4:29 PM: White Stripes/Star Wars/School

I'm finally done with Star Wars. After eight years of collecting Star Wars memorabilia, obsessing over minutia and hypothetical situations in the Star Wars universe, and half-heartedly defending the first two prequels, I've had enough. Revenge of the Sith, despite having every possible variable in it's favor, still managed to be a complete disappointment. Lucas might as well have just taken my $7.50 and shat on my face. Not to say that the movie was truly awful, but when a director as celebrated as Lucas squanders the opportunity to make the definitive American film of the last twenty years, it's hard to feel anything but disgust for him.
Aside from the wooden dialogue and high-school-production-of-Peter-Pan level acting, which are to be expected in any Star Wars movie, there were more than enough missed opportunities, unfortunate casting choices, cheesy special effects, and comical plot devices to infuriate even the casual fan. Here are just a few things that irritated me while watching RotS (spoilers, of course):

- General Grevious. What a huge, gaping pussy. He could have been a great villian, but Lucas turned him into a robo-bitch. When he pulled those four lightsabers out I almost creamed my pants, but Lucas made him look like just another droid in both of his fights with Anakin. Some have said that the reason that Grevious and Dooku were both defeated so easily was to show how uber Anakin was before he got chopped up, but that's no excuse for boring fight scenes in a fucking Star Wars movie. Isn't that suppose to be Lucas' strength?

- "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!" Darth Vader is not Frankenstein. Thanks for ruining what could have been the most emotionally powerful scene in any of the Star Wars films, you fucking asshole.

- Hayden Christenson. His scenes with Padme did nothing to convince me that he wants to be anywhere near a vagina.

- Obi Wan's wonderful "You were the chosen one!" speech should have been the final section of dialogue in the movie.

- It's impossible to take Palpatine seriously after his face melts and goes pale during his fight with Mace Windu. Everyone already knows he's the emperor, you don't have to ruin my suspension of disbelief to make it even more obvious, douche bag.

- The first twenty minutes of the movie set a light tone that was completely inconsistent with the rest of the film. This is supposed to be the darkest film in the series, not the Star Wars Christmas Special 2. Take your stupid droid jokes and stick them where they'll never shine again. Ever.

...you get the point. There were many more flaws in this film, but those were some of the things that bothered me the most. What did you think? Leave a comment.

Onto the free albums:


White Stripes - Get Behind Me Satan


Get Behind Me Satan marks a new direction for the White Stripes, one that's sure to annoy a lot of fans. Gone are the band's signature classic rock riffs, replaced (with varying degrees of success) by a new focus on lyrical content and experimentation with several new instruments, including the elusive marimba. It's a big step forward for the band, and bound to make Dylan freaks happy, but the experimentation on Get Behind Me Satan might turn off the band's many mainstream and classic rock fans. Another potential speed bump is the album's lack of singles. After Blue Orchid and surefire second single Take, Take, Take, there's nothing here ready for widespread consumption.
While the White Stripes should be applauded for not taking a second straight step backward after Elephant, the lack of accessibility is eventually going to be GBMS's downfall. With some luck, Blue Orchid might be able to hold the White Stripes critical backlash off until the end of the summer, but after that, all bets are off.