Last night I had a chance to go see what is purported to be the last new Star Wars movie of my lifetime. That could either be because George Lucas is done making new ones, or perhaps there’s a medical diagnosis of mine that nobody’s filled me in on. Regardless, I went and I even dressed up in costume to enjoy the movie that much more.

Yeah, I was one of those guys. I had on a pair of khakis and a dress shirt and I went to the movie as Darth Annoyance and used my powers to bludgeon anyone over the age of nine who wore a Jedi robe, a Yoda mask or Darth Vader’s helmet.

The six saddest words in the English language are “One Ticket for Star Wars, please.” And we looked around and spotted a few of the 40 year old virgins taking a break from Everquest to risk leaving home in the daytime to go see a movie.

The movie was pretty good. I was a very small child when the first Star Wars came out, and I distinctly remember going to see the Empire Strikes Back. I saw Return of the Jedi about 10 times and hated the Ewoks every damn time. I was really hoping that we’d see Anakin make a few Ewok-kabobs with his lightsaber in this one, but he didn’t.

The “prequel” movies had to this point been underwhelming. The Phantom Menace was cool looking and just painful to watch. Why did we need to see Anakin as an eight year old? The Attack of the Clones was better. In fact, if not for the horrific dialogue and wooden acting it wouldn’t have been too bad at all. The last half of that movie, complete with Anakin getting a hand cut off and Yoda kicking some ass is pretty good. If you take the last hour of that one and add it to the two hours plus of Revenge of the Sith…well, it’s redeemed.

My pithy observations of the movie will inevitably give away some spoilers, so if you haven’t seen it yet and want to go in completely unspoiled, just scroll down to the picture of our new favorite intern and skip the next few paragraphs.

When I was thinking about the movie this morning, I realized I only have two real questions left after this film. Lucas did a great job of wrapping everything up, even if the last few minutes seemed pretty rushed. The questions I have are?

Did Jimy Smits get to keep his flying Grand Torino, or did he have to give it back to the prop shop after the movie?

And, were we really supposed to believe that Darth Vader was that upset about Padme dying, given that his “Nooooo!” was much less convincing than anything Brant Brown ever got out of Ron Santo?

And I don’t think Padme’s death (which is not a spoiler if you’ve seen Episodes IV through VI like every other human) was a surprise, given that she gave birth to a pair of 20 pound babies. Those kids were huuuge! I expected Leia to slap Bail Organa when he was holding her and say, “I’d rather kiss a Wookie!”

I didn’t realize for quite a while that General Grievous was half-droid, half-alien. I just couldn’t figure out why a robot was wheezing. I’m a little slow sometimes.

The coolest little moment in any Star Wars movie from now on for me will be Yoda walking into Palpatine’s office and past the guards on each side of the door and waving his hand and killing both of them. I love Yoda and I’m not afraid to admit it. How great would it be if he were alive…and you know…real, and managing the Cubs?

How about this for a mound visit?
Kerry Wood: I’m trying to throw strikes.
Manager Yoda: There is no try, only do or do not. Throw strikes you will, or cars in Texas you will be selling.

Or him at the batting cage?
Manager Yoda: Young Corey, much confusion I sense in you. Anger makes balls you swing at. Your feelings you will search, calm will you find. Strikeouts you will cut down, or the bench you will find. Away put your bat.

There were some pretty cool touches. The Millennium Falcon made an appearance, you could see it flying past the Senate building in one scene. Chewbacca of course is in the movie, giving Yoda a much needed piggy back ride.

I loved that when Yoda and Bail Organa (Smits) were on Organa’s ship that they used the exact same hallway that we first saw Darth Vader in, in Episode IV. That may have been the only actual “set” in the whole movie.

I think that if Hayden Christiansen would actually act, that Anakin’s obsession with saving Padme’s life would have been more believable. I said on the message board this morning that his acting was so bad that had this been Star Wars: Project Greenlight, Lucas would have gotten a note to get Anakin in the Darth Vader costume a lot earlier in the movie. Or at least get him in the helmet and have James Earl Jones take over.

Peter Cushing is in the movie! And he’s been dead for like 11 years now. But it was cool to see Grand Moff Tarkin one last time.

I thought that Yoda gave the best performance in the movie, but Ian McDiarmid was great as the Emperor. What a stroke of dumb luck it was that Lucas hired somebody young enough for Return of the Jedi to be believable in the prequels as Palpatine. I also thought Ewan McGregor was very good as Obi Wan this time around. He actually got some non-dumbassed lines this time. And the scene where he’s standing on the ramp of Padme’s ship like John Wayne was pretty cool.

I felt bad for Mace Windu going out the Mace Window, and thought the one scene that Christiansen actually nailed was his reaction after he did that. So in two movies he was in probably 50 scenes and got one right. Nice. I honestly think that Hayden was hired so that when you watch all six movies (hell, skip the Phantom Menace) you’ll think, “Hey, Mark Hamill was pretty good!”

I’ve never had any use for C-3PO, and I want to know how that robo-Britsh fop got Padme off the landing pad and into her ship? I’ll bet R2D2 had to do all the work.

Seeing the Death Star at the very end had to kill Kevin Smith. You figure Luke was supposed to be 18 or 19 when he blew that thing up and there it was on the day of Luke’s birth already in production? It’ll forever taint the speech in Clerks about how the Death Star was full of contractors and non-union workers. With the hilarious line, “You think a Stormtrooper knows how to install a toilet?” For that thing to take 19 years to build, I guarantee you there was plenty of union labor on that bad boy. OK, that was weak. Sorry.

I felt bad for Yoda as he crawled away into hiding. But moreso because he was going to live in Dagobah for 20 years. Blecch.

All right, enough geeky Star Wars babble. Let’s let the unspoiled masses back in.

Oh, and one last thing, I cannot believe that Han Solo saved Obi Wan’s life at the end! Who knew that when he was 12 years old that he could shoot that well? Oh, damnit, sorry if that spoiled it for anybody.

Today of course is Cubs-Sox and Comcast Sports Net is showing batting practice. The only good thing about is that my first wife, Kerry Sayers is there doing interviews. How great will it be if she’s interviewing Corey and Gail Fisher hits her in the head with her purse?

Judging by how well he’s handling Corey and Jerry Hairston, Chris Speier should throw a few innings today.

We just got word that Sweaty Joe is back! It’ll be good to see the big lug, one of our all-time favorite Cubs back in action, and it’d be even nicer if he’s going to get some people out.

There’s some hand wringing over what minor league pitcher should be called up to start on Tuesday against the Astros. My vote is for Raul Valdez who is the 24 year old Dominican (means he’s 32) that couldn’t get a visa last year and had to pitch for the Cubs’ Dominican Summer League team and struck out like 1,000 guys in 200 innings (I’m too lazy to look it up). The Cubs don’t really need to make a roster move to add him to the 40 man roster, because they still have Nomar on the 15-day DL when we all know he’s a loooong way away. So they move Nomar to the 60 day DL and then Raul can come up. However, that means Raul has to stay on the roster and then you have to clear it up.

OK, I’m going to post the GameCast right now, as well, and we’ll be all set for a day of Cubs-Sox “action.” Of some sort.