Watched all three of the original Star Wars movies yesterday back to back (A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi). I hadn't seen ANH in years -- no need, I guess I thought, since I've known practically the entire thing verbatim for over 25 years. I was rather miffed that they saw fit to cut out the scene on the Falcon where Luke is training with the lightsaber and Chewie and R2 are playing holochess (the "Let the Wookie win" scene). I don't agree with these cuts since that scene contains a lot of what we learn of the Force in that movie. But other than that --

I'd never seen them all back to back, as one story. Even after all this time, I'm still finding new things in it. In Jedi, for instance, I realized that Vader was trying to protect Luke during the scenes with the Emperor on the Death Star. He was subtly deflecting Luke from confronting the Emperor directly because he knew that Luke couldn't win against the Emperor. Vader knew because he had not been able to stand against the Emperor, and he had been the most powerful Jedi who ever lived. He knew Luke didn't have a snowball's chance in hell against the Emperor. When Luke finally snapped and went for his lightsaber, Vader was there stopping him because he knew the Emperor would crush Luke's mind like a bug. Vader was putting himself in front of Luke constantly -- "Fight me, not him, me! Concentrate on me!" If the idea was to turn Luke to the Dark Side, Vader was obstructing it by not allowing Luke to face the Emperor directly. Vader was putting himself between Luke and the Emperor. I used to think the Emperor was just letting Vader do all the dirty work and testing Vader's loyalty. Now I know it was Anakin in some confused way trying to protect his son.

It's weird, finding such things in a set of movies you've known for 25 years. All of it unfolding like a lotus. A constantly convoluting crystal ball, refractions and reflections and colors spinning perpetually.

What am I doing, thinking I can be anything like this?