Nicolas Cage Series - Valley Girl / Shameful - Star Wars

Valley Girl (1983, Coolidge)

Not counting Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Valley Girl,  is Nicolas Cage's first appearance in film, and the first where he's billed as Nicolas Cage. It's a loose retelling of Romeo and Juliet, where the Juliet character, Julie, is the leader in a trio of valley girls, and Cage's character, Randy, is the punk Romeo from Hollywood who vies for her affection.

Really, I feel like there's not much to say about this film. I grew up in a decade where the Valley Girl was a trope already being lampooned and where the punk isn't a weirdo, but the awesome one. In general, the whole "good girl bad boy they're from different worlds but it eventually works" storyline is pretty damn boring. The only thing that makes this remarkable at all, besides the now-surprising idea of Nicolas Cage as the hot guy, is Julie's parents. Instead of the typical "I disapprove of your unconventional love!" types, Julie's parents are hippies who own a health food store, smoke pot on occasion, and really just want her to be happy.

Oh, also, for those who are interested, there are tits. I'm not, so yeah, it was a wash for me.

Fortunately for me, soon after that I saw something was much, much better.

Star Wars (1977, Lucas)

 

I was a little reluctant to see this at first. After all, everyone on earth knows that Darth is his father, Leia is his sister, and those Family Guy episodes pretty much go through the entire plot of the first two films, so I thought, why bother? I just didn't feel like it, and the exaggerated shock I got whenever I admitted I hadn't seen it as a kid got so annoying that I felt like I never wanted to.

But I did, and it was awesome. So awesome that I can't even give a half-decent review or discussion about it, because my thoughts after watching it were basically "space battles laser guns PEW PEW omg Han Solo is so awesome and cute!"

Someday I'll probably end up watching the other two of the original trilogy (I really see no reason to watch the prequels at all), but really, Star Wars works so well on its own that I don't feel like I really need them.

Which almost definitely means I'll be forced to watch them about five years from now.