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Star Wars

I agree with most of what the reviewer said, except for the bit about the titles . . . they're meant to be crap. It's the pulp Buck Rodgers serial kind of title, and in that mindset they are all perfect.

-Fitz
 
'Star Wars' fans embrace the Dark Side of obsession

Mon May 16, 3:53 PM ET

LOS ANGELES (AFP) - Caroline Ritter's obsession with all things "Star Wars" has, by her own estimate, cost her 60,000 dollars -- and counting.

The 23-year-old Australian's latest foray into what some might see as the Dark Side of fandom involved flying from her native Australia to Hollywood to queue for the May 19 opening of the sixth and final episode in the galactic saga, "Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith."

"Queue" is something of an understatement for the seven-week campout by Ritter and her fellow Star Warriors outside the famed Grauman's Chinese Theater, where the first "Star Wars" movie premiered way back in 1977.

Ritter, who was not even born when the first film came out, wears her passion on her sleeve and, indeed, on her neck, wrist and finger, where she sports an array of "Star Wars"-themed jewelry.

"What can I say? I love the 'Star Wars' movies," Ritter said. "They are my life. They mean everything to me, everything that is important."

The outsider's view of such a level of commitment is best summed up by Ritter's family members.

"My parents understand me. They are wonderful. My brother thinks I'm an idiot," she said.

Crazed or not, Ritter is certainly not alone, but rather part of a large, like-minded community of fans for whom "Star Wars" is more of a lifestyle choice than a sci-fi film series.

More than 30,000 of them, from as far afield as Japan and Mexico, gathered last month for a four-day convention in Indianapolis.

So strong was the lure of the event, at which an appearance by "Star Wars" creator George Lucas was the main attraction, that Ritter temporarily forsook her treasured spot in the ticket queue to attend.

For most, it was an opportunity to enthuse, reminisce, don Storm Trooper armour and Jedi outfits and spend vast sums of money on their ever-expanding collections of "Star Wars" merchandise.

Ritter's house has three rooms packed with memorabilia from each and every movie in the series.

"Up to now, I've spent nearly 60,000 dollars," she said. "Tips, work, ... I saved everything."

Attempts to build a profile of the hardcore "Star Wars" fanatic have highlighted the apparent attraction to the troubled relationship between two of the films' main characters -- Luke Skywalker and his father, the evil Darth Vader.

"Most of the biggest fans have a father issue, or they don't have a father, or they had an abusive father," said filmmaker Tariq Jalil, who explored the pop-culture phenomenon of "Star Wars" in his documentary "A Galaxy Far, Far Away."

"Through interviews, we also found out that many fans were children of divorced parents," Jalil said.

For the stars of the film series, meanwhile, the inability of some fans to distinguish them from the characters they portray has sometimes proved disconcerting.

Ewan McGregor, who played the Jedi knight Obi-Wan Kenobi in the last two episodes and reprises the role in "Sith," recently told of being assailed outside the stage door of a London theater where he was performing.

"There was a guy screaming 'Obi-Wan! Obi-Wan!'" McGregor recalled. "'Do you have any advice for a trainee Jedi?!'"

The devotees camped outside the Chinese Theater on Hollywood Boulevard have divided themselves into three different categories: red, green and blue.

For fear of ruining the suspense, the reds have assiduously avoided any advance information about what happens in "Sith," while the greens have grabbed and processed every scrap and snippet they can lay their hands on.

The moderate blues, meanwhile, claim an affinity with both factions.

"I am very red," 24-year-old Sarah Allen declared proudly. "I want suprises -- the more surprises, the better."

"Imagine someone organises a party for you with fabulous things, ... food, people, entertainment," Allen said. "What if you didn't know anything about it? Wouldn't that be better?"

For Allen and for many fans, the release of "Sith" is a bittersweet moment, marking as it does the final chapter in the "Star Wars" saga.

Her mother, on the other hand, is delighted.

"She's happy it's finishing so that I can get a real job," Allen said.
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I'm sure this might be seen as sad however as my Darth Tater is slowly wining its way to me as we speak I don't think I can comment on that ;)

The Empire strikes bucks

Mon May 16, 3:42 PM ET

LOS ANGELES (AFP) - In the weird and wonderful galaxy of "Star Wars" merchandising, even non-sentient lumps of starch get to feel the sales force.

One of the strangest characters to ever carry a light sabre, "Darth Tater" -- an unlikely union of Mr. Potato Head and the dark lord Darth Vader -- has become a national best-seller ahead of the US release this week of the sixth and final "Star Wars" movie, "Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith."

The black-caped tuber is just one member of the vast retailing universe spun off from George Lucas's phenomenally popular movie series.

Action figures, board games, Lego kits and light sabres, as well as a hugely popular "voice changer" that allows the user to sound like Darth Vader, have all been churned out in vast quantities for the latest release.

The frenzy has been fuelled by an array of promotional tie-ins, which has seen the syntax-challenged Jedi master Yoda hawking Diet Pepsi and Chewbacca, the Wookie warrior, recording ring tones for Cingular Wireless.

Then there are the video, PC and hand-held games, including "Knights of the Old Republic," "Empire at War" and "Rage of the Wookies," being put out by LucasArts, one of the divisions of the Lucas entertainment empire.

Famously, when the first "Star Wars" came out in 1977, 20th Century Fox was so sure the film would be a flop that it allowed Lucas to keep the merchandising rights.

Five movies and nine billion dollars in retail sales later, it's a decision that must still cause sleepless nights for some studio executives.

The market for "Star Wars" memorabilia is enormous, with the Internet auction site eBay listing more than 68,000 items related to the film series.

While demand peaks each time a new episode in the series is released, the search for hard-to-find pieces is a permanent quest for hardcore fans, who reject suggestions that their passion borders on unhealthy obsession.

"If you are talking about an individual sitting in a garage stockpiling toys, I would agree that was fanatical," said Todd Carlton, 38, compiler of the "Star Wars Super Collector's Wish Book," a price guide of collectibles that includes more than 38,000 listings.

"'Star Wars' is not about personal acquisition. It's a medium for people to reach others," he told AFP.

Carlton estimates that he has spent more than 65,000 dollars on building his own collection of 17,000 "Star Wars" items.

"That's more than my last house cost," he admitted.

The Holy Grail of "Star Wars" collectors is a discontinued line of 1978 Obi-Wan Kenobi action figures that boast a "double-telescoping light sabre."

The precise difference between a double- and single-telescoping sabre is extremely technical. Suffice to say that the latter is extremely rare and the figures trade for a minimum of 20,000 dollars a pop.

At a recent "Star Wars" convention in Indianapolis that drew more than 30,000 people, the head of Lucas Licensing, Howard Roffman, offered a wry summation of the retailing juggernaut he helps oversee. "As the chief merchandiser for Lucasfilm," Roffman said, "I can tell you that I never, ever dreamed that over almost a lifetime career, my crowning achievement, my finest glory of my professional life, ... would be the creation and launch of Darth Tater."
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Ditto on the Darth Tater.
And I'll cop to buying Star Wars cereal too.

I draw the line at Darth Vader Cheez-its though. That's just wrong. ;)
 
A nice little story from BBC Wales..

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_west/4555455.stm

"Town's secret Star Wars history

A relatively long time ago, in a west Wales town not too far away... arguably the most famous spaceship in the universe was created.

In the winter of 1979 word started to spread in Pembroke Dock that a flying saucer was being built in an old giant aircraft hangar in the town.

Those involved were sworn to secrecy.

For three months they worked on the only full-scale Millennium Falcon, the spaceship from the original Star Wars trilogy, to be built for the films.

Production was gearing up for The Empire Strikes Back - the second instalment in George Lucas's epic space saga.

And much like the feverish build-up to this week's release of Revenge Of The Sith, the sixth and final movie in the series, fans were desperate for the smallest piece of news of what was to come.

Marcon Fabrications, a company more usually associated with steel fabrications for the nearby petrochemical and oil industries, had won the contract to build the prop for the film.

One of company's main selling points was it was based in the eastern hangar of the Royal Dockyard - a Grade II listed structure that once housed the famous Sunderland flying boats based there during World War II.

Govan Davies, who owned the dockyard at the time, recalls the secrecy surrounding the project.

"No-body was allowed in and they kept it locked at all times," he said.

"It was made out of timber on the outside of a steel frame. There were 30 or 40 men working on it - it was a hell of a big thing."

It was housed in the Eastern hangar which still stands today

Bizarrely, those working on the spaceship were told they could only refer to it by the code name "Magic Roundabout".

But Mr Davies said word soon spread.

"Friends talk to friends. But they still did not allow anyone in although I saw it, of course, because I owned the hangar at the time."

Security was finally breached in March 1979 when the Pembrokeshire newspaper The Western Telegraph ran a picture and story under the headline "Security Blown On Flying Saucer Secret".

Tongue-in-cheek, it linked the spaceship to an apparent spate of UFO sightings in the sky above the county at the time.

According to Brian Johnson, special effects supervisor on the film, the spaceship could fly - but only a few millimetres off the ground.

"It weighed approaching 23 tonnes and was 70ft in diameter," he told the Official Making of the Empire Strikes Back book.

"We fitted compressed air hover pads on the feet to lift the thing up so it could be pushed around without any wheels.

"The whole thing was actually floating on a cushion of air, with about a sixteenth of an inch between the feet and the floor.

"To get the Falcon from Pembroke it was dismantled and brought on lorries in sections, then put together on the sound stage at Elstree.""
 
Well I have been avoiding getting excited but I now have my ticket to go and see it tonight :)
 
I've bought Wooly Badger a ticket to see it tonight - bless him he's like a kid at Christmas!
 
An hour and a quater until Blast-off for me. 8)

Haven't seen any of the promo stuff. It'll all be a pleasant or unpleasant suprise.
 
Not bad. Better than previous two prequels.

Gripes:

Red imperial guards (who i like) have one 5 second scene before Yoda dispenses with them.

Natalie Portman can't act.

A silly amount of recycled dialogue from other films in the series. Not funny.

Lots of political allegory - bit heavy handed.

Jedi are not very bright and die rather easily.

Yoda continues to act like sonic the hedgehog.
--------------

Grand Moff Tarkin gets a cameo actor/computer manipulated! - that makes this a film with (virtually) christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. Hurrah!

All loose ends resolved including 'i don't recall ever owning any droids'.

Ewan McGregor was better this time.

All in all - well worth seeing though.
 
Headline of the day, courtesy of the Ottawa Sun (saw it in the store, don't look at me like that):

The Sith Hits The Fans :rofl:
 
Must confess upfront that I've seen the original Star Wars just once, in the theater, in 1977. Haven't seen any of the others and likely won't catch this one. However I did enjoy reading beliefnet's 'The Religion of Star Wars' quiz, especially the final question:

Q12. The Jedi speak of a prophecy in which a chosen one will:

1. Bring balance to the Force
2. Die and physically resurrect
3. Talk in cryptic, koan-like sentences
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http://www.beliefnet.com/section/quiz/i ... rveyID=135

:laughing:
 
The Yithian said:
Not bad. Better than previous two prequels.

Gripes:

Red imperial guards (who i like) have one 5 second scene before Yoda dispenses with them.

Natalie Portman can't act.

A silly amount of recycled dialogue from other films in the series. Not funny.

Lots of political allegory - bit heavy handed.

Jedi are not very bright and die rather easily.

Yoda continues to act like sonic the hedgehog.
--------------

Grand Moff Tarkin gets a cameo actor/computer manipulated! - that makes this a film with (virtually) christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. Hurrah!

All loose ends resolved including 'i don't recall ever owning any droids'.

Ewan McGregor was better this time.

All in all - well worth seeing though.
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Pretty much agree.

As most of the plot was in laboriously botled into place in the first two it required less people talking (which is always abysmal) and they were able to kick back and let loose with set piece after set piece all beauifully down. That lava was top notch.

Points knocked off for the ridiculous sub-Frankenstein "birth" of Darth.

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Well quite.

Also I spent the film looking after a fancy Darth Vader helmet and £150 worth of fancy light sabre - I must have looked quite the geek (theres no disguising one's nature clearly ;) ).
 
I thought it was pretty weak, but I'm not a fan of the series anyway.

There was really no need for it to clock in at two and a half hours. Ironically though, it's not the extensive series of dialogs between Anakin/Obi Wan and Anakin/The Chancellor that should have been edited down, but the showy, unengaging and generally pointless fight scenes that just dragged on and on and on.

How come the Jedi can take down hundreds of droids / enemy Sith types in most scenes whilst barely paying attention, but when the plot demands it, they'll get nailed by one individual with one move? There's no consistency. Imagine if The Incredible Hulk was demolishing tanks and coming to no harm after being dropped from the statosphere one second, and the next was felled by a left hook from a 120-pound office worker.

Although Lucas continues to write worse dialog than he used to in the 70s and 80s, the exchanges between Anakin and the Chancellor were convincing enough for me to empathise with Skywalker's doubts in the early part of the film. Ian McDiarmid is hands-down the best actor in this movie, and gets some top scenes as he subtly seduces Anakin by playing on his doubts. But just when his character is starting to seem like a rather clever and persuasive individual, he suddenly goes "oh, bugger this - look, you do realise I'm the Sith Lord? Come over to the sodding Dark Side already".

It was interesting to see how final half hour ties everything in with the original movie, but I'm not sure the hour of tedium in the middle of the film justified waiting for this.

I'm sure the fans will like it. Personally I doubt I'll ever bother to watch again, be it on DVD, TV etc. I didn't hate it, I even liked small bits of it, but all in all there's not much to get excited about.
 
Agree that the last 40 mins or so are just about worth the wait and did make me tres' nostalgic, however there were some very tedious moments throughout the film...also why oh why was there so little action shown on the Wookie planet, it looked like Apocolypse Now in space-wookies and those cool proto troopers last seen in the jungle of Endor-I was so excited, the battle starts and then they never really return to it. Also the montage of various Jedi getting turned on was great and had some fantastic planets (Hoth?, and a strange psychedelic jungle planet)
BTW I don't remember seeing Grand Moff Tarkin???
 
Tarkin has no lines, but is briefly seen in the scene when Palpatine and Vader are viewing the Death Star ebing constructed. There is a man to Palpatine's left who has Cushings exact features, but perhaps twenty-five years younger . . . I also enjoyed Captain Antilles' short scene.

I have to say I disagree with the comment about Natalie Portman, I thought she did remarkably well with the wooden dialogue . . . she is fantastic in the last few scenes she is in.

It is obviously Palpatine's movie though, I enjoyed seeing how why he looked so ravaged in the last movie.

Does anyone know what Padme's final words to Obi-Wan were? I could not make out a single syllable.


-Grand Moff Fitz
 
Fitz said:
I have to say I disagree with the comment about Natalie Portman, I thought she did remarkably well with the wooden dialogue . . .
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I may grant you that. Either way her emotions, up and down, seemed a bit pantomime to me.
 
Fitz - last words

It sounded like

"There is still good in him"

Hubby of Mummy (The Wooly Badger)

:evil:

check out www.supershadow.com for the script

PADME winces again and takes OBI-WAN's hand. She is holding Anakin's japor snippet.

OBI-WAN: Save your energy.

PADME: Obi-Wan . . . there . . . is good in him. I know there is ... still . . .

A last gasp, and she dies. Obi-Wan studies the necklace.
 
The Falcon

Did anyone spot the Millenium Falcon??

It was there

Wooly Badger
 
I didn't see it, what part was it in? I didn't see Mon Mothma either, and I was looking for her.

Loved the Grand Moff Tarkin cameo though . . . it almost looked like they CGI'd Cushing's face on the guy.

-Grand Moff Fitz
 
Ready for s'more fan films?

http://www.spiritsoftheforce.com/

Spirits of the Force is a short "no-budget" Star Wars fan film made by members of the Phoenix Fan Force. After having such a great time making the movie, the original cast and crew immediately reunited to film 2 additional fanfilms concurrently, Fool's Errand and Reflections of Evil which are currently scheduled to be released in 2005 and 2006 respectively.

We've decided to put up this website to share these films with other Star Wars fans, and give some behind the scenes looks into how we made the movies, and what is in store in the next two. Enjoy!
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where the Falcoln is....

As the shuttle is returning at the beginning of the film with Anny, Obi and Chancellor, as it swing into land the MF is in the bootom of the screen on another landing platform.

Have had it confirmed by a fan on another forum...

Us geeks...

Where was Mon Motha? and Peter Cushings cameo?

Did you see the part played by George Lucas at the Opera?

Wooly Badger
 
I've just got back from the pictures and thought that it was okay. There's still no comparison between these new ones and the originals though. Attack of the Clones is probably the best of the new three for me. Like most modern pictures, this was full of soap opera type characterisations and drama and none of the natural feel of the originals. Is it the modern obsession with creating human dramas out of every conceivable scenario that has let it down, a desire to imprint 21st century ideals on any given scenario? Give me pure fantasy based on the Wild West anyday. Real characters and unknown actors with reasonable effects Vs Woodentops, superstars and flashy CGI. I'd take the former each and every time.
 
Odd that the Moff Tarkin thing was a cameo, after the huge amount of publicity given on it a year or so back.

Maybe there's extra footage for the DVD release.
 
Dark side of the soul

Father Raymond J. de Souza
National Post

Saturday, May 21, 2005

With the release yesterday of The Revenge of the Sith (Episode III), George Lucas delivered the final episode in the most commercially successful cinema series ever. The films are notable for dazzling special effects, clunky dialogue and only occasional lapses into good acting. Why then their popularity? I suspect it's because they tell, in a thoroughly contemporary way, the most ancient stories about the human condition.

Perhaps because Star Wars pioneered the phenomenon of movie-as-marketing-bonanza, it has earned the withering disdain of elite critics. The New Yorker's Anthony Lane denounced Lucas and all his pomps and works in his review of Sith. "Deep nonsense" was how he began his vivisection of the Star Wars six-part series, finally condemning it all as "flawless and irredeemable vulgarity". Twenty-eight years ago, it was the same with the first Star Wars in The New Yorker, with then-critic Pauline Kael panning it as the "genius of plodding" and saying that Lucas "has the tone of bad movies down pat."

Everything that is popular is not meritorious -- which goes double for pop culture -- but one might step back to ask why, in the most ephemeral of industries, show business, Star Wars has been so popular for so long. It was Kael, after all, who earned her place in history not for her reviews but for her comment on president Richard Nixon's landslide re-election in 1972: "How could that be? I don't know a single person who voted for [him]."

The legions of the fans who consume (it is the right word for the merchandising machine that accompanies the films) Star Wars are not exactly a Nixonian silent majority; to the contrary they loudly trumpet their sometimes fanatical devotion, even queuing up for days before the films open. For boys of a certain age (I was six when the first film was released in 1977), Star Wars provided the architecture of our imaginary worlds. I remember well the only boy in our class whose parents had bought him the Millennium Falcon -- invitations to play at his house after school were highly prized. Star Wars was brimming over with the things loved by boys of all ages: spaceships and grotesque creatures and alien worlds and -- best of all -- lightsabres. But other movies had that too. Star Wars added a strange mystical reality -- the Force -- and codes of honour and duty, played out against the cosmic drama of good and evil. It was this that sustained interest in the saga over almost 30 years.

From the beginning, many fans noted the religious images in Star Wars, far too numerous to be accidental. Sir Alec Guinness in the garb of a monk in his turn as the elderly Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Luke Skywalker, when he finally makes it as a Jedi, dresses like a young priest. Darth Vader's helmet is a stylized mitre of sorts, all the better to evoke the corrupt bishop he has become. The wicked emperor carries a staff and is attended by a court that includes attendants decked head-to-toe in cardinalatial red. The latest installment gives us the sinister "Order 66" -- subtle it's not -- and a Jedi "temple" with a minaret-like construction. Above all, there is the Force which, in addition to allowing the Jedi to levitate objects and other cool things, is a potent combination of everything-is-god pantheism, quasi-Buddhist eschatology, New Age energy fields and Manichean dualism. Anakin Skywalker is called the "Chosen One"; the Dark Side is the evil principle which seeks the corruption of the best, even as Lucifer was the greatest of all the angels.

Yet Star Wars is not principally a religious story about the corruption of an elite priesthood (Lucas has hinted that the Jedi were modelled loosely on the Jesuits), seduced into employing their special abilities in a quest for power. Rather it is an older story, a much older story about the deepest human dramas -- the tale of love, sacrifice and fatherhood on the one hand, and the tragedy of hate, domination and tyranny on the other. It is the conflict between competing stories about the human experience. It is a test about which account is more authentic description of the path to human flourishing.

The Star Wars double trilogy is the tale of Anakin Skywalker, a young boy of preternatural abilities who has no father - whether it is because his mother was abandoned or, as suggested in The Phantom Menace (Episode I), because he was conceived without a father at all. Identified by the Jedi masters as strong in the Force, he is taken into their custody for training after his mother is captured as a slave. The Jedi present to him the ideals of honour, duty and sacrifice -- including celibacy -- in which those who have been given much are required to serve the good of all.

As a young man, Anakin decides to follow another way, rejecting the spiritual fatherhood of the Jedi knights in favour of marriage, which he contracts secretly. In Sith the fatherless one becomes a father himself. He turns away from his Jedi masters, and the evil Emperor Palpatine offers a different vision to Anakin: Those who have been given much have the power to seize more -- even the ultimate power to create life and cheat death. Anakin accepts Palpatine's vision, not first for personal gain, but to avenge personal loss -- the murder of his mother in the past, and the death of his wife in the future. Anakin accepts that to avoid destruction one must be the first to destroy. It is the way of domination not sacrifice.

In this Lucas revisits an ancient debate about the nature of our human sojourn. Is the primordial reality the one of the master and the slave, as the philosopher Georg Hegel would have it? Does man have to choose between being dominant or dominated, in which case the purpose of life and the engine of history is the struggle for power between those who would be masters and those who would be slaves?

That is the way of the Dark Side, in which the desire to avenge one's own pain -- Give in to your hate! -- fuels the lust for power. Power is the only remedy for pain -- to hurt others before they can hurt you. In Return of the Jedi (Episode VI), the Emperor attempts to seduce Luke into the Dark Side with an offer of revenge against Darth Vader. Luke is invited to kill Vader and take his place at the side of the all-powerful Emperor. It is the Hegelian dynamic of master and slave at work. The slave either remains a slave to be destroyed at the master's command, or he kills the master and takes his place. It is the way of the gun or, if you will, the lightsabre.

"Show no mercy," is the first lesson the Emperor teaches Anakin-cum-Vader in Sith. Mercy is the undoing of the tyrant, for he considers it a weakness that allows his potential opponents to fight another day. There is no room for mercy in the Hegelian master-slave telling of the human story. Kill or be killed it is. Without mercy, anything is possible, and soon the new Lord Vader massacres the innocent "younglings" in a slaughter which echoes exactly the biblical figures of Pharoah and King Herod.

Eventually the Emperor with make the same offer to Luke, to kill Vader and take his place, or be killed. But Vader is Luke's father, so the master-slave dynamic meets the father-son relationship. In The Empire Strikes Back (Episode V), Vader offers Luke the position at his side. Together they will kill the Emperor, and rule the galaxy. He offers his son a chance to become a tyrant. Luke prefers to remain the son of his father. Eventually in Jedi, Luke refuses to kill Vader, and so suffers the wrath of the Emperor who prepares to destroy him.

It is striking that for a saga saturated with violence, the final triumph of the Jedi is through a work of mercy -- the sparing of Vader by Luke -- and the witness of suffering. It is the suffering of the son that accomplishes the conversion of the father, and Vader turns against the Emperor and destroys him. The "show no mercy" domination of the tyrant is finally defeated only by the medicine of mercy and the power of filial suffering to move the paternal heart.

In the end, the only alternative in human relations to the Hegelian master-slave dynamic is the father-son relationship. Either the powerful oppress the weak, as tyrants suppress slaves, or the powerful one sacrifices himself for the weaker, as a father will even give his life for his son.

This clash of archetypes is at the heart of Lucas' mythology. Star Wars is not a work of philosophy, much less theology. But good storytelling always includes both, and it is this ancient story made new that invites us to return again and again to a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.
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'Star Wars' day 1: A record $50M

Friday, May 20, 2005 Posted: 3:48 PM EDT (1948 GMT)


LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- The final chapter of the "Star Wars" movie saga grossed a record $50 million from its first 24 hours in North American theaters, the highest box office tally for a single day, according to studio estimates issued Friday.

"Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith," the last installment in the six-part epic George Lucas launched nearly 30 years ago, surpassed the previous opening-day box office record set by "Spider-Man 2" -- $40.4 million -- and the $44.8 million single-day benchmark "Shrek 2" grossed in its fourth day of release, according to Exhibitor Relations Inc.

The unprecedented first-day success of "Revenge of the Sith," which opened at 12:01 a.m. Thursday in sold-out theaters packed with costumed fans, sets the film firmly on course to becoming one of the biggest blockbusters of all time.

"We've never seen this before," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box office tracking service Exhibitor Relations. "This is an unprecedented achievement."

At the very least, "Sith" appeared on track to eclipse the $110 million grossed by its immediate predecessor, "Attack of the Clones," through its first weekend three years ago.

"Clones," which also opened on a Thursday, grossed $30.1 million its first day.

Distributor 20th Century Fox, a unit of News Corp. Ltd. , debuted "Revenge of the Sith" on about 9,400 screens in nearly 3,700 theaters in the United States and Canada. The movie also opened internationally.
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Tried to go and see it on Saturday - phoned the local Showcase (15 screens), was told a) it's only showing on two screens, and b) next performance I could book for was this morning.

Now, why is it only on two screens out of fifteen? The same goes for all the other multiplexes in this area - it's not like there's anything massively in competition with it. In fact, the Showcase is still showing Valiant, Robots and various other things that have been around a while (half term isn't til next week down here). I know restricting supply as a way of prompting demand is a well-tested marketing ploy, but surely it wouldn't be all that necessary in this case?
 
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