Save the last Sith for me...

When the last Lord of the Rings film came out, I will admit that my husband and I were pretty excited about the whole thing. Neither of us had ever been LOTR fans previous to the movies but the whole spectacle had overwhelmed us and we were hooked. As a surprise for him, I bought two tickets for the midnight showing on opening day. We realized that it was going to be a zoo so we got there at what we thought was an early enough time for our showing. To our amazement, even two hours before the show started we were lined up around the building. Looking back I realize that this was complete naivety on our part but holy moly! In line with us were two Gandalfs, a few Frodos sprinkled throughout and then the odd Legolas generally surrounded by a crowd of squealing prepubescent admirers who seemed unclear of the fact that this was not actually Orlando Bloom but rather a guy who was probably scamming for his first interaction with someone of the opposite sex. All in all we had a blast for two reasons - the movie which was fantastic and the fans who were a show unto themselves.

Unfortunately we did not have the same experience three weekends ago when we went to see the new Star Wars film. I will be the first to admit that I was severely disappointed by the first two of the last three (Or first three... is it confusing to anyone else?) in the same way that I was let down by the new effects that George Lucas put into the originals. I mean, changing the Ewok song to some Kool and the Gang reject song, sure to be featured on Anthony Federov's first album? C'mon George! Couple that with the over reliance on CGI and the Tiger Beat dialogue between Padme and Anakin that could have been taken from any intricately folded note passed between 8th graders on their way to PE and I was not a happy camper. But I was very optimistic from the reviews and decided to get excited with everyone else. My sister and I even came up with some catchy t-shirt slogans that would have been great like "Someone in Tantooine Loves Me", "My Parents Went to Hoth and all I got was this lousy t-shirt" and "I Love Mogs" (a clever Space Balls reference anyone?). This was going to totally rock!

We went on Friday night to the local theater where they were playing the movie every fifteen minutes. We got tickets for the 10:45 show that was half an hour away, bought our overpriced sodas and headed into the theater. There were eight of us in total so we were fairly confident that we would not all be sitting together but as we looked up at the top row there were eight beautiful seats sitting in a perfect row. It was as if they were beckoning to us saying, “Come, let us cradle you as you partake of cinematic ecstasy”. We were more than willing to oblige and headed up. My sister asked the people sitting next to those seats if they were saved and they told her they were not and that we were more than welcome to them. We trooped up there like men on a mission and then it happened. The Dark Side took over.

Sitting two rows down from where we were heading was a man who overheard our conversation. Suddenly this cretin stands up and proceeds to hurdle those two rows like Flo Jo being chased by a bull on fire. He throws himself into the middle seat, looks at us, and with a gleam in his eye and a snarl on his lips says the most unimaginable thing ever. He said “YOINK!” Now I consider myself a fairly intelligent person, but I have yet to come up with a credible definition for the word yoink. I can’t find it in my dictionary but I feel confident that it might just be in Batman’s lexicon along with ZIRP! BLIG! and KWIRT! My husband, who is normally competing with the Dali Lama for who can be more peaceful, suddenly was a raging beast as ugly words were exchanged between him and Mr. Emily Post who had taken our seats. Finally, he realized that this guy was never going to give us what was rightfully ours simply by the fact that he was a guy (note I did not say man!). We found two other groups of seats close to each other and fumed until the movie actually started. As it turned out, my brother in law recognized the guy as someone he used to work with – OUCH!!! And as if to make matters worse, he was only ever joined by one other person. The cruelty! The travesty! The blog fodder!

Later that night I asked my husband how he felt about the whole incident. His answer amused me to no end. He said, “I wanted to hurt this guy and I was more than willing to step outside with him. I just realized though that I never want there to be a story about me where I got into a fight at a Star Wars movie.” All I can say is true dat. I guess the moral of this story is that the Dark Side is real and to avoid it one should stay in Middle Earth.