Great and Bad Memories

So I geeked it up! Yep, I went to the "Star Wars: In Concert," and channeled my inner "Star Wars" geek and loved it! If you haven't seen the show yet and it comes anywhere near you, check it out!
Before the show I walked around and got tons of photos and I felt like a little kid again! I remembered that excitement I had when I saw the original "Star Wars," back when it was just "Star Wars" and not "Star Wars... episode IV a New Hope."


Inside the arena the stage was huge with lots of screens and as the concert started, I was quickly transformed back to 1977 when it all began. If you've followed this blog at all you know that this is the film that made me want to be a director.

As I sat in my seat, watching, listening to the score I was reminded how great John Williams is as a composer. All six of the "Star Wars," films were represented visually and musically. And to make everything special, Anthony Daniels aka "C-3PO" was live and did the narration throughout the show.

It was a great night to hear and see everything but at the same time, brought back terrible memories of the first three "Star Wars" films. I will say it over and over and over again... the first three films... the new ones... are horrible! You can tell, even during the concert, not by the score, which still was good, but by the visuals. George Lucas got away from telling a great story and integrating special effects carefully. "Star Wars," 1977 was for me the perfect blend of special effects, story and music. It still feels great when I watch it today. When I watch or see anything from the new three "Star Wars" films all I can see are poorly developed characters and entirely too much CGI!

Just look at some of the shots in space or in some of the ground battles and Lucas learned some new tricks and got some new toys and over did it. Too many layers of graphics, too many characters on the screen.

It was like he felt, "Oh there is some empty space on the screen in the upper left corner so let's put another 500 droids there fighting and that should fill up space."

He didn't need all of that! It just breaks my heart every time I see anything from the first three films.

Anyway, the concert was fun and I loved being there and hearing and seeing everything again. Kudos to John Williams and to George Lucas for creating a huge building block of my life.