Did anyone notice in 4, 5, 6 whenever Yoda was heard, it was the same person who did the voice of Grover (from Sesame Street)...I didn't notice it being him again in Ep 1 tho...

Also, the announcer at the Pod Race in ep1 is Greg Proops - The guy w/ the glasses who is on the American 'Whose Line Is it Anyway' from time to time (no i don't mean Drew)...Interesting, eh?

I knew all those. Frank Oz, Jim Hensons' right hand man, did many of the Sesame Street and Muppets muppets. And yea he also did Yoda. Also I picked up the Greg Proops thing when I first saw SW EP I. And I also noticed ET in the big scene with all the political groups from around the galaxy. There are a lot of "easter eggs" in Episode I. ILM (Lucas' CG Co.) always does funny stuff like that for the hard core fans. And in everyone of Lucas' films you'll notice the number 1138 somewhere. This alludes (AP English word) to his first film THX 1138. Yea so...

As far as Episode I goes, if you imagine that Jar Jar isn't there, it's a pretty good film except for the whole bad acting from that kid and I didn't really like the whole ending where he basically takes out an entire army accidently. But you gotta admit that the dual light sabering n stuff and the awesome Pod Race and introduction of R2-D2 scene is pretty good. It was very childish and over promoted because Lucas was trying to get the "new generation" (all the original Star Wars kids' kids) hyped up for the movie. Now that he has all these new little kids, my 3yr old nephew being one of them, hooked he's gonna make millions. Look at Ice Age, Spy Kids and Shrek... all little kids movies that broke tons of records and made tons.

Now this whole fight scene with Yoda... that must've been hard. Yoda is CG in this movie unlike the other 4 where he was a puppet. Now imagine being an actor trying to fight this short little green invisible character in a light saber battle... tough? YOU BET! And you guys are right when you say that this one will be better because of the older targeted audience and it's the whole "Clone Wars" thing that you heard so much about in the original 3. And somebody told me that one of the critics from TIME Magazine said this was the best Star Wars ever... let's just hope so. I'm tired of Titanic being the #1 movie of all time just because 50 billion teenage girls had to see Leonardo DiCrapio over and over. Don't get me wrong the movie wasn't bad, but it was by far not the best movie ever!

Yea... that's my $.02

I heard they made the CG Yoda look rubbery and move very similar to the puppet.. so the old-school Star Wars fans wouldn't be totally disgusted by the total change from puppet -> CG

That'd be really nice... you know you really can't tell in the trailer how he looks but if he's all dumb looking then it will throw it off. And I could see the rubber look cuz if you watch Episode I, Boss Nass (Jar Jar's leader dude) is all like rubberized. He is pretty realistic looking, as with most of the Gungans. ILM is by far the best CGFX House there is!!

Okay, I'll be the first to admit that as soon as my semester is over, I'm going to wait outside my local theatre with the midnight screening tickets in one hand and a lightsaber in the other.

Secondly, I'd like to address all this talk about episode one that's going on. A friend of mine summed it up perfectly when it first came out: "It's no trilogy." I doubt Ep II or III will match what the original trilogy meant to us, and we have to see it as that.

It was a good movie, and Lucas was trying to bring in the younger crowd with Jar Jar, and I'm convinced the casting office was on crack when they casted the kid, but it was still a good movie all things considered. Darth Maul is probably one of the coolest looking villains is any movie, and if we can only take that and the pod race scene from it, that should be enough in itself.

Now, as a little side note, instead of Jar Jar, I'm still saying they should have had the Ewoks. But who am I to question Lucas. Look at the whole N'sync cameo.

"You hear Lucas cast N'Sync in a cameo?"
"Did he experience head trauma?! What's he thinking?!"
"They all get killed."
"He's a genius."

And I think that, should be that.

As a PS~ If the original Star Wars was released at the same time as Titanic, it would have made about triple what Titanic made, if I remember correctly. All this inflation and such with movie ticket prices.

What about Spiderman vs Episode II??? Who will have the biggest opening???

Spiderman made something like $114 million in the first weekend!! That's a new record. I don't know if SW will be able to top that. Even though there are all these hardcore fans out there buying up presale tickets and all, SW is more like a "cult" film you know? Not everyone will want to see it so badly where as Spiderman for some reason everyone blew up over. I don't even think that the people in Hollywood saw an opening like this coming. I just hope that SW will have a huge opening. I know I'll see it a few times that weekend. I saw EP I 7 times just because I knew it'd be a while before it came back out on video. I figure I'll see this one about 3 times the first weekend and then a few after that. Plus the next month or so there are no really big movies coming out so now they'll both be able to compeat.

I'm gonna see it opening night at a local theater and then on the weekend I'm taking a little road trip with my friends and we're gonna go over to O-Town (Orlando) and gonna check it out there cuz they have a THX Theater and THX is so awesome... I saw Waterworld and JPII there and it's so much better cuz they got a huge screen too.

Well, you'll be waiting until the DVD comes out before you *ever* get to see that bit of footage.

Check this...

I'll be going opening night. I'll let ya know how it goes...

Episode II has no chance against Spiderman in that department.... apparently Spiderman is showing in some 7000 cinemas across North America, while Episode II is showing in closer to 5800 cinemas (and the reason is that Lucas only wants Episode II showing in the best cinemas).

Rotten Tomatoes.Com
 

Rotten Tomatoes.com already has a few reviews of Episode II on their site, mostly from internet geek movie buffs who are Star Wars fans. It was around 58% approval rate last time I checked. It's almost a concensus that the script is bad again. The acting isn't getting much nice said about it either( though Ewan McGregor is said to be awsome in the movie. He's made the role of Obi-Wan his own). One guy was talking about the Yoda battle scene and said it was the funniest thing he's ever seen in his life(I hope that isn't true).
Best thing I heard is that Jar-Jar has only 5 to 10 minutes of screen time, unfortunately some of it is a speech(" must..'uhn'.. get... to...door..'uhn'..losing ....consciousness....."). You do know that Jar Jar Binks is the face of the devil,don't you?(" Yousa soul belong to me now, boss HAHAHAHAHA!").
The romatic stuff sounds unbearable but the whole last hour is one big battle and sounds breathtaking. I still can't wait!

Thursday Night
 

I'll be there Wednesday at about 10PM just to join in the festivities and then I'll see it at Midnight!!! Yea I know I'm a dork, but I'm not crazy and wait in line for like months to get tickets. I went the smarter approach and got them online a week in advanced. :)