So I’ve seen RotS twice now, and I have a couple of questions. These are the kind of questions that nitpickers like me notice. If you haven’t seen the movie, you may not want to read this, as there are spoilers.

• In RotJ, Leia says that she remembers stuff about her mother – “Just images really. Feelings… She was very beautiful, kind, but sad.” Then Luke says “I have no memory of my mother. I never knew her.” How does Leia have memories of her mother when Luke has none? They both “knew” her for the same amount of time before she died – minutes. Perhaps Leia is sensing her mother through the Force, but Luke is arguably more gifted in the Force than Leia, so why can’t he feel anything?
• Leia is adopted by Senator Bail Organa. In Episodes IV-VI, she’s referred to as “Princess” Leia. Where did the “Princess” part come from? It kind of looked like Organa’s wife was the same person as the Queen of Naboo in AotC, but according to the credits on imdb.com, that actress didn’t appear in RotS.
• Yoda and Obi-Wan decide to split the twins up to keep them hidden from the Sith. So why wouldn’t he change Luke’s name from Skywalker?
• (This is a question from AotC that never got answered in Revenge of the Sith) Jango Fett says that he was recruited for the cloning project by “a man named Tyranus”, who we later find out is Count Dooku. Yet, Dooku is amassing a huge droid army. When the clone army appears, he has no idea where the Republic got such an army. Unless this was all part of Darth Sidious’ plot to start a war, and Dooku is pretending not to know where the clone army came from. Just thought of that.

Another interesting list – people who have hands, arms, or legs cut off by light sabers:

1. Dude at cantina – arm (ANH)
2. Luke – hand (TESB)
3. Darth Vader – hand (RotJ)
4. Anakin – arm (AotC)
5. Count Dooku – both hands (RotS)
6. Mace Windu – hand (RotS)
7. Anakin – both legs (RotS)

Strange that Anakin has the same hand cut off twice – once in AotC by Dooku, and then again in RotJ by Luke.

What an awesome movie! Not too unexpected that I would like it, considering I’m a bit of a Star Wars geek, but it really was a great movie, much better than The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones. Partially because Jar Jar Binks said almost nothing, but mainly because there was lots of action, great special effects, and plenty of tie-ins with the original trilogy. The story didn’t get too silly (like The Phantom Menace), nor too political (like Attack of the Clones). Since everyone knows how it ends, I won’t give away anything by stating that Chancellor Palpatine becomes the Emperor – I really liked how they did the “transformation”, particularly with the voices. Palpatine had his “friendly old man” voice, while Darth Sidious had his “evil Emperor” voice, and they gradually merged together.

One plot point still confuses me though. In Attack of the Clones, Jango Fett, the “model” for the clones, states that he was recruited for the project by “a man called Tyrannus”, and later on, we discover that Count Dooku is Darth Tyrannus. But then, when the clone army shows up to take on Dooku’s droid army, Dooku has no idea where the army came from, and mentions that he doesn’t know how the Republic could have gotten an army that big.

Anyway, I’m going to see it again next week – iAnywhere is renting a theater in Waterloo for all engineering employees. I can bring a guest too, so Gail’s coming too. It’ll probably be out on DVD by Christmas, and I’m sure I’ll be purchasing it then.

Update:Forgot to mention one thing about Revenge of the Sith – the scenes with Padme and Anakin expressing their love for one another are rather painful. Roger Ebert said “To say that George Lucas cannot write a love scene is an understatement; greeting cards have expressed more passion.” and as usual, he’s right.

We rented The Wild Thornberrys Movie the other day for the kids, and watched it tonight. Pretty good movie – the kids liked it, and it was entertaining enough for us too. It’s obviously from the same people who do the Rugrats, which I don’t like, but the potty humour was minimal in this one (other than the wedgie dance, which was actually kind of funny). Interesting fact: the voice of Donnie Thornberry, the “jungle kid”, is done by Flea, bassist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Blockbuster has this new “no late fees” policy now – if your movie is late, they don’t charge late fees. However, if you keep the movie more than a week after the due date, they charge you the full price of the movie (minus the rental charge), so you’ve just bought it. So, on your rental receipt, for each movie, it says “keep it and pay just $x more”. For example, we rented National Treasure the other night (entertaining, if completely implausible), and the receipt said that for just $24 extra (or thereabouts, I can’t remember exactly), we could keep it. For the Thornberrys movie, the receipt said that we have to pay $3.00 more to keep the movie. Since it cost about $3.99 to rent it in the first place, it comes down to this: if we think we might ever rent this movie again, it’s cheaper just to keep it now and pay the $3. Sounds kind of like one of those fast food specials, where a burger and fries costs $5.50, but the burger-fries-drink combo costs $4.99, so it’s cheaper to get the drink and throw it away than not to get it at all.

We rented Oceans Twelve last night. Not bad, not as good as the first one (well, the second first one, never seen the 1960 one). The bit about Julia Roberts acting as Tess acting as Julia Roberts was really clever, and Bruce Willis’ cameo was more than just a cameo. The story was kind of confusing, but the rest of the movie was good enough to make up for that. The cast was really good – George Clooney and Brad Pitt work well together, and Matt Damon was funny in that one minute he was the confident con man, and the next he was the nervous insecure kid trying to learn from Rusty. Elliot Gould was sufficiently slimy, and Julia had some scenes where she actually looked like a real person, not the beautiful rich woman like in the first one.

I really like Brad Pitt as an actor. He and Tom Cruise are two actors who seemingly became famous because of their looks, and then surprised everyone by actually being able to act. Tom isn’t as good as Brad, but he’s been very good in some of his last few roles (Collateral, The Last Samurai).