And so, we reach the final chapter. Ok, the third one, but the final one because the fourth, fifth and sixth were told first, then the first and second.
This was a milestone for my generation. I saw the fourth/first Star Wars movie in 1977. So I practically grew up with it. And now, we have closure.
There was free beer, lots of Jedi and Sith fondling their lightsabers, and popcorn. What's not to like?
It was hard carrying my el cheapo Freeze Sword Lightsaber (three-time winner of the Most Annoying Sounding Lightsaber Award) around Great World City without looking silly. Trust me, I tried carrying as casually as I could. Very hard. I even tried holding it backwards, so that the blade was behind my arm, but I ended up looking like some Chinese kung-fu movie swordsman. Worse.
I wore my Episode 1 T-shirt for the occasion too.
There were many fans dressed up for the screening. Stormtrooper TK931 was on hand for photo-taking, and so was Scout Trooper "Rev" (I made those names up, lah). The pair easily had the best costumes around, I thought.
I also saw Darth Vader, who had a great home-made costume, except the glasses got in the way a bit, I think.
We even spotted Luke Skywalker and Wedge Antilles (ok, I wasn't sure if he was Wedge, maybe a random Rebel pilot) lining up for popcorn and drinks.
R2D2's taller brother, er, R18, was there too. It was a valiant costume effort, but I think it was wise of him to stand away from the dustbins.
When the wife and I finally took our seats and met my friends inside the theatre, Gav remarked, upon seeing my great Jedi weapon, "Eh, I think the Power Rangers movie is next door lah." He was lucky I practised the lost ancient Jedi art of Not Lobbing His Head off with a Freeze Sword.
While I was busy snapping away at the festivities inside the Great World Golden Village cinema, one of their staff came to confiscate my camera. I think one of the Jedi Masters on my right also suffered the same fate. That sucked.
But the movie made up for it. George Lucas got it right this time, after the first two stinkers. But dammit, he has to stop writing the love dialogue. Next time call Miyagi to write. I was cringing during some of the Anakin and Padme scenes.
My wife held up pretty well throughout the movie. She is not as big a fan as I am, but she knows "who the bad guys and the good guys are". That is good enough.
We even had the time, after the show, to take silly photos of a face-off between Lord brown and Master Chandra. And special thanks to Mel for getting us the tix.
To end the evening, a bizarre thing happened. After my 7.40pm screening ended, I was on my way to get my camera from the camera-police, and was moving through the incoming 10pm crowd when I overheard my name. At first, I thought someone was calling me, but actually, a guy was telling his date, "mr brown is here tonight."
Small world, man.
For the whole photo fest, you can view my Flickr set for the event.
