Speaking of good news, Fry's Electronics is coming to Indianapolis.

If you are not extremely excited by this news, you must never have tried to price computer parts or lived in California -- ie, you don't know what Frys is.

That link above is a little misleading. It claims that Fry's "competes" with Best Buy and Circuit City. Puts them out of business is more like it -- Frys delivers the goods, without the frills of those price-gouging places, for tremendous savings to you. You can get hella deals there.

I was introduced to Fry's in a 1997 (?) Wired magazine article. I've never shopped there. I have shopped from their online outfit, Outpost.com, which has okay deals, but the in-store savings are even better.

Too bad I won't be around to enjoy it.

This is the best news I've heard in a while.

My grandfather passed away a few days ago. I wish I had something eloquent to say. I don't even have that many memories of him, though he was a constant and reassuring presence in my childhood.

Wait, there is one. It's coming to me just now, as I write this. You see, years ago, before age and illness made him too frail to move, my grandfather loved to take walks. He'd beat the sun up, bolting out the door for his brisk morning stroll. He liked to go and get things — usually the paper, sometimes juice or coffee. One morning, while my grandparents were visiting us when we lived in Kansas, he came back with a Spider-Man comic book for me. My first.

He was a quiet and generous man, my grandfather. Like so many from his generation, he never sought attention, never stood out, and always had a wide smile on his face. He was soft-spoken, though when he did speak, he loved to retell the same stories, over and over — such as the time his drill sargent asked if he knew how to shave, the manner in which he obtained the nickname "Bones", and the story of his paper shoes. (If you know me, you know it's a trait that's genetic.)

I only remember him ever losing his cool once, when he took my mother, my sister, and I on a road trip from Los Angeles to San Diego. The travel had made him tense and nervous, and he was unable to relax. And if you know my father, you know that's a genetic trait as well.

There was no funeral for my grandfather. Just as in life, he did not want to be the center of attention. He had been lost in Alzheimer's for years now, but I'm told that before he passed, his eyes glimmered with recognition and he smiled one last time.

This is part four of a four-part series on Star Wars. If you have been reading so far, you know that on the whole, I have been extremely impressed with the Special Edition DVDs that were released today. But what of Star Wars itself? And what of its oft-villified godhead, George Lucas?

The Empire of Dreams documentary that comprises the bulk of the fouth disc in the trilogy DVD package really confrims what I've thought about Lucas for the last few years and, by proxy, about filmmaking in general. Namely, that auteur theory is flawed fallacy, that film is the most collabrative of all media, that the contributions of people like Ben Burtt, John Williams, John Dykstra, Ralph Mcquirrie, Frank Oz, Mark Hamill, Irwin Kirshner, and Leia Bracket are just as important as Lucas' guiding hand, and, further, that the greatness of Star Wars is inversely proportional to Lucas's creative control over it.

But I'm through crying about the Special Edition changes or how the ineptly made the prequels are. Seeing the original movies (well, mostly original) again in spectacular clarity was "quite enough to get me excited," to borrow a phrase. And that Episode III lightsaber duel footage got my fanboy heart beating. (Best of all, no lava surfboard in sight.)

And that Empire of Dreams documentary also really encapsulated a lot of why Star Wars is exciting to the film geek, not just the sci-fi geek. Namely, that it is the ultimate guerilla movie. Given the struggle to make it, the fact that it exsits at all is a testament to the power of dogged creativity. That it exists in as wonderful form as it does is a testament to the ability of experimental, independent filmmakers to produce quality that cannot be matched by the studios. And the fact that it is among the most popular of all phenomon is a testament to the commonality of the creative impulse in each of us.

And all that is because of one man. A man for whom I can no longer espouse hatred. A man I once admired so greatly I wanted to pattern my life after his and, whom, I still think deserves tremendous respect. A man who dissapointed me, yes, but a man with whom I have made my own peace: George Lucas.

Watching the Empire of Dreams documentary is obviously very complimentary of the young George Lucas and his passionate belief in his fantasy project. And I think the admiration for that Lucas has never left even the most ardent of bashers. (Indeed, you would be hard-pressed to find a basher more ardent than myself.)

But over the last few years, I have come to see the modern Lucas as out-of-touch and washed-up, a fool who didn't "get" his own creation. A favourite analogy of mine was comparing Lucas to Vader -- both good men corrupted to the Dark Side. I've liked Lucas' tightening grasp over Star Wars to the Emperors' over the galaxy. I like to paraphrase Leia in A New Hope: "The tighter your grasp, the more fans will slip though your fingers." How could Lucas not understand that what he has become, I have wondered -- how could he not understand that he now embodies the opposite of what Star Wars is about?

Well, the most eye-opening part of Empire of Dreams is where Lucas admits to doing just that. And though he does not dwell on it, he seems conflicted -- overcome with the kind of peacful disappointment that you get when you look back on who you were when you were young and contrast that with who you are now. In other words, Lucas is human. He grows and grows old. He is and is not the man he once was. And I can't hold that against him, certainly not in the name of some foolish consistency.

But my ultimate peace with Lucas and my hope for Star Wars comes from this interview.

The peace comes from this line from Lucas, directed to fans like me who have been upset by changes to the original three films:

"I'm sorry you saw half a completed film and fell in love with it."

An apology and an empathic display. And a firm statement of his own opinion. If Lucas understands how we feel about this -- that we honestly, genuinely fell in love with those movies and that that's why they are so dear to us -- well, then we can understand how he feels -- that those movies really were incomplete to him. What more can either of us ask?

That doesn't mean, of course, that I suddenly agree that Greedo should fire first or that Episode II is really well-written or something. I will continue to be critical of his work and his changes, but I certainly will not claim that he doesn't have a right to do what he's doing. Nor will I allow my displeasure with certain things to offset the wonder and joy that Star Wars has always provided me. Call it a truce.

Given what I have been saying about Star Wars being best when Lucas is involved the least, and hoping that he would step aside to let new voices play in this sandbox that we love so much, the hope I have for the future comes from this quote:

Ultimately, I'm going to probably move it into television and let other people take it...If I get the right people involved, it could be interesting.

A few weeks ago, J. Michael Straczynski started to make cryptic comments about a potentially huge new sci-fi TV project. Even if these dots don't connect, just imagine the possibilities.

This is part three in the four part series looking at the Special Edition DVD release of the original Star Wars trilogy. So far I have felt that for every positive change, there has been a negative one, but that, on the whole, these editions are much less insulting to the originals than the '97 Special Editions. Read on to see if the last of the three films bucks the trend.

Return of the Jedi was the first movie I ever saw in a theater, at least that I can remember. In fact, seeing Return of the Jedi in the theatre is the earliest genuine memory that I have. Later, it became the first movie I ever remember seeing on home video. I was eating chicken dumplings at the time.

Because of the timing of my birth, Return of the Jedi merchandise was what was available to me as a kid. Luke Skywalker in his Jedi outfit, complete with felt hooded cape, was the first brand-new action figure I ever got. And it was a green toy lightsaber, not a blue one, that I waved around in my back yard.

Yet, Return of the Jedi has always been the Star Wars movie that I've seen the least. Even as a kid, the Ewoks never captured my imagination the way everything else in all the other movies did. As such, going off the eye-drawn-to-what's-wrong theory I espoused in my review of Empire, changes to it don't really bother me that much. Oh sure, "Jedi Rocks" is still stupid and there was nothing wrong with the original Max Rebo band tune. And I really do miss the 'Wub Wub' Ewok celebration music -- this new stuff just doesn't do it for me, not even on an "Auggie's Great Municipal Band" level.

But -- brace yourself -- I think the addition of Hayden's version of Anakin Skywalker in the final ghost sequence works brilliantly. It really pulls the saga together and makes even those miserable prequel movies seem like the chapters in a grand tale we've always been told they are. I even think the digital changes to the old guy's face in the suit make him look more Hayden-like.

And if you want to see what I'm talking about with the new compositing, look no farther than the Rancor sequence. Where as before it was one of the weakest-looking effects in the series, now it looks very realistic. I mean, he's no Cave Troll, but we're talking about a puppet from 21 years ago here.

So all this is good, good stuff, even if they still haven't fixed the Emperor's worm. And Jedi has some of the biggest highs of the whole saga, as that throne room battle between Luke and Vader, with Palpatine sitting in the background pulling the stings really is the climax of all six films. It's an emotional battle on par with anything from Empire.

But, unfortunately, that's not all there is to Jedi. There's those Ewoks, for which I never really cared. And what really struck me this time was the utter useless of Han Solo. Really, this character is worthless in this movie, and I am totally with Harrison Ford in saying he should have stayed frozen. The movie loses points anytime he is on screen because the character does nothing but detract from the tremendous poignancy his absence would have had. Oh, and the Leia-is-Luke's-sister thing sucks too -- on top of it being silly and endemic of the whole 'tiny galaxy' problem, poor writing ("Somehow, I've always known") and limp acting from Carrie Fisher just don't make it work. Oh and Boba Fett's death is now really stupid given the way he became such an important character in the saga.

These are serious, prequel-style flaws with this movie, so I can't in good conscious say it's as good of a movie as the other two, even if it does have more emotional heft in there than ANH. But, ironically, as far as the Special Editions go, I think this one benefits the most from the changes.

Tomorrow, In the future, I'll give you my thoughts on the Empire of Dreams documentary from the Special Features disc, give you my appraisal of Episode III based on the making-of footage on the DVD, and make my ultimate peace with George Lucas and the Star Wars saga.