I find your lack of faith disturbing

I did my duty (and I wanted to.....) and went to see the preview screening of Episode III in the middle of Wednesday night. There we all were, lightsabres aloft, awaiting the last chance to see a decent Star Wars prequel and drinking rum and coke (smuggled in obviously). We all felt a strange sense of solidarity as the fans piled in; relieved to note we were not the only ones with lightsabres, although costumes were at a minumum (glad I resisted the gold bikini urge then) signalling a rather sober crowd.

The cinema had decided to arrange usher/ettes for this special occasion (there usually aren’t any at this cinema), who wandered around selling ice creams, or rather trying to, the room being full of people requesting coffee instead. There were many shouts for caffeine in order to facilitate the staying awake. I suddenly realised as I scanned the room that of course we needed coffee, this wasn’t a young vibrant crowd, this was a bunch of grumpy, jaded thirtysomethings, who’d been there the first time round. All feeling the strain of being up ‘til 4am on a school night. The majority of these adults had left their own kids with neighbours/parents and taken the next morning off work, all for this film that had been growing in significance in our minds for past 3 years.

A rather odd experience I thought it was, not for the film itself which I thought was a dramatic improvement (time will tell whether or not that opinion is simply Star Wars blindness in action again – the mistaking of the next episode for good just because it was better than the last – definition courtesy of Simon Pegg). There was some improved acting (towards the end anyway) and I think we enjoyed it for what it was.

But the oddness came from the scenario of sitting in a room full of people covering this tiny age-range, all ready to cheer at the credits (which we did, by the way) and it was strange and fun and unlikely to occur again. After all the age of the cinema is being challenged by the DVD (I am all for this, I love home film viewing), and the next cinematic event that covers 30 years (if there is one), I shall clearly be far too old to be involved in. So for the finality of this event and the shared knowledge of that truth, if nothing else, I am glad I stayed up all night cheering and waving bits of plastic.

I’m not growing up or anything though!!

Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope.

I quite clearly haven’t written for ages and there are a number of extremely good reasons for this. Mainly that Uni is causing me excessive stress and grumpiness. Although I am quite good at grumpiness anyway, recently I’ve been an expert. I have a lot of work to do and have felt a larger than usual challenge over what has to be done. I however, shall sort it out, overcome and no doubt get a truly fantastic grade, which shall ensure my future as a person with a job. I hope. I still have absolutely no idea what I might plan to do with my degree, assuming I get it that is. Although, I’ve been watching far, far too many Japanese films recently and now rather fancy applying for a job as Samurai warrior. However since they don’t appear to be advertising and I’m not agile enough to get out of the car without tripping over, I fear my chances are slim.

I have endeavoured to do some fun stuff this weekend in order to take my mind off it and then I’ll promise to get back to it on Monday. I even bought a light-sabre at the Comic Convention in Bristol, it has realistic sounds (yay!) and my friend Clare and I had a wee battle on Saturday night, which was greatly amusing. We thought we might take them along to the preview showing of Episode III on Wednesday night and fight while we queue, since I understand that we could be waiting for sometime. We’ll also fit in with all the Star Wars fanatics who’ll be there. Notice I haven’t included myself in that group even though I just bought a light-sabre with sound-effects, I love Star Wars, own all the films and am not above watching the original trilogy in one sitting.

In recording my weekend activities and that fact that I pre-booked for the Preview of Episode III and various other confessions, I realise that I have unwittingly revealed that I am actually a complete geek and no amount of denying it will change this fact. Never mind, I have come to terms with this long ago and of course it means that me and my man get on like a house on fire. Never a dull moment!

About to watch Run Lola, Run, so I’m off. The books are stacked awaiting my eager return to them tomorrow morning.

I think I’d like a large glass of vino.