The Dotted Logline

I caught the end of the new Return Of The Jedi DVD. For those who haven’t heard, Lucas made a number of changes to the original trilogy for the DVD release, one of the most noticible being the addition of Hayden Christensen to the happy Jedi ghost party scene in the RotJ finale. A lot of fans are screaming at the travesty but I actually like the change. With the prequels done, the rise and fall of Anakin Skywalker is firmly established in the Star Wars universe. It’s only fitting that the ghost of Anakin at the end should look the same as Anakin did in his last moments before he became Darth Vader. No offense to the actor who was edited out of the scene, but I always thought he looked out of place. He was just some guy.

I saw Revenge of the Sith again. As I expected, I liked it better the second time around. Then again, I was even able to tolerate Jar Jar in Phantom Menace by the third or fourth time around.

I think this time I was able to see Anakin’s desperation more, where before I was mostly reading him as angry. I still think most of the problems in the movie hinge on the weakness of Padme’s character. She’s just so dislikable in this movie that I can’t see anyone loving her enough to go to the extremes Anakin did. And lets not even get into the fact that she didn’t have the “will to live” for her children.

So many of the glaring problems could have been solved with just a few little tweaks to the plot. It’s times like these that I think I would be happy having a career rewriting other people’s scripts.

I finally got a full time job. Actually, I got an interview and was hired on the spot yesterday and started working today. It’s customer service, not really anything I want to do (or what I expected when I took the job, for that matter), but it’s a job, and I need to save up quite a bit of money if I want to move to LA.

One thing I’m worried about is how much writing I’ll be able to get done while working 40 hours a week, considering how little I was able to accomplish when I was only working part time. I actually did get a lot written last night before my first day at work, more than I had in the past few weeks. But I doubt I’ll be able to work any more days on only two hours of sleep.

Just got back from seeing Revenge of the Sith.

I think I might have outgrown Star Wars. This makes me very sad.

I just didn’t feel it. Maybe I was expecting too much. Maybe I knew too much. But I didn’t really know more than the average Star Wars fan, and probably a good bit less than the average fanatic. But overall it felt like a routine rearranging of chess pieces until they are at their positions for the start of the game (aka A New Hope.) I had trouble buying just how fast Anakin fell from grace. The lightsaber fights weren’t even that exciting because, more often than not, the outcome was already established. For me, it was just a movie just going through the motions. With really, really bad dialogue.

Is this what it means to be a screenwriter? That I’m unable to enjoy the summer blockbusters I was raised on? Even though that’s the sort of thing I’ve been trying to write, for the most part? Granted, I never thought the Star Wars movies were exceptionally GOOD, but I LIKED them.

Ah well, maybe I’ll like it more the second time around.

I was able to catch the full run of Clone Wars tonight on Cartoon Network. I think Star Wars was meant to be animated. The Jedi powers just look more impressive when taken out of a live-action setting. Even when the effects are done in flawless CG, violating the physics still looks just a bit silly.

But what really impressed me was General Grievous. Imagine a creepy badass horror movie monster stalking terrified helpless kids and slaughtering them one by one. Now take out the terrified helpless kids and replace them with Jedi.

I can’t wait to see Episode III now.

Hulk was an awful, awful, painfully bad movie. Not even fun bad, just bad bad. And I can’t even blame script or the Hulk Poodle. The transitions were just evil and jarring and totally unnecessary.

The Hulk Poodle was almost funny.

I’ve decided to take advantage of my new DreamHost account which will support up to three domains. My writing blog (hopefully someday part of a whole writing site) will have its own domain. Shiny.

On another note, my schedule has become a mess lately with working, trying to find a real job, trying to write, trying to find industry people to read my stuff, trying to sell everything I own, etc. So I most likely won’t be updating this blog as much as I’d like to. But I’m hoping I’ll make the time at least once or twice a week.