll see. 

If you didn't recall, Episode I originally had a puppet Yoda before they moved to CGI starting with Episode II, but for the blu ray they made him CGI again.  Somehow even 1999 puppet Yoda looked less good than 1980 puppet Yoda, so this change doesn't really bother me aside from knowing that Frank Oz must be kind of annoyed that he had to do all that work for nothing when ultimately all you get of his performance is his voice which surely doesn't require awkward positions and cramming himself into small, hidden spaces for. 

I'd swear George Lucas forced Natalie Portman to have the most monotone voice in the history of the universe.  All of her dialog is stilted and awkward, and I'm sure none of that is her fault but all due to direction and the fact that the dialog is terrible.  That said, Liam Neeson and Ewan McGregor actually somehow manage to do a decent job and not look like they can't believe they have to be in this ridiculous movie. 

Darth Maul is still kind of cool and it's actually kind of too bad that he had to die in this movie and couldn't be used later.  The lightsaber fight is also pretty impressive.  It also makes me laugh a few times throughout as even though we only saw this movie a few times, there are a few lines my brother and cousins and I quote to each other here and there, when applicable.  I mean, seriously dumb, mundane lines but when said in the correct tone of voice and accent they cause laughter because we all know exactly where it's coming from.  (Example: "You catch on pretty quick."  See?  Why would that make anyone laugh?  But for us it does.) 

The same stuff still makes me roll my eyes though.  Midichlorians, Anakin is Jesus because he has no father (are you kidding me?) Anakin built C-3PO, Obi Wan wasn't trained by Yoda, Samuel L. Jackson is awesome but spends the entire movie just kind of sitting there.... ugh, it's impossible to list all of the reasons, and you've all been there and it's been covered endlessly, but I just figured I'd write out a few of my thoughts on seeing it for the first time in a while. 

I do believe it would be impossible to make a movie this disappointing again.  So, we can hold out hope that Episode VII won't be anything like this.  Hopefully we will be given some characters to care about, we will for sure get to see some of our old favorites, and preferably we will be happy with what has become of them at this point.  We can probably also be sure that we will not get another Jar Jar-esque character.  Admittedly the other day out of nowhere I started thinking that we might get to see Han Solo and Chewbacca flying the Falcon together again, and whatever else may happen, that's pretty awesome. 

So that's it, I finally got around to watching The Phantom Menace.  Remember when they revealed that title and we were all like, huh.  I mean, it doesn't even make sense.  Shouldn't it be something about the Chosen One or something?  The title of the movie just indicates that even they don't know what it was really supposed to be about.  Anyway, I may watch Attack of the Clones tonight if I'm feeling up for it, although I'll need a nap first or else it will surely put me to sleep.  This will be good, because I really and truly don't remember what the heck this movie was about, either.  I'll be sure to let you know when I find out.

Happy Birthday, Harrison!

It's that time of year again: Harrison Ford's birthday!  Hard to believe the man is 72 today.  I realized this also means that he is more than twice as old as he was when he first appeared as Han Solo.  Crazy. 

Also, for any of you who are not aware or keeping tabs on his recovery from his broken leg and the subsequent filming delays, there are photos circulating of him walking around on this sort of peg leg thing where he rests his weight on his upper leg, but not the lower.  I've never seen such a contraption but thought it was a very encouraging sign that he will recover relatively quickly.  This way he is still basically walking around, still putting weight on that leg, just not the lower part of it, which means he will probably not lose much in terms of muscle atrophy, etc.  I also suspect it could make things easier to shoot from the waist up if needed.  I did read that he has taken quickly to it and will, as we all would suspect, bounce back faster than most.  So even at 72, he's still doing pretty darn well for himself.

Production will also be taking a two week break in August to give him some time to heal.  I suspect this means that any of those reports that said that he would be out for six months are lies, as by the end of that time frame we'd be coming up on 8 weeks since this happened, right within the 6-8 week range we were initially, and subsequently "officially" given on how long he'd be out for.  This news felt rather encouraging, and I suspect they may not have to alter things as much as I feared or even at all except maybe framing certain shots.  There were a lot of panic inducing "articles" circulating without much factual basis about writing him out of the movie or drastically reducing his role, and none of that appears to be true. 

But anyway, today's his birthday and as a fellow Cancer, happy birthday, Harrison!  Can't wait to see you as Han Solo again.

Helpful Article on Writing

Once upon a time we used to write a lot of posts about actual writing.  That was actually kind of the intent of the blog in general, although we meandered off on a lot of often fun sidetracks.  It's been a very long time since we discussed writing in and of itself, but I just came across this article that I thought had some simple but also very useful tips on writing.  I'll link it here rather than copying and pasting, but it is six tips on writing from John Steinbeck.  Push, especially, I thought of you quite a bit when reading some of these.  One tip in particular talks about moving on from a particular scene that is giving you trouble, which is something I've told her to do on occasion.  It doesn't do you any good to spend all of your time hung up on one scene and never getting anywhere, especially when you have a clear idea of what the rest will look like. 

Where have you gotten your best advice on writing?  Do you try to make yourselves better or do you just write and not worry about it?  Personally, I always want it to be better.  Sadly this often means I'll go back and cringe at older things I've written, but it can also inspire you to do better and figure out how not to make the same mistakes.  I do wonder though if for some there is just a natural gift for words that cannot be taught or learned.  And then there is the fact that some people have their own distinct style of writing.  For me, if I wasn't trying to be better at it, I'd just write for myself and not share it with other people.  Although it's difficult to be a story teller without an audience.

Anyway, hopefully you got some good tips in there and I'd be interested to hear if others read about writing or study it at all or if you just go out and write and don't care what anyone thinks.