Three ...is a magic number.

Pity that this is not the 3rd post I'm making today. That would please my inner geek. I suppose my outer geek wouldn't find it too upseting either.

Anywhat. Guess what I did at work today.

Give up?

I went to see Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. With a bunch of coworkers. For free.

Man, my new job rules.

So, yeah. The promotion manager decided to treat his department and the programming department (which includes me) to see the third (er..sixth) installment of the George Lucas saga. Yay!

It was pretty cool to get out of the office for 3 hours. Although when we got back, I spent the remainder of the day hustling to get my work done for the day. But still. Free movie. Can't complain. (Well, okay, I can, but morally it makes me uncomfortable to do so. I mean, there are starving children on Tatooine. Or something.)

So, now for some thoughts on the movie going experience, along with some thoughts on the movie itself (undoubtedly nothing super original nor ground-breaking will be said, but I'll say it anyway).

I like Century Theaters. They have a policy of "no TV commercials" before their movies. Finally, a company has a rule that makes sense!
They did, of course, have trailers for other movies before SW3 started, but there were only 5 of them, and trailers are always a great part of going to the movies.

The previews:

War of the Worlds - It's a Steven Spielberg movie, and part of me wonders if at the end it will be revealed that the alien invaders are E.T. ....you know, just really really pissed off.

Cinderella Man - Bored now.

Mr. and Mrs. Smith - Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie in a remake of some movie from the 50s about a married couple that are both spies, and neither one knows it. Um. Yeah. I often times just don't *get* Hollywood.

The Fantastic Four - You know what I would go see? A comic book movie that did NOT use CGI. Can such a thing even exist? The world may never know. I suppose someday I might actually add The Fantastic Four to our Netflix queue, just because.

Stealth - Heeeeeeeeee! Mary Camden grows up to be a Navy pilot slash sex-kitten. AND!! A computerized fighter plane turns eeeevil after lightning hits it and "malfunctions the computer brain". Because Mother Nature is the most diabolical terrorist there is. And the terrorists will win.
Anyway, this looks like campy, brainless, stupid fun. Defintely going on the queue. [up]

And the actual movie we went to see...
[Begin spoiler for -Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith -highlight to view]
I think a large part of the appeal of Star Wars (for me, at any rate) is the music. Despite the fact that all three of the 'new' trilogy were ...not so good, when the opening theme starts up, goosebumps happen.

So. Some interesting things I noticed about Revenge of the Sith: Anakin does all his killing before he dons the Vader suit. In fact, Vader doesn't even seem that scary. Indeed, I felt rather sympathetic toward him. Anakin is lied to (or was he??) by the Emperor and the Jedi Council did try to use him as a spy. The only one who seemed to care about him genuinely was Padme. Oh, and Obi-Wan.

Why were the Wookies in this movie? Yeah, cool to see them - always like to see Chewie - but really, they didn't add anything. Um. You know, except for the coolness of being Wookies. (Grrraaaaarrghh!)

Heh. C3PO's memory gets wiped at the end of Episode 3. If only that could be done for us as well. (Smithers, get the memory eraser.)

CGI!Yoda was novel in Episode 2, and gets some good laughs/coolness factor in Episode 3, but eventually it's overdone.

Also about Yoda. If you're going to have a hero deliver a rousing speech, you should probably have it be done by someone who has less ...grammar issues. I mean, "Not if anything to do with it, have I!" just doesn't have the same impace as "Not if I have anything to do with it!"

Also - did the Emperor use a Jedi (I mean Sith) mind trick on the members of the senate, or are they all just really stupid? I mean, they all just take his word for it that the Jedis are revolting? NOBODY protests or asks for proof or says, "But, the Jedis are our friends!"?? Meh. Whatever.

In conclusion (because I've been blogging for almost an hour now, and I can't seem to think of everything I wanted to say), the movie was about 20 minutes too long (or maybe that was just because I had to pee), and George Lucas is a Sith-head. Hee.[end spoiler]