[Emni Windrunner]

Oh, my gosh, I thought I was reading a transcript of my own thoughts in that article! I confess, I was a SW diehard for several years of my life. I still have a soft spot in my heart for the original trilogy, and I kept some of my Expanded Universe novels (just the ones by Zahn and Allston, though; Barbara Hambly...we won't talk about her fate. It wasn't pretty) and even read them sometimes. But I was cooling off big time after Episode I came out (in which they killed the only two characters I gave a rip about, and didn't kill the two I was really sick of), and LOTR was just the final nail in the coffin. I canceled my membership at a SW fansite I refuse to name and discovered Barrow Downs, and I haven't looked back since. My roommate and I traded in our toy lightsabers for, in her case, Sam and Frodo action figures, and in mine, lots and lots of production still flats with which to paper my dorm room. I delighted in crushing all of my Episode I Pepsi cans (except for Qui-Gon, who's still really cool even if he's dead, and Obi-Wan, because he has an attitude problem and I can identify), and I tore down my Anakin poster and tossed it somewhere in the deadly recesses of my too-cluttered closet; poor little Ani is probably crushed to death by now. Darn. (Incidentally, Hayden Christiansen IS a good actor. Watch Life As a House sometime. Rumor has it that Lucas cramped his style.) George Lucas can't hold a candle to either J.R.R. Tolkien or George Lucas; I am officially over Star Wars and lost in Middle-Earth, and I doubt any other SW movies could change that. I saved the money I would have wasted seeing that wannabe B-movie Lucasfilm euphemistically called Episode II and spent it on midnight showing tickets to TTT.<P>Okay, long post, rant over, climbing down off of soap box and hiding in the corner from people who will throw plush Ewoks at me in revenge.