it kinda grew on me....

Although I had anticipated that it would be painful, about halfway through "The Revenge of the Sith," I was surprised to notice that I was kinda into it.

About two-thirds of the way through I thought, "huh, this is actually not too bad at all."

During the climactic scene where Natalie Portman sobs, "Anakin, you're breaking my heart!" I almost welled up. Almost. And I did really feel sorry for Anakin writhing around in the muck with his legs cut off.

After it was over, I said to Loopy, "Well, that was actually pretty good."

After dinner I thought, "It really was about as good as any of the originals, not that that's especially good, but the old magic is gone for me—I can't really see myself viewing it repeatedly."

This morning I woke up thinking, "I could see that again."

Before getting up we watched a funny little show that Loopy taped for me: interviews with the original actors and the biggest fans of the original series (folks who dressed as Jedi for their weddings, that kind of thing), and I started to remember my old love of the series, and even to allow myself to connect the original three with the film I saw last night.

See, I'm one of those kids for whom the first Star Wars was a formative experience.

It came out when I was in first grade. I think everyone who's completely obsessed is about my age, no more than two or three years older. It shaped everything: my ideas about religion and philosophy, feminism and heroism, yadda yadda, yadda yadda.

I absolutely worshipped Princess Leia: my first love, without question.

I carved her name into a tree in first grade; I was her for Halloween; for years and years and years, Carrie Fisher was the only photo on my bulletin board, until in 9th grade I finally realized that was weird and replaced her with Duran Duran posters.

This isn't just a random pop culture thing. Princess Leia was one of a rare breed, those feminist (s)heroes of the 70s.

It was a weird little blip in cinematic history, but for just a few years, there were just a few films featuring female characters who actually behaved like real people, people who had something to fill up their time besides finding their soulmate. At least, I've heard there were others; I don't actually know of any other female lead who goes through an entire film without mentioning anything about her personal appearance, her desire for love, or anything else remotely "feminine." The stupid little kiss she gives Luke (before they swing across the chasm on the rope while hundreds of storm troopers fire at them & miss (god, those films are dumb in some ways!)) always seemed so tacked-on—it wasn't necessary even to notice it.

Episode I was so bad, and Episode II was literally one of the worst movies I think I've ever seen. I tried really hard to get into Episode I—saw it seven times in the theaters, read the books, tried, tried, tried to bring back the old magic.

But after Ep II I was just disgusted—I started to fantasize that sometime, twenty years hence perhaps, someone else would come along and remake the Episodes I to III as they should have been done.

Then I watched IV thru VI again and realized, to my horror, that my disgust was corrupting my enjoyment of the originals. So I tried to separate them in my mind as much as possible, not even think about them together.

Then fortunately The Lord of the Rings came along and saved me from torment.

So anyway...this afternoon I caught myself thinking, "I wonder if we could go back and see it again tonight."

There's hope yet for me and the ol' Star Wars magic.