Given the ambivalence I feel toward the first two Star Wars prequels — not to mention the sour taste left in my mouth by the Great “Original Versions on DVD” Debacle — one would think that I wouldn’t be too interested in the upcoming third prequel, Revenge of the Sith.
One would be wrong.
Almost thirty years of fannish devotion to the cause has honed in me such a powerful Pavlovian response that I couldn’t help but feel a shiver of anticipation when I read the following tidbit this afternoon on The Digital Bits:
Lucasfilm has announced that the first teaser trailer for Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith will be attached to most prints of Disney and Pixar’s The Incredibles when it opens in theaters on 11/5. So in just two weeks, fans will get their first look at the last Star Wars film ever.
A short time later, I found this photo, which is supposed to be the advertising banner that will shortly start appearing at your neighborhood movie theaters:
The goose bumps rise on my arms every time I look at this picture. Yes, I know Episodes I and II were unsatisfying and that Episode III will probably disappoint me as well, that Lucas has reduced Anakin Skywalker’s fall to the dark side into little more than teenage angst run amok, and that whatever climatic fight scene we’re going to see between Anakin and Obi-Wan can’t possibly live up to the one I’ve always imagined…
But I still want to see it.
Because deep down inside of me there is still a seven-year-old boy whose heart begins to race when the lights go down and that famous phrase appears on the screen: A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…
God, I am such a dork.
But I love you anyway. 🙂
As I have so often said, I really don’t understand why… especially after you’ve read something like this! 🙂
Frankly I think Hayden looks wrong in that suit.. just doesn’t seem menacing enough.. guess 20 years in there breathing stale air is why he becomes so testy at the end…..
Excited but not crossing my fingers anymore…..
🙂
I uncrossed my fingers a long time ago and have since rationalized that the prequels are like the assorted Star Wars comic books, spin-off properties that use ideas established in the original trilogy but aren’t necessarily “the way it happened.” They may be entertaining in their own right, but they’re not “official.” (Actually, the old Marvel Star Wars comics feel a lot more like Star Wars to me than the prequels do…)
As for Vader breathing stale air… well, you’d be testy too if you had 20 years of flatulence circulating around inside that helmet.
Bleh, you guys and your fart jokes…
I’m excited too. That is a GREAT poster. I saw another one somewhere that was very similar to the Phantom Menace poster with boy Anakin and his shadow shaped like Darth Vader, and I was still thrilled, even though I’m SO disappointed in the other two prequels. I’ll be there watching, just like every other geek. 🙂
I’m with you, Jen – I loved that first Phantom Menace poster, the “Don’t Look Back” design, and I think this one is very cool as well. This is going to sound impossibly geeky, but the thing that really gets me about this one isn’t so much the Vader-shape of Anakin’s cloak and hood, but the Death Star-style wall lights in the background.
The one thing the prequels have gotten right is the gradual drift through each successive film toward the “look” of the original trilogy — notably the ships becoming more angular and “Imperial” in design (favorite moment in AOTC was the Republic cruisers lifting off at the very end; they’re not Star Destroyers, but you can see the Destroyers in their lines). I’m starting to see some stills from Ep III and the technology has almost reached the familiar designs from the old films — the new Jedi starfighters incorporate elements of TIE fighters, and the Tantive IV (the rebel blockade runner captured by the Star Destroyer at the beginning of Star Wars)will play a notable role in Ep III (there’s a still floating around of Anakin standing in a very familiar pose in a very familiar white hallway).
Maybe I’m focusing on surface elements because the stories have been so mediocre, but the surface elements are very exciting indeed…