Sunday, October 31, 2010

S.W.I.N.O.'s


You've heard of R.I.N.O.s, Republicans In Name Only, well, here I'm going to talk about S.W.I.N.O.s, Star Wars In Name Only. For the past few days my dad and I have been watching some of the original Star Wars series, starting with Empire Strikes Back and ending with Return of the Jedi, and, as usual, this sparked much discussion about episodes 1, 2, and 3 (Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith). In my opinion, the best thing to come out of these movies, aside from some cool fight sequences and CGI, was the scathing reviews and a whole slew of jokes surrounding bad dialogue and inconsistencies. These movies are what my family refer to as S.W.I.N.O.s. The main problem with these movies was that George Lucas directed them. True, he directed the original Star Wars, but afterwards gave that role to Irvin Kershner and later Richard Marquand. How can I blame Lucas? Well, consider the fact that both Ewan McGreggor and Liam Neeson are wonderful actors, then watch them as Obi Wan and Qui-Gon Jinn (Yeah, bet you didn't realize that was Liam Neeson's name in the movie. I had to look it up). Both are fairly stiff and lame. Don't even get me started on Natalie Portman and Hayden Christiansen. Painful at best.

But as I was saying, one of the best parts about the movies were the scathing reviews and jokes that developed after each movie premiered. I wish that I still had some of the articles that I read during that time, but suffice it to say I've never laughed so much in my life. What I can share is one of the jokes my family shares in regards to this movie. My personal favorite is a particular phrase that is repeated often in our house hold. After explaining to young Anakan Skywalker about midi-chlorians, we discussed how a normal child would have reacted to this idea. In my mind, I always saw a terrified expression crossing his face as he sprinted back into the house yelling, "Mom, this guys says I got bugs in my blood!" Seriously, what kid would think it was cool to be told that there were critters inside of him that connected him to some strange force. Think about it. Maybe it sounds much more entertaining in person (after all, intonation is rather difficult to get across in writing) but you get the idea.

I hate to be cynical, after all, the original movies are so fun, and I know that if you're looking for logic in sci-fi you're probably barking up the wrong tree, but they are just so fun to poke fun at. So what did you think of episodes 1, 2, and 3? Good? Bad? Ugly? Any funny stories? I'd love to hear them!

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