At the movies.

We've just come back from seeing the new Star Wars movie: Attack Of The Clones. It's really, really good. Far better than Phantom Menace. It's visually stunning. It's full of great references to the later movies and really fills out the back story very well. You tend to find your self going "Oh so *that's* why Boba Fett hates the Jedi" and "so that's what Owen Lars meant in Ep IV."

Some observations:

• Coruscant is amazing - it's so big and complex it just couldn't have been done without the most recent technology. (and if you like it, try playing "Jedi Knight II" from Lucasarts.)
• Jango Fett is great, as is Boba.
• Temeura Morrison is excellent. That part of the story line is good.
• Yoda kicks butt (or at least prods some serious buttock). Really. People started giggling when he whipped out his light-sabre, but you could almost hear jaws dropping when he started fighting. Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee, Jet Li and Chow Yun Fat all rolled into one three foot high package. They call him 'Master' for a very good reason. If there's one thing a Hong Kong audience will appreciate, it's good old fashioned kick-ass gong-fu. Yoda being a Jedi master is very different from Yoda being a teacher. He's great.
• There's a reason for Jar Jar. And, no, you won't like him any better.

Watching the first film again (I've got the original trilogy on VCD), the advances in computer graphics are amazing. They could barely manage a simplified dot image of the Death Star in 1977, in 2002, several of the main characters are computer animated. The first film really resonates with references from Ep II. The initial Tatooine sequences especially are very evocative and much more meaningful when you know the background shown in Episode II.