OK… well not a lot of stuff to update. The last week has been REALLY hectic at work and has involved an awful lot of late nights. Yeah I know, I sound like a stuck record sometimes. Still, at least I managed to cut the carbs 🙂

On the brighter note, I took time out yesterday to go see Robots at the theater. I’m not sure if it’s because of the St. Patricks Day parade down in St. Louis or just a lack of advertising or what… but for the second day actually on the screen it was damned quiet. Quite concerning actually. It could also have been the movie theater itself. I went to the Wehrenberg 18 in St. Charles on 94. Not a bad theater really, but starting to show its age and a slight lack of maitenance. It’s starting to look like it’s not doing as financially well as some of the other theaters in town, and probably only a matter of time before it goes the way of the dodo. It’s really been surpassed by theaters that are located in major shopping districts or even inside malls… that’s where people GO. Having a theater on 94 makes no real sense… the location sucks for bringing in people since it’s still quite a way from the nearest shopping districts.

Wow, I’m rambling a little here. Ah well, it’s my blog and I’ll ramble if I want to 🙂

So what about the movie? Well, I’ll probably do my usual and post a review on IMDB sometime in the next day or so and then provide a link from here once it posts. The upshot is that I really enjoyed it. It provided a few out-loud laughs that I really enjoyed. Robin Williams was good, but wasn’t at his best for an animated feature. I still think his best work in animation was as Genie in Aladdin… here he was more than a little subdued and not quite as funny as he could have been. I’m not even really sure it was the material; most of the jokes were pretty good (even the adult joke in the first 10 minutes of the movie was prety amusing), but a few fell flat. All in all a good movie that’s worth seeing, but it’s not as masterfully funny and touching as Ice Age managed to be (the same people made it and there’s a good intro in Robots starring Scrat that had me laughing out loud).

Another thing I enjoyed was the latest trailer for Star Wars Episode III. OK… so the first two prequels haven’t exactly been masterpieces of cinema, but I think this promises to be good. Maybe not Empire Strikes Back good, but maybe A New Hope good. It looks dark, it looks foreboding and it looks like it actually has the balls to pull off the story that I feared Lucas would avoid; death, torture, fall to the dark side. Lucas has a chance to redeem himself with this one. Phantom Menace I didn’t like much… Attack of the Clones I have to admit I enjoyed despite the forced and horribly out of place “love scenes”.

I have to say that I hope I’m right; I hope that the prequels can’t really be taken as single movies… they’re a single story that will only really make sense when the rest of the story is complete. I must admit that events in AotC shed some new light on events in TPM; like Jar Jar being one of those responsible for the rise of the Empire, however accidental. I liked that touch and am hoping for more.

Maybe I’m getting my hopes up… but I will be seeing this in the theaters. I’m of the right age that I can honestly say I’ve seen EVERY Star Wars movie in theaters on first run, and remember fondly going to see the original trilogy with my father and brother(s). To me it would be a waste for me to not see this last chapter in theaters too. I’ll give Lucas another chance… and yes, I’ll give him my $$$ come May 19th. YMMV.