the pod bay door

:: Stevie Ray and I saw Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith this afternoon. I had tickets for the 6:45 pm show, and we arrived early, around 4:15, assuming long lineups would be in order. It was the opposite: small lines had formed for some of the later shows, but no line for the 6:45 show had started. As we prepared to wait in line for two hours, a colleague and her family walked by, and said they had exchanged their tickets for the 4:45 pm show, which was in Theatre 1 (the biggest of 16 theatres at South Edmonton Common). We decided to do the same, quickly swapped our tickets, and entered Theatre 1, and found two great seats in the top row.

This was a bit of an event for us; when Stevie (a good friend’s daughter) was 8, I took her to see The Phantom Menace, and when she was 11, The Attack of the Clones. We had a blast, and really enjoyed the movie. It’s easily the best of the first three episodes, with space ship and light sabre battles like nothing seen before. The history and background of the characters is explained, and we learn how Luke and Leia become separated to live on different planets, how Anakin morphs into Darth Vader, why Yoda ends up on Dagobah, and more. The dreaded Jar Jar Binks appears in two scenes with no lines, and C-3PO’s role is also reduced. Most of the dialogue remains true to the bad space opera of the other five episodes, but the performances do compensate for it. Ewan McGregor is solid, Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman have matured into their roles, but it’s Ian McDiarmid as Darth Sidious/Chancellor Palpatine who chews up the screen and steals most of his scenes from the other actors. I’m surprised that he hasn’t appeared in more movies. The other scene stealer is Yoda – what more can I say? I also found it easier to accept Samuel L Jackson as Mace Windu – in the previous two films, I couldn’t separate the actor from the character. This time, I bought it – his character’s presence is much more convincing, and he has one great light sabre duel as well.

Besides the release of the last Star Wars ever (or is it?), Canada’s government barely survived a confidence vote today (it was a 152-152 tie), with the Speaker having to cast the deciding vote in favour of the governing Liberal Party. A defeat would have resulted in another federal election, less that a year after the 2004 vote.

This morning, my clothes dryer gave indications that it wants to move on and meet its maker. So after SWIII, I dropped by Sears Home and ordered a Kenmore washer and dryer on sale for $940 or so, with tax. Both will be delivered next Friday with the sofa I purchased in April. Yes, I am still zen with the debt load.

Tomorrow I’m off to Lethbridge, and to Sunburst MT on Saturday for my friend Sharon’s son’s high school grad ceremony, and then back to Lethbridge on Sat night, returning home to Edmonton on Monday. Twelve days later, it’s off to Toronto for SLA.

This news release from Westjet is very cool:

WestJet (TSX:WJA), Bell ExpressVu (TSX:BC.PR.A) and LiveTV (NASDAQ:JBLU) today announced that all 39 of WestJet’s Boeing Next-Generation 737-700 aircraft are now equipped with live satellite television. WestJet is the first and only airline in Canada to offer an in-flight TV service that can be individually controlled by each guest from the comfort of their own seat.

WestJet’s complimentary satellite TV service offers a selection of up to 24 television channels from Bell ExpressVu in every seatback on all of WestJet’s 737-700 aircraft, including news, sports, music, children’s and leisure programming. The real-time in-flight experience features individual adjustable seatback screens, personal headphones and an armrest control to change TV channels, brightness and volume levels.

I wonder how long, if at all, it will take Air Canada to follow suit. All the more reason to fly on WestJet. As fate would have it, my flight to and from Toronto in June is on AC.

I am so tired…

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 19th, 2005 at 21:04 and is filed under Film, On The Road. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.