media!

I went to see the new Star Wars movie last night. It was pretty good. Not as good as II or V, but good. Coming off I and II the fact that George Lucas can't write dialogue (especially romantic dialogue) to save his life is no longer a surprise, Ewan McGregor's performance was closer to the quality of his Episode I appearance than Episode II (when he did very well), and Hayden Christensen was still doing his best 'really bad actor' impression (he's not a bad actor, he just plays one in Star Wars movies...), but aside from that, not much wrong with it. I enjoyed all the little foreshadowings of events in the later movies, especially the Windu / Palpatine / Anakin moment, intimating the Palpatine / Anakin / Luke scenes in RotJ. (Although I feel it was also probably Samuel L. Jackson's payoff for getting to do just about sod all in the last couple of movies). Again I think a lot of criticism of the movie has let Lucas' terrible dialogue writing ability blind them to fact that he can still write a damn good story - the overall story arc of the first three episodes was rather ambitious and, I think, pulled off pretty well. Overall, it really worked nicely.

Now I'm listening to the new System Of A Down album. My headphones have a reputation among the cognoscenti of being the ideal for sloppy, fast rock music. This album is not about to disprove that idea...almost caught myself headbanging for a moment, there.