We’re starting to see reviews of the latest Star Wars installment.

Ken Layne describes how viewing it at a tender age affected his world view.

One blogger is collecting reviews, with the comment that:

“…this movie is going to be the coming out party for blogs as chroniclers of culture. If September 11 and the subsequent War on Terrorism gave the blogger-as-political-pundit credibility, Episode II will do the same for blogger-as- cultural-commentator. Thanks to bloggers, Star Wars Episode II will have more reviews written about it than any movie that has come before it.

Jane Galt saw it, and semi-panned it, with paens to the original. She finishes her review with “…it was no Star Wars.”

I’m betting that the favorable reviews are going to skew toward the younger demographic. And those who don’t like it that much, but think that the original was the greatest thing since sliced beer, are going to be in their thirties. And those elderly among us just don’t get it.

Jane, Ken, et al, consider that your age when first seeing the movies has something to do with your perception of them. (Well, actually, basically, Ken admitted that).

I’ve noticed that most of the the real Star Wars-o-philes are in your age bracket–they were kids of varying ages when the first movie came out. Those of us who were older are much less impressed by the series, including the original (probably because we saw it at a time that we were less impressionable). As I said over at The Dodd’s site, “2001: A Space Odyssey” was the template, the touchstone, of superb SF for my generation.

At the risk of being heretical, when I saw Star Wars, I was disappointed, perhaps because I was looking for good SF, and instead found simply a space opera, with numerous holes in the story line, and an insufficient level of reality, consistency, and adherence to the laws of physics, even within the context of the premise.

If you were five or fifteen today, you might be as impressed with Lucas’ latest, as you were at the time with his first.

Yes, yes, I know, you went back and saw it again as an adult, and still thought it was great. But you’d already been imprinted.

And to the degree that my analysis is correct, it’s an example of why a clone of a person would not be a copy.