MAY THE FORCE BE ...
UP YOUR ASS!!


Tripe acting. Tripe wooden performances. Tripe running time. Tripe bunch of schmucks posing as a audience. That doesn't even begin to sum up what a slightly tripe weekend the PP Guru has spent this entire last weekend being lured in by all the hype.

Yes, the PP Guru spent all last weekend getting involved with all the brouhaha that was associated with the latest brain dead masterpiece that is shilling itself as Star Wars these days concocted by that brain dead master of box office hocus pocus, George Lucas.


Yes, the PP Guru was a trifle excited about the concluding chapter in the prequel trilogy like any other flesh & blood carbon dioxide breathing lifeform, but squandered his enthusiam, savored it as you will by the Jedi mind trick of patience and biding one's time; for the PP Guru had to stay his distance and bone up on his research- which consisted of DVD recap viewings of the first movie, The Phantom Menace and the second, Attack of the Clones- that way, the PP Guru's mind would feel invigorated and in sync to tackle on the new challenges of ... well, let's say ... General Greivious for example:


So, once the PP Guru got that out of the way on a humid Saturday afternoon, he went a two hour break to get up and stretch his tunics, make a sojourn to the local comic book shop, Earth 2, woof down a taco salad at Carl's Jr., and buy some California lotto tickets. The PP Guru was going to make a short day of Saturday and try to go to bed early so he could get up early to catch the 8:40 AM showing at that hacienda palaces of a movie theaters in Westwood known as the Fox Theater. The PP Guru has seen the entire prequel trilogy there in massive thunderous THX sound and digital quality projection- so why shouldn't this final chapter be deprived of the same quality performance (pity the poor fools who waited months for it to play at the Chinese - and wound up having to be diverted to the Arclight.)? So while the PP Guru was trying to cram his regular scheduled DVD episodes of Miami Vice and Starsky & Hutch, along with some cheeseball early seventies sci fi flick- the PP Guru just realized something very important:

How can the PP Guru go to see Revenge of the Sith without watching the Clone Wars animated series?

The PP Guru has had the DVD lying around for months but hasn't had a chance to watch it all in its' entirety - plus he had set his timer to record the entire new season that had aired on the Cartoon Network a few months back.

The PP Guru hates it when he procrastinates on matters such as this.

So the PP Guru winded staying up until 2 AM watching cartoons with storylines that are supposed to be detrimental to the storylines that are covered in the movie.

As exhaustation would have it, the PP Guru didn't get up in time to make his appointment and had to wait until the 12 noon showing last Sunday- where he had to share aisle space with the last of the rowdy weekend hecklers who wouldn't shut the fuck up while the movie was running .

The PP Guru supposes that is a good thing he made time to recaliber his entertainment system to play the freaking cartoons the night before.

And he was glad he did - because when the movie opens up - it takes place directly after the events that have occured in the animated series. In the animated series you get to learn how Palapitine was kidnapped and how Anakin made the ranking of Jedi Knight- So he was able to hurdle through the first hour of the movie with a clear conscience.

But the PP Guru can only tell you that it only deteriorates from there on in.....at least until Obi Wan gets to kick the living tin shit out of General Greivious. From that point things being to spiral out of anti-climatic control.

And the PP Guru has to say - it's falls like the Republic onto Lucas' lap. He begins to show short spurts of creative steam, but unlike a marathon runner, he can't muster the distance to see it through the end. As soon as Anakin does a about face in his turn to the dark side (without nary a hint of resistence at all)- Lucas has going through a obstacle path that is not too firmly laid out - that it sputters within meters of the finish line. The PP Guru doesn't want to lay the blame on Hayden Christansen this time, because it does show that he's improving in his range as a actor- it just that Lucas has him leashed on retainer just as a dipsomaniac flocks to the last drops of what remains in a deserted bottle of ripple left over on the park bench on the night before.

The turn to the dark side is just too drunk with power without a hint of rationalty, if you ask the PP Guru. Slaughtering a room full of Jedi juniors? Now Lucas, that just takes the proverbial lightsaber hemmoroidal depository.

Cut to the insatiable climactical lightsaber duel battle between Obi Wan and Anakin, as they dazzle our very eyes with somersults and jumping jack splits over CGI background areas of lava flotsam and jetsam until the end result has Obi Wan slicing through Anakin's legs from under him and has him flop around like a flounder which sadly reminded me of the Black Knight's demise in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. And then to add insult to boiling flesh injury, Anakin slides into the lava AND STILL SURVIVES before being rescued and whisked away by the evil Emperor Palaptine (who barely walks away from a one on one with Yoda) to be remolded as Darth Vader. Then Anakin and his secret betrothed Senator Padme Amadalia share one last psyche link - to herald the birth of the twins, Leia and Luke before Padme shifts off into standard operating room oblivion and they are taken off to live in seperate houses on seperate planets.....to forever be obscured by the dawn of the evil empire

Now the above wrap up sounds all nice and dandy of what we've always were led to believe by how the mythos was supposed be recited- but Lucas's direction of the lack of empathy from his actors leaves these final scenes with very little to be desired. He can better emote a performance out of a CGI Yoda than a real life person- He is so consumed with the modern technology that he, in retrospect has become a programmed entity in himself.

And there even are more junky subplots that keeps Lucas's bionic fist shaking into a freshy cemented corner:

(A) Why did Yoda even have to bring up Qui -Gon Jinn' ability to astral project to Obi-Wan? That could lend itself as a potential continuity flaws to Episode 4. There is no mention AT ALL of Qui-Gon Jinn in A New Hope.

(B) And why not the rest of the Jedi that were slaughtered in this film? Why can't they astral project to their padawans their ways of the Force like Obi-Wan or Yoda can? Where did Mace Windu's spirit actually go when The Emperor tossed him out that Chancellor office window?

(C) It would have helped to make the movie at least 3 hours in length. If Lucas is go on record and say this movie is going to have a Titantic epic crossover appeal - dude, mammoth length is the chic ticket here, especially if you're going to end the series out on a bang. You should had scenes of Darth Vader pondering or sensing that his children are alive out there somewhere in a galaxy far far away and a temptation to resist going after them.

(D) C'mon, Yoda, after nearly kicking the emperor Palaptine's skinny white bubbly ass, announces to everyone that he has to go into exile? Another Lucas senior writing moment, perhaps? Yoda doesn't run from fights!!

The PP Guru could go on and on. But the PP Guru will stop for now and give Lucas' final optical opus one moistened thumb in the air to check where the wind blows and the other thumb to clean out the sludge from out his rectoral cavitity.

As told to:

~ Coat