Messing up a good thing, George is.

Rating: 3/10 (25 May 2005)

When "New Hope" came out, I must have seen it 30+ times in the theater. I was 10 years old and the story was every boy's dream. How I yearned to harness the "FORCE" and use it to beat up some bullies at my school. Of course, a light saber would have been pretty cool for show and tell too! ...now, I wish I could use the FORCE to go back in time and have a chat with Lucas and fix this awful mess.
The opening sequence was eye candy and nothing else. The dialog: ridiculous. OMG!!...the tiny evil metal eating robots were screaming little yelps when they fell off the spaceships! Was that supposed to be funny???!! The only character who has the right to be comedy relief is C3PO and his on-screen time was maybe 5 minutes.
I nearly walked out of the cinema when Anakin was able to 'gently' land a flaming half-piece of space ship onto a (Oh wow...look straight ahead Anakin...there's the...) RUNWAY! A RUNWAY!!?? The wreck is falling out of the sky...on fire...in pieces. You can almost hear the robot flight attendant in the background saying "Thank you for flying with us". Bada Bum.
Good grief.
The bashing I could give this film will take 10 pages or so. The animation is Overkill^2000. George my boy...we don't need all that fancy stuff. One critic panned the movie for too much distracting digital artwork in the background...and I completely agree. I was taken out of the story line many times when watching the 'traffic' out the windows. How many flying cars do you need!!?? What fans need: Good/simple dialog, Jedi's using the FORCE, light-sabers, and a good butt-kicking fight scene. Speaking of which...the dual between Anakin and Obi-Wan at the end got "3" points....but, I had to subtract "1" point when they started fighting on floating lava blocks. Wow! Jedi's are flame retardant! Oh wait, maybe not Anakin. He can hover over hot lava for several minutes fighting...but 'suddenly' catch fire when his stubs get too close to the lava...??!!??!!
Sigh
When I left the theater, I was terribly upset. I looked around at the other people walking out and they all seemed to feel the same way. No cheering, no applause, no "Wow" factor. We left with our heads down low with a somber walk. Sorry Johnny...there is no Santa Claus.
At home, I pulled out my DVD of "New Hope" and watched it so I could forgive George for the mess he made. It was redeeming and wonderful. The memories of a simpler time. No fancy effects, simple dialog, evil & good, SSZZHHHHHH SSZZHHHHH light sabers, and heroes in the end. Ahhhhhhh....the good life. Gonna help myself to "Empire Strikes Back" tomorrow and wash the Sith out of my head for good.