I went and saw Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith yesterday, and… wow. It was by far the best of the three prequel films, and the first one of the three that actually felt, I don’t know, epic in the sense that it’s carrying the weight of Star Wars history that fleshed out the first three movies. It was good, I’d go see it again, if I get the chance.

This is going to turn into a larger review, and some general observations on Star Wars in general, and there will be spoilers, so only click through if you’ve already seen it (or don’t mind reading spoilers).

First of all, this is definitely a darker movie, as promised. And violent—not just by Star Wars standards, but by general standards. It’s definitely not a movie to take the kids to, despite the Star Wars moniker. It’s pretty surprising the number of people getting chopped up and killed via lightsaber, yet—and I suppose this reflects how dark I’m being—it’s the sort of thing I would expect from people running around waving indestructible laser swords.

The visuals and the effects were great. Most of the film is digitally rendered, and for the most part it’s pretty seamless. With a few exceptions: First, the CGI of Count Dooku (Christopher Lee, who’s no spring chicken) flipping from the balcony to confront the Jedi was awkward—it looked weird, didn’t really mesh. (Christopher Lee in a lightsaber duel doesn’t really work, either, he has to be almost all digital—or in extreme close-up—which is the weak point of the duel in "Attack of the Clones.") Next, the lizard-thing Obi-Wan was riding around in the crater still had the obvious computer generated look. And finally, I noticed an awkward shift when the medical droid handed baby Luke to Obi-Wan—there was just an odd shift as the transition from CGI baby to real baby occurred.

The story was better than the previous films—it has a point this time: to tell the story of the fall of Anakin Skywalker and the rise of Darth Vader. The previous prequels were much more nebulous. I found this movie to be more consistent, logical, and better paced that the previous two. It’s not perfect—it still suffers from Lucas-itis—but it gets the job done.

Speaking of Lucas-itis, what is it exactly with his tendency especially in these last three prequels to present characters with overly simplistic, naively obvious names? The bad guys, in particular, suffer from having such unfortunately non-subtle names like "Maul," "Sidious," "Tyranus" and "Grievous." Does he not trust the ability of the audience to otherwise figure out who the villains are?

Sorry, had to vent there for a moment.

Things I really liked: Mace Windu kicking Darth Sidious’ ass. That’s the kind of Samuel L. Jackson action we’ve been expecting . Though I do wish we could’ve seen a lot more of that. And Yoda kicking ass—that little green sucker is brutal. I mean, he impaled a guard on his lightsager, javelin-style. That’s rough. I liked the Wookies, though I have to admit I didn’t see the point of having them—more on that in a bit. I liked the dialogue a lot better than in the previous two movies (I wonder if Lucas got someone to polish that up for him?).

Things I thought were really weak: Hayden Christensen‘s acting. He’s much better than in "Clones," but still—it was weak. Having Padme die in childbirth of nothing more than, what, a broken heart? That’s even more weak. Or how about the cameo of Chewbacca? That was weak because there was no point to it other that the "wink wink, nudge nudge, look how clever we are" factor. Not just Chewbacca, but the droids, too: C-3PO and R2-D2. That just stretches the credibility too thin: you really trying to tell me that Darth Vader (in the original movies) doesn’t recognize the droid he flew missions with, or the droid he created? Uhm, sorry, nope. It just doesn’t fly. Should’ve skipped the cutesy factor of including these particular droids—stick to better storytelling instead.

One thing I would have really liked to see was more of the Wookies—and I’m thinking of something in particular that would have been very cool if they’d done it. Remember, I didn’t really see the point of having the Wookies in the movie—they just showed Yet Another Battle Scene without really advancing the story. But when Order 66 came in, and the clones were moving on Yoda to try to surprise him (and failing), I was hoping the Wookies would go nuts over the attempt on Yoda’s life (since they were supposed to be tight) and their army would turn on the clones, allowing Yoda to escape and extracting some vengeance. That wouldn’t have added any to the story, I admit, but it would have been way cooler to show how badass the Wookies really are by having them get medieval on the proto-Stormtroopers.

Ah, well. One of these days maybe I’ll do a fan fiction rewrite of the prequel movies just because it seems there’s obvious ways of fixing them that wouldn’t have messed things up. Heh.

I nitpick, but I dug it. And I’d go see it again. I guess that’s what really counts, right?

Checking out Wikipedia’s excellent (as always) article on fan fiction today, I ran across the site FanFiction.net, which I hadn’t seen before. It’s a comprehensive directory of fan fiction, organized by TV shows, movies, cartoon, games, books, and much more.

The amount of fan fiction out there is truly astounding; I’ve known this, of course, but I just never guessed at the sheer depth and breadth it covers. Let’s take a little stroll through the site for some examples.

• The combined number of Star Trek stories: 9240. Wow. They actually split the Star Trek stories up by each TV show, but that doesn’t really matter.
• X-Files: 5393 stories.
• Lost (the TV series that debuted just this season): 1462 stories.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: 26,567. Holy shit!
• Law and Order: 2037. Like Star Trek, they split out by the different subseries.
• Star Wars: 11,828.
• Lord of the Rings: 37,136. Good grief.
• Harry Potter: 190,077! If I’d been drinking something when I read this one, I would have done a spit-take. This is beyond comprehensible!

Those are kind of the usual suspects in fan fiction, what you’d expect… but there are seriously hundreds more different topics people are writing about. Here’s a sample of some of the oddball ones:

• All in the Family: 4 stories.
• Bill Nye the Science Guy: 6 stories.
• Lazytown (a kids show, our kids watch it): 16 stories.
• Diff’rent Strokes: 2 stories.
• Saved by the Bell: 13 stories.
• Moulin Rouge (the movie musical): 1466(!)

You get the idea.

The latest book I’m immersed in (one of them, anyway) is A Fire Upon The Deep by Vernor Vinge. So far I’m hooked (I’m about a quarter of the way into it), it’s totally compelling science fiction. And it’s a refreshing reminder that there’s really no limit to what you can do, story-wise, with well-done sci-fi.

Ah, it’s always nice to have the "summer vacation" from TV and have time to catch up on my reading .

monkeyinabox: "Are blogs really as mainstream, as some of us thought?"

No. No they’re not. That’s easy to forget for those of us "on the inside," but blogs really are still a fringe phenomenon.

They’re getting there, though. The Journal of Accountancy just ran an article called "Would You, Could You,
Should You Blog?" which is a decent introduction to blogs for accountants. Now that’s getting mainstream.

The PHP programming language is 10 years old today. A large part of what I do these days is PHP development—I’ve got it running web sites, parsing web server log files, running command-line batch processes, and more. Thanks to Rasmus and the PHP community for making it all possible!

For a good roundup of the 10 year coverage, go here and here.

But I’m really not. If I’m burning out on anything, it’s work and the daily routine of it. As a consequence, blogging takes a backseat and even though I have things I want to write about, when I’m finally at the computer at a point where I can, I just don’t have the energy or ambition to do it. Which is ironic, since what I’d really rather be doing is blogging/writing full time instead. But alas, I haven’t yet (figured out how to) (gotten to the point where I can) make enough money doing that…

So I dunno, I’ve been thinking about this whole podcasting thing lately… and while it sounds like it might be fun to do (and people used to tell me all the time that I have a perfect voice for radio… but not so much anymore… I wonder why that is?), I really just don’t have the time or energy for it. Besides, what would I talk about? I already have my blog for incoherent rambling, there’s no reason to clutter up bandwidth with large audio file of that…

That’s the other worry: bandwidth issues. Last thing I really want to deal with is hosting large media files and getting hammered.

Any Oregonians podcasting? I know Jack Bogdanski was experimenting a bit with it. Anyone else?

Now that the TV season is mostly over I thought I’d post one of my self-indulgent rants on the various television shows I watched and how I’m still a slave to the tube. So, even though everything is over and everyone who was going to watch has watched, there will be spoilers. Click through to read on.

The longer the TV season drags on, and the closer to spring and summer it gets, I really start resenting the amount of time I lose to the TV, and it’s always a relief when the shows are finally over. For the most part, the last couple of years I’ve been gradually cutting out shows, and between that effort and the number of shows that ended last year and this year ("NYPD Blue," "Enterprise," "Frasier" etc.), my consumption is going down.

There’s still a fair amount I watch, though, no matter how loud I complain. So, on to the rundown. The order I’m listing shows are what we watch through the week, starting on Monday. I’m not writing about every show I watch… I’m not that sad, yet.

24

The problem with "24" is that it is exactly what I resent about watching TV: if you want to have any hope of knowing what’s going on, you have to watch every single episode in order. That having been said, I really liked the "non-stop" season they did this year, starting in January, because nothing’s more annoying that having a four-week hiatus right in the middle of a critical storyline or cliffhanger (the exception to this rule, of course, being the season-ending cliffhanger).

This season’s "24" was far, far better than last season, though I still think I like the second season best. This fourth season was be a rehash of the second season: Islamic terrorists trying to trigger a nuclear disaster of some sort. The problem? The unfair stereotypical portrayal of all Arabs as terrorists, for one thing. Another was the observation I read on somebody’s blog (I forget who) that there are a ludicrously large number of well-equipped and well-organized villains and henchmen who can be called upon at a moment’s notice.

This is also the first season that I can think of where CTU and the various good guys actually acted intelligently—I mean, if an elite counter terrorist operation functioned as poorly or had so many leaks and inside agents in the real world as CTU has had, well, it wouldn’t last very long. Not that they were smart the entire season; the first third or so suffered from the Inside Agent Cliché and of course they had to have the Abrasive Boss who clashed with Jack Bauer until she finally wised up. No, the good examples I’m thinking of are Tony purposefully cutting his foot on broken glass to leave a trail of blood for the good guys to follow as he was a hostage, and Michelle actually not succumbing the the terrorists hostage demands and trusting the agency she works for to deal with the situation (wow, there’s a novel idea!). Come to think of it, I could start a website that just lists and comments on all the various internal clichés that have popped up season after season.

I might be getting burned out on "24" though, after four seasons it’s hard to imagine what they can do next without rehashing the plots. I think the promo for next season summed it up best: "First Jack Bauer saved the President. Then he saved the city. After that he saved the country, and this season he saved the world! If you think you know what’s next, well, you don’t know Jack." Yeah, well, I know enough that he’ll pull some other pointless and outrageous stunt to advance the storyline, like put on a ski mask and stage a robbery of a convenience store to keep a suspect from getting away, or instigating a pointless prison break last season.

Uh-huh. I already have an idea of how I would do the fifth season: the first third would be without Kiefer Sutherland at all, instead focusing on Tony or one of the other characters they’ve built up over the years filling the Jack role. Then, at some critical point, Jack would show up and save the day, and the rest of the season would escalate from there. Okay, so that’s a very broad outline, but you get the idea.

One final thought: At the end of the season finale, with identity-less Jack walking into obscurity down the train tracks, did anyone else flash back to the old "Incredible Hulk" TV show where David Banner was always ending an episode hitting the road, alone?

Scrubs

Nothing much to say here, other than I think "Scrubs" is consistently the funniest show on TV these days.

American Idol

Yeah, I’m ashamed to say I get repeatedly sucked in to this reality show. I justify it by noting that it’s a lot more wholesome, enjoyable, and even-handed than most of the reality tripe out there; I mean, music and singing and no over-the-top melodrama, what’s not to like?

I am disappointed that Bo Bice didn’t win, however. Week after week he was consistently the best singer and performer, and while Carrie Underwood is very good in her own right, there was just no way she should have won. Whatever, I predict we’ll hear a lot more from Bo than we ever will from Carrie.

The problem with American Idol? The fact that they expect me to waste another half-hour to an hour of my life with their doofy result shows the following night… hence, my wife just looks up who got the boot on the internet and we don’t bother watching the result show.

Lost

Okay, this is one show that I don’t mind watching, at all. It’s the best new show on TV, I think, and I’m enjoying it immensely. And I almost didn’t even start watching it—my wife made me watch the premier (which we’d taped) and I was hooked from that point.

This show just stands out from a storytelling standpoint: it’s original, unusual, and hard to predict. There are some series where I’ll be frustrated from show to show based on the dragging out of plotlines and surprises—like "24"—but "Lost" is not like that at all. Why is that? I think it’s because I’m enjoying how they’re spinning out the story and giving the viewers plenty to think about—without having to think too hard about it because it’s also deceptively simple.

The characters, too, are compelling, and well played. At first I had a hard time seeing Dominic Monaghan as anything but a Hobbit, but that wore off after the first couple of episodes. And of course, a good part of the fun is learning these characters backstories and figuring out how they relate to everyone else to end up on the island.

I do wish they hadn’t killed off the high school science teacher, though (although blowing him up with the dynamite after he’d been ranting about how dangerous it was sure caught me off guard); he made a great Scully to the rest of the castaways in the two or three episodes he showed up.

I totally called Boone’s death, however. My wife visits the spoiler sites for the show and read that a main character was going to die, and right away I said it would be Boone. Why? Frankly, he didn’t contribute much to the show other than being Locke’s little buddy, and that was annoying.

Joey

Yeah, this was a carry-over from "Friends," we were sucked in as much by inertia as anything. It has some very funny moments, but in general it’s just not as good as "Friends," and come one, who couldn’t have seen Joey and his neighbor hooking up from the start? I’m a little surprised they dragged it out as long as they did, but you know what would have been better? Defying viewer expectations and not having them sleep together!

Overall, it’s on the bland side. I wouldn’t miss it if I stopped watching it.

Enterprise

Yes, of course, I’m a Star Trek geek and I couldn’t let a TV show rant go by without mentioning "Enterprise." Why? For starters, they ended it just as it hit its groove and was really good this season. What’s up with that?

It was really getting good, too; they finally had a writing team who was doing storylines that tied cleverly into the original Star Trek series. And the two-part Mirror Universe episodes were great, a hell of a lot of fun to watch. So it’s finally getting good and what does UPN do? Cancel it, of course.

Deadwood

The other best show on TV… oh wait, it’s not TV, it’s HBO.

It’s hard to explain the appeal of this show to someone who doesn’t watch it… either you love it or you don’t. And let’s face facts, it’s the rawest, most brutal, most vulgar, possibly most violent show on television, with questionably too-modern language for the period piece it’s supposed to be, and yet for all that—maybe because of all that—it’s some of the most compelling stuff I’ve watched.

This is the other show I don’t mind to watch at all. I look forward to it, in fact. The only thing I regret is that there’s only 12 episodes per season, and the seasons are a year apart. That’s a long time to wait! Maybe I’ll look into the DVDs…

Conclusions

Nah… this is a just a convenient spot to end my venting. If you’ve actually bothered to read this far, well, then, my hat’s off to you.

…Jake of UtterlyBoring that is. He posted an item today about our local Wal-Mart being open 24 hours, mentioned it to Barney, and a story showed up on the Z21 news NewsChannel 21 this evening. Barney confirms it in the comments.

That’s hot.

June already? Geez, where’d the time go? It’s not like May wasn’t a full month… some highlights:

• Put together a monster swingset
• Dental cleaning… with novocaine. I had two back teeth that needed periodontal work and scaling. Nasty stuff. My mouth was sore for days afterward.
• The end of the TV season (I have another post on this sometime)
• Beautiful, 80-plus degree weather… dampened (no pun intended) by massive flash flood inducing thunderstorms
• We were more socially active than normal… we went to at least three barbecues, which is a lot for us

Hmm, that’s all I can think of right now. June promises to be a busy month, too. There’s a potluck at work tomorrow, a neighborhood BBQ on Friday, a kids birthday party on Sunday, our anniversary, a friend’s college graduation, and more I’m sure.

Perhaps we should do a blogger get together this month?