Star Wars

In 1977 my Dad took me to see the original movie when I visited him in Lakewood, California for the summer that year. I was 16 years old and he let me drive his car around while he was working. I had a great time that summer driving that old Chevy. If I remember correctly it was a blue Malibu late 60's model. I know it had an eight track tape player in it because I listened to Pink Floyd and Aerosmith, tapes I had brought along with me.

My Dad is gone now and though we had somewhat of a strained relationship throughout our lifetimes I do have some good memories and seeing Star Wars in the summer of 77 is one of them. I was amazed by this movie like most other people. The special effects were dazzling at the time and I always looked forward to the next movie. I think I lost my eagerness to see Star Wars by the third movie but when I heard that this latest and last Star Wars movie was coming out I told my son who is now 18 that we should go see it together in honor of my Dad taking me to see the first one.

Well we did and I must say once again I was amazed by the special effects. I enjoyed how Lucas wrapped everything up in a nice, neat package from this movie to the very first one. We get to see the creation of Darth Vader and the beginning of life for Luke and Leya. Now the acting in this movie is rather wooden, the dialog kinda stupid but Star Wars has always been about the special effects for me anyway. This is not something you go see for the fine acting. With the story being told in retrospection from the first movie to this movie actually happening before the first movie it was an ingenious way to make people want to go see it so that we could all see what happened to get us up to the start of the first picture. I wonder if Lucas has this in mind from the start or if it just turned out this way? Anyway if you are even a casual Star Wars fan I think you will enjoy this movie. It is somewhat darker and more violent than anything else in the series so you might want to keep the young kids at home. Maybe 12 or 13 will be OK. Oh yeah, I read this morning that it has made 303 million dollars world wide since it opened Wednesday at midnight. Wow!

I give it a 3.5 out of 5 light sabers over all but for the special effects I would have to give it 5 out of 5!