Attack Of The Shame

I started my collection back in 1999, and it was one of the first books ever in my collection that now fills several walls in my study. in 2002, the second release in the trilogy happened. I saw The Phantom Menace three times in the theater, but Attack of the Clones only got two...and one of them I saw as part of a big group and probably never would have done so otherwise. It was one of the first times that they'd done a normal movie in Imax, so I was interested in checking it out.

Things had changed a lot by the time this movie came out, too. I was living in Sacramento again, and I had to go see the movie alone, because none of my friends, like Rish, lived in the area with me like they did in 1999. However, that hadn't dampened my enthusiasm for Star Wars yet. I was still super excited to see the movie, even though I had a fair amount of complaints about the last movie, I expected something good.

I went to see Attack of the Clones, and I loved it. I was still seeing Star Wars through rose-colored glasses. I wasn't the only one. Rish and I exchanged emails all the time back then, and he told me, in writing, that he loved Attack of the Clones as well.

I was also completely stoked about getting the next book in the series. They were still selling them at all the stores in hardcover, though the hubbub was much less this time around. The author, R.A. Salvatore, didn't come around touring Walmarts to sign books like Terry Brooks did for the last book, but still, R.A. Salvatore is a real author, not a no-name guy that would normally do a novelization. So that was still going on. So, here's my shame for 2002:

I suspect that sooner or later, I'll unload these books, but for now, they remain. I think this movie was where the damn broke in my unconditional love for Star Wars. I liked the movie to begin with, but the faults were much more apparent, and harder to overlook. They made us all look back at The Phantom Menace with a less charitable attitude too. The terrible lines from the movies began to be the things that people quoted to each other as jokes in the same way that you would quote a terrible 80s movie like Gymkata or others. It didn't completely kill my love for Star Wars, but it dealt a pretty strong blow. We'll talk about the last movie and book tomorrow.