Do we want to continue watching prequels, or is the news too heavy? Ideally I will just watch Revenge of the Sith with minimal pausing. Also, it IS widescreen, so I'm less salty. #sithmas
I'm thinking back over Attack of the Clones, and the impression I get now is that Anakin is extremely whiny and childlike... on purpose. I find it more sympathetic if it's intentional, tbh. #sithmas
I went into it thinking, "this is a terrible love story," but maybe it functions--intentionally or not--more as the story of someone so insecure and emotionally stunted that he's an easy mark for corruption. #sithmas
Okay, so. "War! There are heroes on both sides. Evil is everywhere." So sayeth the crawl. I think the Clone Wars show must have happened between prequels? I am at 94/100 shards on General Kenobi. #sithmas
Really great sense of depth in this opening aerial battle (in widescreen). Better hair for everyone, Temuera Morrisons as far as the eye can see. #sithmas
Here are my clone troopers (they need a lot of work), but you can see they have separate identities. #sithmas 
I am going to make a confession. I ended up seeing this randomly in the theater ("Wanna go see a movie?" "Sure, what's out?") and I ended up being so tired that I wanted to cry. I was not in the right frame of mind. #sithmas
There was a point where I was about to go into a fugue state because the movie was SO LOUD and WOULDN'T STOP HAPPENING and also I didn't know about sensory overload yet. #sithmas
I mean, I saw it again on DVD after that, but it kind of stayed in my head as The Movie That Hurt. (Could've been worse. Could've been lava.) #sithmas
So anyway, Obi-Wan and Anakin have just dispatched a hangar full of roger-rogers--okay, maybe I spoke too soon about Anakin's hair being "better," it's dangerously verging on space mullet #sithmas
oh my god it's the coughing robot #sithmas
I just got him up to seven stars the other week. “Although he hates being called a droid, he counts as one in combat” #sithmas
See, the way the movies are meant to be like dropping you into an adventure serial in progress, I just went, why not, it makes as much sense as anything else. #sithmas
I mean, sure
I suspect he's also being used as foreshadowing that you CAN live mostly dead as a robot, cough cough. No, I mean, like a fake cough, not a--never mind #sithmas
R2 is very handy in this movie. The big shoulder robots (I need to gear mine up) have surprisingly not-deep voices---oh, THERE'S the flaming oil, that's why it's his special! #sithmas
Okay, so, Count Dooku has--okay that was so thoroughly not Christopher Lee doing that flip--kidnapped Palpatine, who he is actually working for, but he seems to be having fun, so. #sithmas
I'm not sure that the stunt CGI--jumping and flinging and falling--holds up well, but I'm also not sure whether we do any better nowadays. Oop, there went Dooku's hands. #sithmas
Palpatine's very pleased that he's been rescued. "Kill [Dooku]. Kill him now." And Dooku has this panicked look like I CAN'T DIE LIKE THIS, I WORK FOR YOU, HE HAS A MULLET #sithmas
You're dressed in black, your mentor is a dictator and he wants you to leave your best friend to die. LOOK AT YOUR LIFE #sithmas
Obi-Wan clinging handsomely to Anakin in an elevator shaft. I'm starting to understand why people ship it #sithmas
"Wait a minute! How did this happen, we're smarter than this!" I barked out a laugh like a seal #sithmas
I haven't said anything in a minute because right now it's a lot of robot decapitation and Grievous running around #sithmas
R2 just straight up said "uh OHHHH" in a high-pitched voice. I am pretty sure you never, ever want to hear that while in open space #sithmas
Ah, we crash-landed a giant battleship on Coruscant, good--oh, oh my god, it's the best part, it's here #sithmas
It was so awesome despite not actually existing that the dvd player completely shut down #sithmas
oh my GOD, I was wondering where it came from! #sithmas
So Obi-Wan has conveniently peaced out right in time for Padme to secretly tell Anakin that she is pregnant, secretly, with his secret baby. #sithmas
Anakin looking extremely shaken is probably the first sensible reaction he's had to anything. It's a very "I'M NOT GROWN ENOUGH TO BE A DAD" look #sithmas
Padme now in one of her formal negligees. Like, she's sleeping in triple seed pearl straps. They do something very interesting with her hair/costuming here on out--very soft, femme ringlets and flowing fabrics, very wide-eyed, youthful makeup. #sithmas
There's probably a lot you could unpack here--innocence/purity rather than corruption, someone vulnerable to be protected (and worried over), an idealized goddess on a pedestal, maybe. The more he idealizes her, the more afraid he gets. #sithmas
I think ultimately the prequels are saying that the dark side isn't about hate, it's that fear is the root of hate, fear is what corrupts your best intentions, fear is how people manipulate you. #sithmas
I mean, there's basically a flashback in The Last Jedi that plays this out--I won't mention spoilers, but it's the scene they show two different ways. It's a moment of well-intentioned fear that makes everything go to hell. #sithmas
Aaaaand Anakin immediately dreams/foresees what looks like Padme dying in childbirth, and it's this awful Twilight Zone "by preventing it you caused it to happen" thing #sithmas
Aaaaaand he straight up just tells Padme he had a nightmare like the one that predicted his mother's death and she dies in it. I'm all for people Just Talking to Each Other Dammit but that's, uh, intense. #sithmas
I really do not think that an expecting father wants to hear about joyfully letting his loved ones become one with the force, Yoda. Up the fuck, you should shut #sithmas
"Fear of loss causes jealousy. Seen what Obi-Wan looks like, you have" #sithmas
And the council doesn't want to make Anakin a master ("IT'S NOT FAIR") and Palpatine is buttering him up all "I need your help, son" and Obi-Wan wants him to spy instead and it's like watching this ship wreck in slow motion #sithmas
"Is he not the chosen one meant to bring balance to the Force?" Y'all really never did the math on what "balance" would look like, did you #sithmas
Man, Natalie Portman has this great, warm but realistic delivery on "don't do this, don't shut me out, let me help you," and then she has to throw down "hold me like you did by the lake on Naboo" #sithmas
Oh! It's the weird opera scene with, like, giant droning jelly orbs and THE TRAGEDY OF DARTH PLAGUEIS THE WISE #sithmas
IT'S NOT A STORY THE JEDI WOULD TELL YOU largely because I'm implying I created you through immaculate conception #sithmas
okay, a whole planet of Chewbaccas is awesome (have good relations with them, Yoda does) #sithmas
Aaaand now Anakin's having nightmares that Obi-Wan is the one there in Padme's time of need and now he's spiraling into jealousy, it doesn't have to be this waaaaaay #sithmas
I look away for three seconds and Obi-Wan is riding a dinosaur #sithmas
Obi-Wan looks way too excited about fighting a robot general with four (4) lightsa--aaaand he's now crawling like a spider to a mecha cycle, no, bye #sithmas
Palpatine and Anakin are circling each other warily because Palpatine basically just said there are some good mysteries on both sides and also he “somehow” knows about the nightmares and the secret baby and IT IS U! U WHO ARE THE SECRET SITH LORD! #sithmas
We interrupt this confrontation for a Grievous ass-beating, because why not, and then Obi-Wan... shoots him till he bursts into flames? #sithmas
Okay, I genuinely thought I remembered Anakin immediately swearing allegiance to Palpatine, but no, he goes to Mace Windu and tells him everything! “A SITH LORD? How do you know?” Well, my first clue was the part where he told me #sithmas
Mace Windu and some of the Miscellaneous Jedi go to arrest Palpatine and suddenly it’s force-flipping and lightsabers everywhere, there goes Kit Fisto—is that Eeth Koth? I haven’t geared him at all—and here comes the force lightning and the face... palping? #sithmas
Welp, there goes another hand—yeah, there goes the rest of Mace Windu with it. We’re at full palping now. “WHAT HAVE I DONE?!” So Anakin pledges himself to this creepy motherfucker in exchange for Padme’s life and it is honestly really sad, actual acting. #sithmas
Oh no, he’s sending “Lord Vader” to the Jedi temple. “Go murder the shit out of some people, and then we will have peace.” Aaaand we’re executing Order 66, which means all the nice clone troopers on all the planets turn around and kill their Jedi friends. #sithmas
And then Anakin goes in and kills the Jedi children. There’s still an hour of this left. Chewbacca roars mournfully. #sithmas
“I heard there was an attack on the Jedi temple, you could see the smoke from here!” Oh, Padme, honey #sithmas
Walk-and-talk with Bail Organa. “Did any Jedi survive?” “Uh [checks notes]... you guys” #sithmas
Mustafar. A fine lava harvest this year. Anakin murders the shit out of everyone; the Separatist roombas flee before him. #sithmas
Back at the senate, here’s Padme’s famous line—“so this is how liberty dies: with thunderous applause.” I had remembered it as “democracy,” because I’ve seen the Washington Post header too many times #sithmas
CSI: Coruscant: Yoda realizes that everyone in the temple is dead of lightsaber. Obi-Wan finds... what, surveillance holograms? of Anakin’s pledge. A house call to Padme is... awkward. omg he literally says “a security hologram,” I want a Jedi Detective show immediately #sithmas
“Anakin is the father, isn’t he?” Wow, we were going through all this without Obi-Wan knowing they were even together. So much for searching your feelings #sithmas
I want whatever peach lip gloss Padme was wearing in that scene. I’m... not as into the Girl Scout ensemble she’s going with now, but it’s sporty, sure #sithmas
Really sad conversation where Padme’s on a last ditch effort to get Anakin to “run away” with her before he does anything worse, and he’s like, “But I killed everyone who could say SHIT to us! I KILLED ALL THOSE CHILDREN FOR YOU!!” #sithmas
I’m gonna be real honest, Anakin, “together you and I can rule the galaxy” only works on me when it’s your grandson #sithmas
I will say, Hayden Christensen has been doing a really great job of slipping some wild-eyed megalomaniac gleams in from time to time, it’s not just about “saving Padme” and she can see that. #sithmas
And Padme’s like “I cannot follow you down this mass murder path of evil!” “BECAUSE OF OBI-WAN?!” Who of course picks THE WORST time to appear and the shouting about stealing people’s wives sets in, OH MY GOD HE WASN’T EVEN, I WISH HE HAD #sithmas
Like, we go from “I went to the Dark Side to save you” to “Force-choking you on a DIME” here, I am not equipped to discuss this in terms of domestic violence IRL but I’m sure somebody could. #sithmas
Anakin is shouting about peace, freedom, justice, security while Obi-Wan checks the pulse of Anakin’s unconscious wife, if you wanted this scene in a nutshell #sithmas
I remember how people knew how this movie had to end—maybe it was in EU lore?—and everyone was WAITING to see how badass the final fight would be, and I’m shouting at them to check on the pregnant woman #sithmas
I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s very twirly #sithmas
Seeing a tiny green critter and a wizened palpy dude force-flip all over the place is a very strange experience #sithmas
Mild TLJ spoiler: there is a sort of Force push struggle here that reminds me of the Force tug-of-war there. That’s the kind of thing I wanted to look for. #sithmas
Senate room battle. Jedi fighting on pipes over active volcanoes. Padme still lying around somewhere. There is so much movie in this movie. #sithmas
OKAY LISTEN! Yoda says “Into exile I must go, failed I have.” This is a THING! This is a TRADITION OKAY #sithmas
Y’all, Padme hasn’t even had the twins yet. I don’t know if I can make it to the end. Anakin and Obi-Wan are Forcing down a lava river and Obi-Wan is like THIS IS EVIL, MY DUDE! COME ON!! #sithmas
Aaand there go Anakin’s legs. He’s groaning miserably and Obi-Wan is just on the hill shouting WHAT THE FUCK MY DUDE? YOU WERE THE CHOSEN ONE! I LOVED YOU MY DUDE!! #sithmas
And now Anakin is on fire, and Obi-Wan WALKS AWAY? He loves him so much that he’s gonna leave him to SUFFER AND DIE SLOWLY?? Autocorrect put that second ? there, it can’t believe he did that either #sithmas
I used to get mad about Padme just “losing the will to live,” but it makes more sense that there’s some kind of subtle Dark Side business about draining her life and giving it to Anakin. It doesn’t make much sense at all otherwise. #sithmas
Also, I choose to believe that her death was faked and she ran off with Obi-Wan and died years later of natural causes and he was a widower on Tattooine, the end. #sithmas
It’s very strange (but interesting) to hear what sounds like the way Hayden Christensen would say the lines, but in James Earl Jones’ voice—Vader doesn’t have the Vader portentousness down yet. #sithmas
sing it with me if you know the words #sithmas
So we reverse-engineer this plan from the OT where Bail Organa will adopt Leia and... idk, Luke can get kicked back to the Lars family on Tattooine? “You don’t think Anakin would look there?” “Sand.” “Right, right” #sithmas
So Bail hands Threepio over to “Captain Antilles” like, yeah, this walking plot point, wipe him ASAP, and R2 CHORTLES, I swear to god #sithmas
And everyone is happy with babies, so that we can see them being happy with babies before... well... what happens. Also, that’s a nice Death Star you got there. Shame if something were to... happen to it. #sithmas
And now I sleep.
