Picture is Unrelated

IMG_4187, originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

We just finished watching all the Star Wars movies, in the order that they were made. I'm of the opinion that episodes I, II, and III are decent movies - the good and the bad level out to ok. Like many I think the movies all have fantastic large-scale and small-scale battle scenes (the opening to episode III, the space battle over Coruscant, has good examples of both) intersped with really bad character scenes (every single scene with Padme and Anakin in episode II). Shame on you, Lucas for forgetting why we love IV, V and VI so much - the characters, not the space battles (though they are nifty).

Yeah, I know: George Lucas has had his butt kicked plenty by many an axe-grinding fanboy. Google is your friend if you'd like to subject yourself to the square miles of webspace dedicated to chewing on him. So I will say something nice about Lucas:

Recently an interview with one of the original movie's producers, Gary Kurtz, circulated the inner tubes. He was bitching about how the original story was different from what they originally intended. For instance, Han Solo was supposed to have been killed in the third movie. Some idiots made comments about how that would have made the movie that much cooler. Bullshit. If Solo had died, there would have been a sudden disturbance in the force, like a billion voices crying out in anguish, and Lucas would have spontaneously combusted from all the psychic hate (it's amazing it hasn't happened yet). So there's that. Keeping Solo alive proves Lucas isn't completely insane.

Also: I've said some good things about fan fiction. I also think I linked to this site before: The Darth Side, Darth Vader's blog. No, seriously, this is good stuff! If nothing else, read the very last entry (the first one you will see on the page, it's a blog after all). I promise you will never be able to watch the scenes between Vader and Luke at the end of Return of the Jedi again without getting a little choked. No pun intended.