My family recently bought Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. As something of an ex-Star Wars junkie, I find it what Lucas decided to name episode three. Mostly because it's the name he had originally wanted to call what we now know as Return of the Jedi. You can even find posters for Return of the Jedi that say "Revenge of the Sith". Betcha didn't know that, did ya?

Anyways, since they bought the dvd, I had a chance to take a look at the special features, which are mostly the only reason I watch movies anymore. Watching some of the special features for Episode III has now allowed me to forgive the actors for their horrible perfomances. If you've seen any of the new Star Wars movies, you've probably noticed how the actors are very wooden, and have some pretty horible dialog. If you watch the Episode III special features, it all becomes very clear why the acting is so wooden, especially for Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman.

See, the problem is with George Lucas's style of directing and writing. Here's an example. In one of the scenes from Episode III where Anikin is telling Padme how he wants to be more than he should be, the bad acting isn't Hayden's fault. In the special features, you'll see George Lucas not only telling Hayden how Anikin feels, but also when to turn his head, and where to look as he does so. I don't know about you, but that screams control freak to me. With some of the other actors, like Ewan McGregor or Samuel L. Jacson, they've been around long enough to take this kind of direction, and still put out an amazing performance. But for newer actors like Hayden Christensen or Natalie Portman, their acting suddenly becomes very wooden. It doesn't help when Hayden is given lines like "I don't like sand". After watching the special features, I'm suddenly able to forgive the actors, and place the blame squarely where it belongs.

There are some other things that I found out in the special features. Like how they cut one character entirly from the movie, that character being Mon Mothma. They also cut out the sub-plot about how Senator Organa began to form what eventually becomes the Rebel Alliance. These things are easier to forgive though, because these are the kinds of things that need to be cut to turn a four hour movie into a two hour movie.

But overall, the plot and writing could have used a lot more work. Take General Griveous, for example. Here we've got a character who is basically the essential organs for a creature entombed in a robotic shell. I've heard that on the cartoon show "Star Wars: Clone Wars" ( or whatever it's called ), Griveous kicks a whole ton of arse, yet in the movie, he pretty much gets his arse handed to him. The writing just plain could have used a lot of work.

Speaking of writing, why did Lucas have to go and slap several authors in the face when filming episodes one through three? For example, there has been a whole comic book series written about the adventures of C-3P0 and R2-D2, starting with their activation at the factories of some giant droid manufacturing plant. What bothers me is that some authors spent at least a year or two, slaving away to make something that the fans could truly enjoy. I have several of the issues myself, and they're fairly well written. Yet Lucas couldn't be bothered to say "No, don't write about that, I've got that stuff covered.". In fact, there is a LOT of stuff that was written about that Lucas could have said not to cover. Instead, he basically gives a bunch of authors the finger and says "Screw you, this is how it actually happened". I don't know how the authors feel, but if I were one of them, I'd be mighty pissed.

In completly unrelated news, I'm now jobless. That's right, my last day of work at my old job was on Thursday. Hopefully I'll either find a new job fairly soon, or the whole web design thing will really pick up. It seems like the web design thing seems more likely, because after meeting with the owner of Golden Age Collectables ( again ), it looks like I'm definitly going to be doing the web site. Horray for me. Whatever happens though, I defintly need a job, because it seems like I'm going to be moving out. An old friend of mine is moving back into Maple Ridge, and needs a roommate. The cool thing is, is that the place is a basement suite owned by parent of said friend, which means cheep rent. This is a good thing for several reasons.

The first is that it's cheap. Since I also have to pay for car insurance and my phone bill, cheep rent is good rent, at least untill I get a well paying job. Secondly, since this place is in Maple Ridge ( yet still fairly far from where I live now ), it can be something of a test. Lets just call it the "Can Sean manage to live on his own and not die of starvation" test. If things go horribly, horribly wrong, it wouldn't be too hard to move back here. But since I've been trying to figure out a way to move out for about the past two years, I'm probably going to do my best to make sure I never move back in with my parents.

Anyways, I've got to see if I can't figure out a good way to save up some money to buy Christmas presents with.

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