Cinematic Event

It's not a movie, it's an event. The dialogue will be attrocious in parts (actually, I'm certain of this - see below), so will the acting, and I expect some of the special effects to be dodgy, despite being hyper-digitised. I know all of these things, but none of them could stop the goosebumps rushing up my spine as I walked out of the cinema having pre-bought my tickets for Episode 3 about five minutes ago.

For my generation (especially the males), Star Wars is something special, not as movies but as something else entirely which is practically impossible to explain. It's a cultural reference point, which I've frankly not been happy sharing with a younger generation and thankfully it's coming to a close.

I've collected action figures, comic books, novels, posters, stickers, scripts, I can pretty much quote Return of the Jedi verbatim, I've been kicked out of the bed because I quoted Han Solo from The Empire Strikes Back

she: I love you
me: I know

to my girlfriend of the time and she'd never seen the film. Ouch. Needless to say that one didn't last; there aren't many events in my life that I can't link, associate in some way to Star Wars. It's not that bad really.

I'm not much of a geek, really I'm not. Even though tonight (in less than three hours - can anticapate the thumping of my heart as that 20th Century Fox drumroll begins, as those eternal notes of John Williams genius reach my ears, as those big yellow letters slam themselves onto the screen) I'll be seeing the film dubbed into Czech. Call me lame, but two days ago, discovering this was my only option if I wanted to see the film tonight, I downloaded the script so I'd know exactly what was going on. I'm off home now to re-read it, if only I had those soundtracks with me to play through my i-River... oh well, I'll make do.

May the Force be with you