Thursday, June 09, 2005

Losers in Long Lines at Star Wars Episode III

[being the slacker I am I know this is a month late but....]

I know the title is a bit dregrading but hey I was the second loser in line!

We arrived around 4 PM to stand in line for the mid-night showing of
the latest episode of the latest Star Wars trilogy. There was one
other person in front of us. She too was holding spaces for a group of
friends --- my group would eventually total ten [I had the task of
buying the tix and holding our spot in line].

Heck we had done this as a group since our days of working together at
800-Trekker [a once great sci-fi mail order company] so why should we
stop now.

As the night continued the rest of my group started appearing. We took
turns leaving for potty breaks and to get food [theater was none to
happy with us for outside food but we weren't technically in the
theater yet]. We played games. Mostly sat / stood around and talked
about all things but mostly sci-fi. One of the guys in front of us was
a trekkie too so we talk star trek in a star wars line [I thought for
sure something was going to open up and swallow us whole].

Then the local news came around and interviewed some of us. I was one
of those interviewed [as they say hind sight is 20/20], I did not plug
the site nor mention my online sci-fi group www.pagodascifi.com, most
of who were in line with me --- DOH! Also did not bother calling
anyone as I hoped my portion would be edited out. It was not, as I
later found out.

Folks came in costume. Some pretty lame others were most excellent.
[Will post pics somewhere --- most likely my yahoo group Pagoda Scifi
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pagoda_scifi/

The TV camera guy caught a full costume Vader dancing on the arcade
game, Dance Dance Revolution...priceless.

Loads of folks had the Master Replicas Light up Lightsabres. [Way cool
at around $100 bucks]

As the night progressed so did the line. I took a walk down through
and got to stop and talk with other friends/fans as I did.

The whole night was a great experience and it was topped off by a
pretty good film. Yes, the acting was a bit shallow and the dialog
wasn't great, but it was packed with action, lead right into Episode
IV [A New Hope] and both R2 and Yoda had the best parts [but isn't it
supposed to be that way]. Even though you missed the fun of the
midnight show go see this film on the big screen.