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krpalmerI was very aware that as May approached so did the tenth anniversary of The Phantom Menance, but when the 19th arrived I was off at sea on my vacation. I had contemplated tossing the DVD into my suitcase, but it seemed just too crowded in the end, to say nothing of my perpetual thought that if I'm going to watch one Star Wars movie I might as well get around to watching the other five, not playing favourites... (I suppose I do have to admit now that trying to "rip" the DVD to my portable computer's not quite full hard drive never occurred to me at the time.) I was able to see the commemorative posts of others as they were made, but in seeing them without a commemorative viewing of my own there was a trace of melancholy, remembering how my own positive first reaction seemed somehow very alone and how I wound up for long, arid years not quite ready to watch any of the Star Wars movies for fear that I might at last flip out the way it seemed everyone else had, my reactions to too many other things also coloured in troubling ways by the random sidelong swipes discussions about them seemed too often to make...
Eventually, I was lucky to discover some other positive people, and at last I worked up the courage to return to the Star Wars movies, the experience somehow distinctive and energising. Eventually, too, I had what seemed the time to make that belated "ten years later" viewing, and decided that I could put the whole weekend into seeing all six movies. I had done that before, not going quite so far as to try and see them all in one day; still, having a good break in between each movie doesn't seem that bad to me. However, it just so happened that once again I seem to have experienced something new in the process...
I had been wondering a little how TPM's effects would look "ten years later," aware of how they look different from Revenge of the Sith's, but it soon seemed that they just "looked different," not necessarily worse. Beyond that, though, there was a new feeling developing... I had been willing enough in the past to assume that people were first of all offended by "too much comedy relief," and that this somehow provoked hyper-critical interpretations... but all of a sudden, I could no longer see why people could be offended. Something about that seemed laden with hubris, and I was able to decide that with an effort, someone could dislike the movie, but even that was different in a way from thinking that I had somehow "made" myself like it just because the alternative seemed sort of depressing.
Even with that sudden and strange feeling, I pushed on through the saga, and realised that while I might have missed the precise tenth anniversary of TPM, I was right on time for the fifth anniversary of the DVD release of the "original trilogy." I had of course had my lucky encounters just in time to be enthusiastic rather than reluctant about the release, and while perhaps this time around shifting between "trilogies" seemed a little more ambiguous than usual for me, leaving me wishing at once that "it could be 1977 again" and "what would it be like first seeing this after the new movies," I seemed to come out all right in the end. Seeing all the movies in a weekend is a good experience, although now I'm wondering what that would be like in the "hybrid order" I tried over six weeks' time. Perhaps that's for the next time.
Eventually, I was lucky to discover some other positive people, and at last I worked up the courage to return to the Star Wars movies, the experience somehow distinctive and energising. Eventually, too, I had what seemed the time to make that belated "ten years later" viewing, and decided that I could put the whole weekend into seeing all six movies. I had done that before, not going quite so far as to try and see them all in one day; still, having a good break in between each movie doesn't seem that bad to me. However, it just so happened that once again I seem to have experienced something new in the process...
I had been wondering a little how TPM's effects would look "ten years later," aware of how they look different from Revenge of the Sith's, but it soon seemed that they just "looked different," not necessarily worse. Beyond that, though, there was a new feeling developing... I had been willing enough in the past to assume that people were first of all offended by "too much comedy relief," and that this somehow provoked hyper-critical interpretations... but all of a sudden, I could no longer see why people could be offended. Something about that seemed laden with hubris, and I was able to decide that with an effort, someone could dislike the movie, but even that was different in a way from thinking that I had somehow "made" myself like it just because the alternative seemed sort of depressing.
Even with that sudden and strange feeling, I pushed on through the saga, and realised that while I might have missed the precise tenth anniversary of TPM, I was right on time for the fifth anniversary of the DVD release of the "original trilogy." I had of course had my lucky encounters just in time to be enthusiastic rather than reluctant about the release, and while perhaps this time around shifting between "trilogies" seemed a little more ambiguous than usual for me, leaving me wishing at once that "it could be 1977 again" and "what would it be like first seeing this after the new movies," I seemed to come out all right in the end. Seeing all the movies in a weekend is a good experience, although now I'm wondering what that would be like in the "hybrid order" I tried over six weeks' time. Perhaps that's for the next time.