Saturday, July 13, 2002

This latest post was intended for yesterday, but as usual I had trouble with Blogger at work. Must be some firewall thing getting in the way.

I went to see Attack of the Clones for the third and most likely final time in a theater Thursday night. I went back to the Ziegfield in midtown Manhattan and its glorious wide screen and superb sound system. It was a much different experience than the first time I was at the Ziegfield, on opening day for AOTC. That time, we had a huge cheering crowd. This time, a few of the hard-core fans from that day were there, but the theater was mostly empty and quiet. Just me and a few other geeks who needed one last fix at the Z. I still like the movie overall, but I just can't get past some of the editing choices and much of the acting of Hayden Christiansen and Natalie Portman. I know Portman is a decent actress, and HC has gotten good reviews in the past, but they just need some help here. And I wish I could buy the DVD in four months and edit the chapters so that certain scenes are swapped. If you put the balcony kiss scene AFTER the roll-in-the-grass scene, it makes more sense. Or cut it altogether and just have them kiss for the first time in the grass. And I'd dump about half the fireplace scene. Last night I noticed how they just sit there at the beginning of the scene, like two kids locked in a closet at a party and not sure whether to make out or just fidget uncomfortably. But the action sequences are still first-rate, and Yoda is just possibly the best thing in the movie. In any case, I'm having more fun playing with the movie's units in Galactic Battlegrounds than I am just watching them on screen.

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