Star Wars!!

Awesome!!

Almost 13 years after the first time I saw it in the theatres, its back and better than ever. I think this was the 6th time I have seen Phantom Menace in the theatre, so trust me when I tell you it is best in 3D. I am sure you are saying 'wait it wasn't that good', ok point taken, but I guess that makes it easier to be better than ever. It still has all of the flaws of the first release, and yes still has Jar Jar Binks, so if you were so angered by him the first time you are going to feel just about the same this time. I always thought that Episode I had too much story to tell and was Star Wars 101 to all of the the novice Star Wars fans. Unfortunately that is still the case, but there is a big BUT.

George Lucas and Industrial Light and Magic came through with flying colors on the 3D re-release. I am sure it wasn't that difficult to re-engineer the movie since the majority of it was in CGI in the first place. Alot of the movie is backstory and can't really be changed in post production, but what they did accomplish where they could was awesome.

The podracing scene, is almost enough to make the trip worth the extra $$ for another trip to the theatre and the 3D upcharge. First person shots of the track, ground-level views of the race, make the scene the best moment of the experience. Couple that with the Darth Maul, Obi -Wan Kenobi, Qui-Gon Jinn light sabre battle and it is totally worth it. If you are not a Star Wars fan though, you probably will be less than impressed.

It does get me more excited about what is going to happen to episodes IV-VI. There is so much fighting, and flying in those movies, its gonna be amazing. I guess you will know where I am going to be the first week in February between now and 2017.

I managed to get Kristen to come along, and I am intrigued as to what she will think about the movies. I gotta imagine that of the worlds population she is in the very small minority of people which will get to see the movies in chronological order of the movies not the order of their original release.

One of the benefits of being in one of the biggest cities in the world is that you seem to stumble across exciting things happening which you didn't even know about. The majority of the time those end up causing problems, be it closed roads, and just too many people, but this time it was an welcome sight. First they had people dressed up as all the Star Wars characters taking pictures in from of the theatre. I wasn't quite up to posing with them, but all these guys were more than happy to get in for pictures. Kristen said 'oh how cute, they are embracing their nerdyness.' I laughed because although they may have been cute, there were no women anywhere to be seen around them.

Then as we strolled through the O2 to get to the theatre, just randomly sitting there, was last year's Force India Formula 1 car. You could literally walk right up and touch a multi-million $$ car which a couple of months ago was flying around the race track in Brazil a more than 100 miles an hour. Pretty surreal.