Star Wars Confessions

For anyone who knows me, the following will be a horrifying revelation. Luckily the problem has now been remedied so there isn’t much cause for alarm!

Until about 2 months ago, I had never seen The Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi… I’ll just give that a second to sink in.

Now, had anyone asked me, I would have sworn blind I had and I could hold a conversation with any buff about the ins and outs of my favourite lightsaber battles and hyperdrive operation. Not to mention my substantial knowledge of the score… which I can now fully appreciate. As a geek there are just some things you have to keep to yourself or risk having your geek card revoked!

There are certain things that very few people watch for the first time as an adult. Things like The Sound of Music, the Wizard of Oz or Bambi, and for most people Star Wars is right up there. It’s hard to say how I managed to miss it, but I imagine it’s probably because my family have such an aversion to sci-fi (though my mum has admitted to being something of a Trekkie in the 60s…). Of course, I have no idea how I would have reacted to seeing it as a child, but I can tell you now, watching it as an adult is a hell of an experience! Knowing you’re watching something completely amazing for the first time, which you can never unsee… admit it, you’re kinda jealous.

Although I had a vague idea of the general story line, I can honestly say I had no idea of how it was going to end. When Luke’s hand was cut off I nearly wet myself, and when Darth Vader threw the Emperor down the shaft my heart was beating so hard I could barely hear the TV.

Now I’m going to do the unthinkable and definitely risk losing my geek card forever… yes, I have seen the new trilogy, yes I liked them (admittedly, nowhere near as much as the original trilogy) and (here goes)… they almost enhanced the experience a little more. As much as you might not like to admit it, the characters have am important back story which affects the original trilogy. While knowing this back story may have ruined certain aspects (like Vader being Luke and Leia’s father… but come on, I don’t live in a cave), it meant I understood references, saw symmetry and generally followed the story line much better.

Though the high I experienced at the time has passed, and the history of lies may obscure the exact timeline, I will never forget how I felt the first time I saw these movies. Anything that has had such an enormous impact on popular culture has to be seen to be believed; and I should probably leave it at that before I come up with any more clichés.

Someday I’ll go through the details more carefully, but for now… Luke is made of awesome and Han and Leia’s kiss in The Empire Strikes Back also had me wetting myself!

Some thoughts on Doctor Who: The End of Time

I watched part one on Christmas day like a good little geek, my expectations high (as well as my blood sugar level… damned mulled wine). For some reason I can’t remember I had missed Waters of Mars and so I watched it earlier in the day and this did nothing but raise my expectations higher!

I hate when people put reviews in context… I do apologise.

The first half seems hardly worth mentioning. It was an average episode (though in all honesty, as good as any other ’special’) which introduced the story but to me, it felt like one bit exposition. It’s almost like they were worried it to too talky and they threw in a few needlessly violent moments for good measure. The ending was kind of strange. Bearable but as it turns out, a little redundant, and speaking of redundancy… Why was the music so loud and so constant? Music can really make or break a Doctor Who episode. There are so many episodes where the cheesiness takes over, all because of the music. If they want to make it so majorly dramatic, the least they could do is make it fit into the episode and enhance it as opposed to completely overpowering everything. I really don’t have much to say about this whole episode. It’s like watching the first half of a movie but waiting a week to watch the end.

And What an end….

It opened with a good old fashioned dose of character development; The Doctor is torn between his resentment of the Master and his captivation with a brother Time Lord. The Master’s madness driving betrays him and he almost begs the Doctor for help. It’s such an alluring scene I was almost sad when the Doctor and Wilf got away!

The episode carries on on a similar vein. They end up in space in the Cactus’s space craft  and in the middle of the hype, they spare a moment for old gramps to stare in wonder at the earth from above- a pleasant reminder of the occasional reality behind sci-fi.I laughed a little at the scene where Wilf tried to convince The Doctor to take his gun. The Doctor considers all the possible situations he might require a gun and refuses (”Never.”), then 5 seconds later he realises that actually, he may need it after all…

A final face-off, where the Doctor decides whether it’d be better to kill the Master or the Gaillfreyan president and after what felt like an hour of suspense I feared might kill me, he ordered the Master out of the way and blew the whole contraption to kingdom come in a moment of “Why didn’t I think of that earlier…”, as the president threatens to take the Doctor with him. Our faith in the Master’s hunaity is once again restored as he forgets his lines and steals someone else’s, demanding the Doctor gets out of the way and buggers up the president before he makes it to hell.

But what’s this? The Doctor is still alive! This is good, and we all breathe a sigh of relief along with the Doctor. Then suddenly, the four knocks and everyone, including the Doctor, thinks “Oh Crap”, as he realises he’s going to die- not to save the world or to bring the end of another, but for one man.

The last 20 minutes are a little odd. Not only does he not regenerate right away. He has a good few hours to pop around his scrap book and say goodbye to some people he will more than likely see again. A lesser doctor would certainly not have been given such a goodbye, but this is freaking David Tennant!

I absolutely adore David Tennant, but I hate him for leaving the roll of the Doctor. Oddly enough, after about 30 seconds of yelling “I don’t want you to go either!” Matt Smith appeared and all was forgiven within his first 5 lines.

I am ridiculously excited about the new series now!