Harken Unto Glory Pt. I

Revenge of the Sith

or

"Breck Girl Got Her Hair Burned"

My first Star Wars Opening Day was 1983. I was in a Womyn's Group (okay, I kid...it was spelled with an "e") in Jr. High and spent the morning shadowing a psychiatrist to see if that was the career path for me. After drawing pictures of dinosaurs for some troubled boy, I went to lunch with my dad and picked up tickets for me and my best friend, Jaci.

I think that my final Star Wars Opening Day was this year. Times have certainly changed. I became neither a psychiatrist nor an illustrator of dinosaur books, but I did dutifully attend with my current best friend, Tim. Those are really the only differences between the two openings. Both times,first for Jedi and now for Sith, I had waited for three years for resolutions to the story, and both times I rode the coaster with its ups--destroying Jabba and his retinue at the Sarlaac; Yoda with the Wookies--and the downs of dialog, thinking "is this all there is?" I feel like Norma Desmond bemoaning the smallness of the pictures.

Anyone will tell you that even the worst roller coaster is fun, at least for the duration, and Sith did deliver enough corkscrews and gravity drops to make the ride worthwhile. I do know that I will pay another $8.00 at some point for the visceral pleasure of seeing Hayden's head ablaze.

If only I didn't believe that Amanda Lucas will dredge up the rotting corpse of the Star Wars films long about 2010, then I would feel a sense of completeness about this film.