(Continued from Greymatter.)

I liked my small town when I was growing up, but there's no incentive, beyond nostalgia or family connections, for me to move back there. Of the 24 kids in my graduating class, I think 2 are still there (it might be more than that; I don't keep up with my class, but it's a very small percentage), largely because of the lack of opportunities. Almost all jobs in my hometown are based on agriculture (farmers, like my uncles) or are agriculturally related (support services, like building grain bins for the farmers like my dad does). For most of human history, these jobs have been labor intensive, but that's just not the case anymore. Modern technology has not only made large numbers of people unnecessary for farming, it has made it economically unfeasible. For most farmers, it's become a case of "farm as much land as you can with as few people as you can in order to break even." And even if there were agricultural jobs available, they're all "ground floor" jobs. Those who already have the land and equipment (my father's generation) have made it impossible to just decide to "be a farmer" and start from scratch. I mean, come on, a combine costs, what, $80,000? How many high school graduates have $80,000 lying around? There's no incentive to try to break into farming when I can find a job in a bigger city that pays the same or more and doesn't involve large amounts of physical effort (and let's not even go into the whole "insurance benefits" thing; being self-employed is not nearly as attractive as letting an employer take care of those things for you).

Granted there are still some non-farming jobs. Every town will need its plumbers and electricians and restaurants. But a smaller population means more competition; a town of 800 just won't support more than a couple of restaurants, especially if it's not on a major transportation route. This isn't to say starting your own business can't be done (that was the point of the editorial; that there are job opportunities there if you look). It's just that there's not a lot of incentive for me to even try it unless I have another reason to move back in the first place. And for anything more than "basic" offerings (electricians, for example, or other things people "need"), a town has to have a critical mass before the offering is viable. I might be able to open a bookstore or a healthfood store and do okay in Omaha; that's not true in a town of 800.

Small towns have their attractions, of course. Lower crime, a bigger sense of community, etc. They're attractive for people who have started a family and want to raise it someplace safe. But competition is fierce. My hometown has one cafe. The nearest movie theater is 45 miles away, and it has 2 screens. Contrast that to Omaha, where I have a choice of dozens of restaurants within 10 minutes of my house, and 6 theaters showing pretty much every movie currently out every half hour. My hometown also has a distinct lack of single people between 20 and 40; if you're not married yet, that's a huge disadvantage. They didn't leave because there were no other single people, but it's a reason they don't move back. The problem feeds on itself.

And then there are the economic problems involved in providing the same level of services to smaller groups of people (if that sounds confusing, stay with me as I explain). Because the costs of running, say, a school are somewhat fixed (buildings, heat, fuel, food, transportation, etc., are largely fixed costs), it costs more per pupil to finance a public school in a small town than it does in a large city (the cost per pupil goes down as you increase the number of pupils). Yet, because public funds are doled out based largely on population (and political influence), the state aid to small towns has been slashed *drastically* in recent years (I've seen the numbers and they're frightening). Far more money is channeled to schools in Omaha and Lincoln (not just raw dollars, but in terms of percentages as well) than is directed to rural schools. The current solution to this is consolidation (the school system in my home town was restructured just a few years ago, with one school closing and two other schools merging into one), but eventually even that won't be enough. The pay rate for a teacher in a rural public school is already pathetically low, so the only option I can see is to raise local taxes. Another strike against moving back.

There are mitigating factors that weigh in favor of small towns, though. The introduction of the Internet (especially high-speed DSL) to rural areas will help offset some of the advantages of the big city. I may not need a bookstore two blocks from my house when I can order "A Tale of Two Cities" from Amazon. But then again it's hard to order Old Chicago pizza over the Internet when it's 6 hours away. So I foresee the continual migration of the 18-40 crowd from rural to urban areas. Some people will eventually move back, but not nearly in the numbers needed to offset the migration. And thus Omaha will continue to grow and engulf neighboring areas, and rural towns like Oshkosh will continue to shrink and lose businesses. It's a tough situation.

(Continued from Greymatter.)

Lane and I saw "Revenge of the Sith" on opening weekend and it was, thankfully, good. Specific praise and criticism follow. If you haven't seen it, look away. Look away, I tell you!

Praise

An "adult" Star Wars (no, not with alien sex or "Wookies Gone Wild"; "adult" as in "no characters speaking on the level of a 4-year-old"), this entry was far darker. We knew it was coming, but we still had to witness the fall of the Jedi. The darker tone gave it a more realistic (if that word can be applied to something in a galaxy far, far away) tone than the feel-good family-friendly pod races and heroic rescues of the previous two.

The lightsaber battles were spectacular. Lightsabers are just cool in general, and we had more lightsaber battles in this one than in several of the others combined.

Ian McDiarmid simply stole the show. His role in the original trilogy was small (in fact, he originally only appeared in "Return of the Jedi," although he was "added" into "The Empire Strikes Back" in the special edition), and he had his moments in Episodes I and II, but he was simply Machiavellian in this one. His seduction of Anakin to the Dark Side was more cerebral than forceful; the audience knew who he was the entire time, but it was like watching a snake.

The concept that the clones themselves were the actual force that destroyed most of the Jedi (and thus it was the Jedi who indirectly doomed themselves by simply accepting the "discovered" clone army, which was never explained) was interesting. I wondered how Lucas was going to wipe out a couple thousand Jedi in one shot.

Yoda rocks. Enough said.


Criticism

Lucas *still* can't write dialogue to save his life. Samuel Jackson came off as pissed off for most of the movie, a very un-Jedi-ish trait (I still think he was miscast for this role). The dialogue in some places was still amateurish and wooden.

Hayden Christensen is maturing as an actor, but still isn't quite there. He came off as whiny in more than one scene.

The plot had some problems. Granted the ending was already written; the movie had to dovetail into Episode IV, and we already know what happens in that one. But there was no attempt to explain character motivations that matched up with the chronology but made little sense. For example, we know from Episodes IV and V that Obi-Wan and Yoda have been in hiding for 20 years, and thus in Episode III we have Obi-Wan and Yoda discussing their plans to go "into exile" (as Yoda puts it). But there's no "why." The Jedi have been wiped out, the Sith are ruling and the best plan Yoda can come up with is hiding in a swamp for two decades? I have a better plan; how about Obi-Wan and Yoda go recruit some more Jedi and try to take out Palpatine again. Or start the Rebellion now. The defeatist attitude is out of character. Another example is Yoda's brilliant plan for the two surviving Jedi to split up and each take on a Sith. Why not have Yoda and Obi-Wan gang up on Palpatine (the Jedi ganged up on the Sith in both of the previous movies, and no fewer than *four* Jedi took on Palpatine earlier, so they have no objection to it), then both go gang up on Anakin. And the whole "giving the twins" away thing; all Jedi in the prequels start their training as toddlers, yet rather than beginning the twins' training then, they wait 20 years. Of course, if they did any of that it wouldn't match up with Episode IV, but my gripe isn't that it wasn't done so much as that it wasn't explained *why* it wasn't done. I can think of possible explanations for all of those, so it's not like Lucas couldn't have done it.

The little one-line add-on about Obi-Wan communing with Qui-gon. Gah. I couldn't believe they actually put that in. Lucas put it in to explain how Obi-Wan became a ghost in the original movies, but here's the deal: the fans *already* had an explanation. I don't know who originally came up with it, but it's been in the fan canon for years; there are Web sites that explain why Obi-Wan, Anakin and Yoda became ghosts but none of the other Jedi did, and it has to do with not actually dying, but rather giving yourself over to the Force just before you die (Obi-Wan vanishes before Vader actually kills him; Qui-gon is actually killed). Lucas completely ignored that and put in his own one-line explanation that not only contradicts the fans' explanation but makes less sense (if Qui-Gon taught it to only Yoda and Obi-Wan, how did Anakin learn it?). It was unnecessary and clumsy; Lucas could have really reached out to the fans by including the fans' explanation, but chose not to. It was perhaps the one point in the film that actually peeved me.

All in all, though, I enjoyed it. Far and away the best of the prequels, and perhaps rivaling "The Empire Strikes Back" for my favorite. I think it was the lightsaber battles that tipped it. Have you figured out that I like lightsabers?