Monday, December 19, 2005

One Man Star Wars Trilogy



Yesterday my sister decided to take her husband to see the One Man Star Wars Trilogy for his birthday. Renee and I went along and it turned out to be a very good idea.

Since 2001, Charlie Ross has been condensing all of George Lucas' original trilogy into one hour. I was hoping just to watch a guy have lightsaber fights with himself. But he goes way beyond that. Giving twenty minutes to each film, Charlie runs through just about every character with slight impressions and exaggerations. Outside of a few side comments, he's completely faithful to the original dialogue. And does the funniest Jabba the Hutt I've ever seen.

But what really impressed was that he also did the sound effects and the one thing that gave the films a soul; John Williams music. I was actually expecting some canned music and sound effects from the p.a. but Charlie does it all with his mouth. That and a lot of running around and falling down.

I think it goes without saying that it helps to have seen the trilogy at least fifty times. The crowd was a nice mix. Lots of kids who really enjoyed his energy. Kevin Pollack sat next to us and he seemed to enjoy it considerably. Renee, my sister and brother-in-law were in tears the entire hour. As for me, I really want to come back to see him do Lord of the Rings.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Although it was 40 movies ago for him, I would remember Kevin Pollack from "Usual Suspects"....

This was great; I was embarassed as to how I totally followed his crazy mutterings step-by-step! [maybe that is why I was in tears.....