Revenge of the Sith.

I heard it yesterday for the first time on NPR.  Star Wars Episode III - Revenge of the Sith.  The final Star Wars movie.   The official release date -- May 19, 2005.

Quite a mix of feelings when I heard it.  The only memory I have of my father walking is of he and I and my mother going to see A New Hope.  It's also the only memory I have now of all three of us together as a family.  I don't think Dad was impressed.   He fell asleep right after the Jawas shot R2.  In retrospect considering it was 1977 and he was very sick at the time, I shouldn't be surprised.  I don't think it's a reflection on the filmmaking skills of the Great Prophet Lucas. 

Six years later, I was watching Return of the Jedi at a SRO showing in Orlando with my cousins a month before he died. 

Forward 16 years, and I'm alone at a matinee showing of Phantom Menace.  I went to the first showing on the morning of the release day.  I was the only person in the theater, which suited me fine. 

Three years after that, there were two other people in the theater for the first morning showing of Attack of the Clones.  I guess people aren't much for Wookie Hookie here. 

Around and among these movies I have grown up.  Our parents may ask each other where were they when Kennedy was shot or when Apollo 11 landed on the Moon.  People like me, it's Star Wars, Challenger and Columbia, the night the Gulf War started.  September 11th.

From where I sit, Master Yoda has had more influence on the moral character of my generation than any priest or preacher ever could.  It gives us something that is universal, something we can speak of without the baggage of our cultures, a way to believe that is the distilled essence of ideas ancient in all cultures.  The Force is timeless.  It's the concretized time-capsule mentality of the Western religions that has produced this war between them.  All three supposedly have the wish for peace at their core, but damned if you can tell that from the amount of firepower they're flinging at each other. 

Y'know, for being a supposed "man of God", Bush seems to have a real jones for turning Middle Eastern countries into war zones.  Especially since it's North Korea that has the nuclear weapons capable of turning LA into a glowing parking lot.  Ah well, who needs Hollywood, they're all Democrats anyway, right?

The Jedi are the guardians of peace and justice in the universe.   I don't think you can bring peace by invasion and occupation.  Who made the United States king of the world? 

I guess it doesn't matter what I think.  After all, what am I going to do, leave the planet?

I wish I could.

 
"Darkness has a hunger that's insatiable, and Lightness has a call that's hard to hear."  --The Indigo Girls.