Long waffle, I am having...

2100 – Was over at the girls’ house. Enjoyed a rather spicy ayam masak merah courtesy of Zareen, after which we all settled down to watch Desperate Housewives. Received a text from Jo saying ‘Am excited!!’, which pretty much summed up my own emotions

2300 – Put on my jacket and socks, although I wasn’t really expecting Reem to arrive for another 15 minutes at least. Tried not to blush as Shanti laughed and pointed out how excited I seemed to be. Have to admit I felt like pacing around and rolling back on forth on my heels and tip-toes.

2320 – Reem and Nav picked me up. We proceeded to give Reem a crash course on the history of Star Wars as she drove, bearing in mind that it’s a minor miracle that Nav was able to convince her to come in the first place.

2340 – Arrived at UCI, and started chatting animatedly with Jo and Nav about various bits and bobs as Reem tried to look interested and spent her time offering us her nachos with cheese.

0000 – 31 minutes to go. Kudo texted to inform me about a sighting of Darth Vader over at Sheffield.

0020 – Jo and I were shown to our seats by ushers using lightsabers instead of the normal torchlights. Seats were at the extreme end of the row, but we had a pretty good view of the screen.

0035 – Trailers came on. And I actually love watching trailers (although I limit myself to watching a trailer of a particular movie just once). Was pretty impressed with the trailers shown – Fantastic 4 (looks better than what I expected it to be), War of the Worlds (there’s Dakota Fanning in it!), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Willie Wonka, Willie Wonka… lalalala…) and The Chronicles of Narnia (I’m gonna have to borrow the novel from CT). The partnerships between Spielberg and Tom Cruise and Miss Fanning, as well as Tim Burton and Johnny Depp have worked well in the past, and there’s every reason to believe that the next products will be worth watching as well. Oh, and there’s Corpse Bride as well, which is reminiscent of The Nightmare Before Christmas.

0045 – A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away…

Well, I shouldn’t really go into too much detail about the movie, considering the fact that most of my friends weren’t as silly as me to go for the first showing and midnight, and probably wouldn’t appreciate it if I were to do a spoiler. There are some things worth knowing from the Clone Wars cartoon though – General Grievous is the new bad ass, and as the cartoon ends (just before the movie begins), he kidnaps the Chancellor. Mace Windu tries to stop him and manages to crush the General’s chest, but he escapes nevertheless.

Throughout the approximately 2-hour show, I found myself holding my breath at times, nervously wringing my fingers or unclenching my jaws (without actually knowing that they were clenched). It’s quite a spectacle watching the threads of the original trilogy and the prequels come together, and although you know what’s about to happen, actually watching it and confirming your suspicions is an event in itself. And watching the end of the movie brings the original trilogy to a new light - Episode IV's title of 'A New Hope' has new meaning, and there's only one thing stopping me from watching the other 5 movies now.

Jo and I were practically speechless at times (well, we were speechless throughout the movie since you’re not actually allowed to talk in the cinema, but we’d turn and look at each other and give some sort of signal), and this was primarily due to the emotional impact of the film. It’s definitely the darkest of the series, as you’d expect, but I guess I didn’t know what to expect in actuality. You know Anakin's going to turn into Darth Vader, but the process that he undergoes, and the fact that he sacrificed everything for his distorted view of love is a telling point.

There were still wooden bits of acting, and the romantic scenes still seemed a little out of place, but the opening scenes and the multitude of lightsabre fights and the various interactions between the main protagonists and antagonists more than made up for it. I can go on and on about it, but I’d suggest you watch it for yourself. I’m sure that you won’t enjoy it as much if you’re not a Star Wars fan (part of the magic was watching the whole saga come together to a befitting end), but it’s definitely the best movie of the prequels in my humble opinion – it has a better script, the CGI is as good as expected, the momentum of the story is carried well, and heck, it’s the last of the Star Wars movies. Although I’m hoping it won’t be.

0300 – Came out of the cinema and waited for Nav and Reem to come out of theirs. Jo and I were kinda quiet, which was kinda unexpected. I guess we were feeling a little numb and were still trying to digest what we’d just seen. Reem enjoyed the show though, and although she looked extremely tired, she was able to smile and laugh about it!

0330 – Got home, called Sweetie and chatted a little about what I’d just seen. Poor dear must’ve been thinking her boyfriend was getting a little demented. Went to lie down on my bed about 15 minutes later.

0415 – Finally fell asleep, after pondering various aspects of the movie. Yes, it’s sad, I know.

0800 – Woke up, showered, blah blah blah.

0850 – Jo and Helen picked me up, and we went on our way for the second show. Why did I watch the same movie in less than 10 hours? I’m too lazy to type out the story behind it, but suffice to say, we ended up having extra tickets and decided to watch it again. After all, it’s not exactly a movie I’d only want to watch once, so might as well get it out of the way. And after a warm cup of mocha at Starbucks, we settled down to our comfy central seats to watch the movie again.

1330 – Had lunch with WK, KL and Zareen and gang at Pani’s. Excitement had died down a little, but I think it was still pretty obvious. Reality welcomed me with open arms on my walk home though, as I realized that as hyper as I was, there’s only a couple of weeks ‘till finals and I’d had better get my ass down to work. If only acute renal failure is as exciting as the Sith Lords.