Star Wars, one man\'s opinion.

Last week Mrs. Evil and I went out to see the latest Star Wars offering. I enjoyed it, but the enjoyment wasn\'t as much as I had for the original three movies. The special effects were great, the story was good and explained a lot of what was in the original three movies, but something was missing. I think the is due to a couple of reasons. The first reason is that though action-packed, there\'s not a lot of suspense in the fight scenes. You know who\'s going to survive the film before the film begins, so fights involving Yoda, Palpatine, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anikin Skywalker have forgone conclusions. Fights with these people against people who don\'t show up in the original films have an obvious victor. Fights between these people must be draws by definition, since they can\'t kill each other off and still maintain continuity.

Now it can be said that the same is true of watching any film after the first time. Once you\'ve seen The Empire Strikes Back, you know that Vader is Luke\'s father, so it\'s not a surprise. My counter to this is that I expect some unpredictability in a movie I\'ve not yet seen or heard a spoiler about. With the series of pre-quils, there was little in terms of surprises. I walked into the theater knowing the basic storyline and Lucas delivered pretty much what I was expecting. This takes something away from the movie experience for me. I felt like I was watching a movie I\'d already seen parts of. This doesn\'t mean that the movies are bad, and I suspect for people who haven\'t seen the original movies that thrill of the new is still there. It just means that I didn\'t enjoy them as much as the originals.

Part of that is also probably due to the fact that I\'m not the child I was when the original movies came out. There is something to be said about childlike wonder and the excitement of the new when you are younger. I still like the action of the movies, but now I also enjoy the story more. This may also have something to do with the fact that I didn\'t enjoy the new Star Wars movies as well. I\'m older, hopefully wiser, and the wonder of childhood has somewhat diminished in my being. This also changes how I view the world, and the movies in it.

The children of today have two advantages over me with respect to Star Wars. First they have the wonder of youth still, second, they get to watch the movies in order so there will be some suspense for them. They will probably enjoy the pre-quil movies more than I.