On Talking about Star Wars

I wasn’t impressed with Revenge of the Sith. Indeed, I was bored out of my skull by the film.

I generally don’t tell people that, though.

I manage a video game store. My customers have seen the film multiple times, and it’s not unusual for three or four each day to rave about how awesome the film is.

I grit my teeth and bear it. About the worst I will say, though, is that I found some parts of the film unintentionally funny. Such as the Obi-Wan/Anakin fight and the “birth” of Darth Vader in the biolab.

Last month when the video game came out, I had to say positive things about Sith–that was our featured game for the month. And the Sith game isn’t a bad game. It’s actually an enjoyable one, reminiscent of The Two Towers, albeit a short game. Though I wasn’t enthralled by the film, I could recommend the game with no qualms.

Yesterday, though, a kid asked about what I thought of Sith. I told him. I told him the film bored me. I told him I checked my watch a lot. I told him the film disappointed me. He couldn’t understand how someone couldn’t like Sith.

It came down to surprises, I said. Long-time Star Wars fans knew how Darth Vader was born. Knew that Anakin and Obi-Wan would have a duel atop a volcano, and Anakin would fall in. That was established years ago in one of the novelizations. The excitement in the story would have been in getting there, and Sith provided no excitement and wasn’t creative in its storytelling choices. It had a by-the-numbers plot.

Keeping mum about Sith comes down to politeness. Game geekdom and Star Wars geekdom overlap. Offend one, and business that flows from the other may flow away. It’s just the reality of the situation.