TOTALLY Off-Topic and Unrelated Sci-Fi/Action Movie Post

One of the best - perhaps worst - things I ever did was to buy an Apple G4 Cube back in Y2K. Oh, I loved the computer, but... I got it with a DVD-ROM drive. Well, that lead me to buy my first DVD, and one of my all-time favorite films: "The Searchers" starring John Wayne. That was the beginning of "The End": I was hooked. That old 15" 1024x768 Apple Studio Display had to be replaced! Can you say "1920x1200 Apple 23" Cinema HD Display"?: I knew that you could.

Now, I spend an inordinate amount of time collecting DVD's and watching them. Amazon even sends me e-mails apprising me of the latest releases (As well as several other vendors). Last week I got the advance-order notice for Star Wars Episode III. I have all five of the others, so of course I ordered it. I didn't see it in theatrical release: The ONLY ONE I EVER MISSED in the theatre. I even saw "Return of the Jedi" in Sweden when I was touring there as "Jedins Atercomst", and I nicked a subway-train picture-add for it that I still proudly display (Bet that's worth some cash now!) before I left Stockholm in 1983.

So, when I was finishing my order, there was the usual "People Who Ordered This Also Bought.." dealie-bob. Listed in there was "Batman Begins", and it was discounted, so WTF: I ordered it.

I must admit that I'm not a big fan of the Batman franchise: Val Kilmer was the only Bruce Wayne with enough charismatic "swag" to pull off the role, IMO, and that story line sucked (Except for the inclusion of one of my all-time favorite redheads, Nicole Kidman, that is).

Well, I watched SW EP III before my gig this afternoon, and then "Batman Begins" this evening: Can a movie franchise be given a "do-over"? This one should!

I was grossly underwhelmed by the Star Wars epic: That all happened a long, long time ago in an American culture far, far away. We've had the Alien franchise, the Terminator franchise, the Preadator franchise and so many others since then. And, worst of all for Lucas, "The Ring" trilogy, in which the entire proceedure for filming multi-part epics was redefined by doing it all at once (I know Matrix got there first, but they sucked ass) "happened", and it's my favorite sci-fi/action/fantasy series of all at the moment (Amanda Otto makes an OK blond, but she's actually a redhead and should have been filmed as a redhead!!!). If I was God, red hair 1) Would never be "wasted" on anything less than a perfectly gorgeous woman, and 2) would never ever be given to a... a mere... man! But... I digress.

Batman Begins is superb. I want the franchise to start over from there... Forget all the preceeding films. They were just warm-ups.