It’s the start of day three in Parts Unknown. I know I’m a weirdo because I’m serious when I say these parts unknown trips are about catching my breath, sleeping, and not doing much else. I’m perfectly happy with that. If Laura were here I’m sure we would have filled every minute of the day with activities, but this time I really needed to have some time to myself where I don’t have to be anywhere, I don’t have to do anything, I can just go brain dead and sleep if I want to.
I’m at peace for the first time in quite a long time. Honestly, after the chaos of the last six months that’s a good thing. I’ve put behind the troubles I’ve had and I’m just sort of cool with the world right now. No lingering specters or emotional ghosts popping out of the woodwork here to scare the bejesus out of me and that’s a pretty good thing.
Spent yesterday copying CDs for a friend who lives out here. I had it all planned out — maid service usually comes early and I was all dressed and ready for when they came. I was going to go to wal-mart and get some munchies and then come back when they were done. Trouble is … I waited and waited and waited and … they didn’t come until 3 PM or so. I needed to be online to see if the friend I was meeting was off work right at that moment so I got towels and garbage changed and that was it.
Today I’m ready, I’m going to be lazy and I won’t do anything in anticipation of them. I got my pager working again (damn dead batteries), so if they come to kick me out to clean the room I can go to the car and fart around if need be and still be on-line. Since I got all the CD burning I had planned done yesterday, that was the last real thing on my to do list for the week so I think I’ll spend some time reading and playing ::gasp:: video games today.
Last night I tried the ridiculous folly of in room PPV. When Evil James and I saw Attack of the Clones in the Theatre it was okay, but the place was jam packed and we were forced to watch the movie from the extreme right viewing angle so it wasn’t exactly a great experience. So I splurged and spent the ten bucks on the movie from in-room PPV (won’t be doing that again though — too expensive — and the DVD is $20 when it comes out so you do the math), mind you I was half wake and watching at 11 PM, but it had my full attention. Here are some random observations:
* Maybe it was because I read the book and I was tired, but I kept feeling like parts of scenes were missing. I don’t think they cut the movie for room PPV but it felt like scenes should have been extended by a few seconds. I was sure there were more to scenes like when (MAJOR SPOILER WARNINGS FROM HERE ON DOWN) Jar Jar is tricked into calling for the vote on making an army of the republic, I thought it went a few more seconds of sinistry before they cut away. It does in the book, but then again I’m an insane neophyte. I’m probably having flashbacks of things that weren’t there.
* Hayden Christiansen was a little less robotic and a little more annoying this time around. I guess he HAD to be since they wanted to show that he was indeed Luke’s father. I just rolled my eyes though. Here’s this kid with ultimate power (and let’s face it, he’s 100X as powerful as Luke ever could be), and he wastes all his time whining about things he could be doing. I did see a lot of his actions reflected in Darth Vader, though. If you look at the first three movies, Vader made rash judgments and often acted like a teenager with power. He wasn’t a cold calculating villain, he was a bully with power and didn’t really have a grasp on anything else. If anything, these prequels are spoiling the coolness factor of Vader by showing his life story. On a side note, Clark Kent’s turn to the dark side on Smallville last night was handled much better than this movie. Even if Smallville is essentially Dawson’s Creek with superpowers, it still blew circles around that aspect of this picture.
* The movie is probably the most beautifully shot picture I’ve ever seen. EVERYTHING is beautiful. The landscapes, the desert scenes in Tatooine, the senate chamber. It’s a stark contrast to Star Wars, Empire, and especially Jedi — where ships are falling apart and Tatooine is a slum. I don’t know if that’s intentional (to show how far the empire had declined in the later movies), but the beauty of everything was enough to distract me from key plot holes (and if you’re a star wars fan — GO READ THE BOOK — it actually salvages the plot).
* Christopher Lee as Count Dooku wasn’t that bad. We had panned him since he had just played a bearded villain in Lord of the Rings and this role was too close to that. This time around though he came off more as a reflection of his role as Count Dracula than as his role in LOTR. I still question why they had an 80-something year old man flying around on a futuristic segway scooter as the final action sequence (note to self: old guys on scooters ain’t sexy), especially when it’s unshielded and unarmed and seems like one good head shot by a competent sniper could have picked him off … but I guess they needed to simplify that action sequence down to Dukes of Hazard “good guy/bad guy” car chase levels.
* It was Qui Gon Jinn’s voice screaming “Annikin, Annikin NOOOOOOO!” in the chamber as Yoda senses Annikin becoming a mass murderer. On another note about that, let’s face it, Padme is pretty demented NOT to go running from this guy when he came to her and admitted to his Vietnam era type war atrocities. He admits to killing women and children and she gets turned on. RIGHT. If this was how to get women, then Charles Manson would have more fans than David Hasslehoff.
* Speaking of Padme. Natalie Portman is ice. Frozen. Beautiful girl, but does nothing for the role this time around. The spunk she showed in the first movie is all but gone and replaced with a robotic performance that only comes alive when she’s being goofy. I thought it was great when they gave her lock picks and let her get out of the chains in the arena by herself (and let’s face it, the lines on that white outfit were strategically placed to give Star Wars it’s first official — not like the unintentional boob shot in Jedi — dose of T&A), but she’s still paling in comparison to Leia’s far less camera pleasing but so much more fun in over the top antics.
* Oh, last rant for now, Jango Fett was robbed. Does anyone else feel that the Stormtroopers are doomed because they’re all clones of this idiot? Let’s face it, he looked cool but wasn’t the brightest guy in the bunch. He had a half decent fight scene with Obi Wan but then got his head cut off pretty easily by badass Samuel L. Jackson. It goes to explain why a) Boba Fett really didn’t do anything but look cool in the first movies, b) why Boba had such a stupid ending in Jedi — though the later books say he survived and did massively cool things I don’t believe it (just like the Darth Maul book tried to salvage that character with another lame ending), and c) why the storm troopers — who I’m assuming are still clones and watered down versions of Jango Fett (which was a plot point they made clear), kept walking into walls and couldn’t hit a man two feet away when armed with the best weapons in the galaxy.
All in all, there were bright spots of the movie, but I had to rant this morning and get it out of my system. 🙂 I’ll save them for another time.
I’m off to avoid maid service.
k9