"Empire Strikes Back" was released in May 1980. I was 9 years old. In the months preceding the release of the movie, I had nightmares that the movie was going to be rated "R". I just knew my mother would never let me see an "R"-rated movie. The images from these nightmares are still vivid in my mind. I recall being so relieved when I finally saw the "PG"-rating in the newspaper ad.

That pretty much sums up all that you need to know about me in order to understand me.

As you might imagine, it's been a pretty good week for me. I participated in the lineup at AZ Mills Mall. Over the period of three days, I accumulated 10 hours of line time. That was good enough to get me the 79th place in line. Considering that 8 out of the 24 screens were showing Ep II at midnight or 1am and over 2000 people were present, I was pretty pleased with my placement. We lined up in our appropriate positions at 6pm, and the next 6 hours flew by. I was near a 2-year old boy named "Anakin" who was dressed as a Padawan and wielded a mean lightsaber. There was also a boy whose middle name is "Jedi". That's cool. I'm going to give one of my children the middle name "Jedi". There were many great costumes, including a garrison of stormtroopers.

I enjoyed talking to total strangers about stuff we all had in common. I enjoyed hanging out with Carl, Heidi, and her boyfriend Bill. ( Greg was a loser and chose not to attend the midnight showing.) We were let into the theater around 10:45pm, and my ticket stub was torn by the theater owner himself.

Then the night took a surreal turn. We were seated right in the middle of the largest theater, about 5 rows back from Alice Cooper. Nobody looks more like a hedonistic old rock star than he does. He autographed ticket stubs, lightsabers, and a homemade full-sized fully automated R2-D2. Alice Cooper was bouncing the beach ball around the theater with the rest of us. Surreal, dude.

Now, onto "Attack of the Clones"...I'm not going to put any spoilers in this entry (see links below), but let me just say the following:

• This movie was much better than "Phantom Menace" - on par with "Return of the Jedi"
• As I apparently murmured in my sleep around 4:30am after seeing it the first time, "There were so many Jedi."
• Padme's "dominatrix" outfit had all of the men in the theater squirming. Boys, that's why she wore it - to torment Anakin.
• Temeura Morrison deserved more screen time.
• Having seen the original "Star Wars" in the theater when I was 6 years old, I thought that I was psychologically disturbed enough by finding "old" Obi-Wan attractive in the "Phantom Menace"...an attractive Darth Vader makes me even more confused.
• For all of the flaws, the thing I feared the most never happened - Padme never once turned into a screaming ninny. Yay for strong female characters! (Alright, maybe her choice of man isn't the wisest...)
• Yoda, Yoda, Yoda!!!

Only seen the movie twice, and it's been out for 48 hours. I'm behind schedule!

May the Force Be with You, Always.

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