[Moonliner]

And now for my comments on the movie. Respect the use of the spoiler tag. However parents with young ones planning to attend the show might want to continue.

Spoiler:

I’m sure all the finer details about the movie will be discussed, dissected and argued about for at least the next week or two. So what I would like to share is my personal feelings about the movie. Just a few years ago I would have given this movie major props as I suspect many of you will. I will always be a hard core Star Wars fan but first and foremost I’m a dad and that’s where this movie is a big problem for me. It’s heavy. Heavy in a Star Wars meets “Apocalypse Now” kind of way. No Jar-Jar binks, No insipid puns from C3PO, no cute aliens, all the things I personally hated about Episode I and II are gone from this movie. Instead we have betrayal, corruption, whole sale slaughter and the graphic death of the innocents. Palpatine is evil and not the classic somewhat stylized evil of the earlier episodes. No, we are talking Hannibal Lector type evil and Annie, sweet little Annie brutally and oh so graphically follows him down that road of evil and then one ups him. Just what in the hell am I supposed to do with a nine year old that is dying to see this movie? Characters my kids love from the earlier episodes are sliced, diced and puréed in full color and not by some nameless clone, but by Annie, sweet little Annie the kid who’s picture is still on my little ones pillowcase. I expect you are going to hear a lot of backlash on this from parents that took their kids to see “Star Wars” and had no idea what they were getting into. Parents like me. Due to my self imposed blackout I really had no idea just HOW dark this movie is. Fortunately, I did not take the kids with me last night, but I have tickets for them to a show today and I honestly don’t know at this point what I am planning to do. I expect more than a few parents are going to be sitting there slack jawed as the heads and limbs go flying and even worse as the emotional toll of turning Anakin to the dark side plays out.