My brains are going into my feet...

It had to happen sooner or later.

All I really needed was an accomplice (read: enabler) and a single, unbroken stretch of 14 hours. Chris and I, thanks in no small part to the indulgence and understanding of our fair counterparts, watched the whole Star Wars saga, episodes I-VI, back to back. The unabridged life & times of Anakin Skywalker, from “Yippee!” to “Tell your sister you were riiiiiiiiiiight...”

These are not short movies, let me tell you. Their combined running time comes to about 13 1/2 hours (you can shave off nearly 40 minutes if you skip the end credits). We kicked off The Phantom Menace at 10 AM and finished up the Ewoks' “Nub Nub” song a few minutes shy of midnight (naturally, we watched only the pristine, unaltered theatrical versions). Along the way we debated such issues as which Geonosian arena creature was the nastiest, which Skywalker was the whiniest, etc. Two dyed-in-the-wool American dorks in their element.

Neither of us are strangers to this kind of marathon. Chris has sat through the entire Expanded Lord of the Rings Trilogy (11 1/2 hours); I've digested all 12 hours of Rich Man, Poor Man in one sitting, and every year I watch the entire rise and fall of the Planet of the Apes (5 movies, 8 hours). So we both wield the resolute fixation and hardened posteriors needed to survive such an ordeal.

(Let me just say here and now that I'm endlessly grateful to have a loving, devoted woman in my life. At times like this it seems like the apex of improbability.)

Anyway. The Star Wars continuum seemed to go on a hellllllllll of a lot longer than I expected. Maybe it's because it leads off with such compelling drama as a dispute over the taxation of trade routes. Or, maybe it's just the fact that Episode II is the longest entry in the series, thanks in no small part to the seemingly endless courtship of Anakin and Padme.

Consider: In Empire, Han and Leia trade a few playful barbs, fool around a little while the Falcon's in the space-slug's belly, and finally confess their love with five words spoken over a carbon pit. But little orphan Ani's whine-n-weep wooing of the apparently lobotomized ex-queen goes on for so long that we actually started wishing they'd get back to the taxation of trade routes. And this was only 3 hours into the haul — right about the time my numbing ass first started sending puzzled queries to my brain.

But then we hit Episode III, which has a lot going for it, not the least of which is the long-awaited chopped Anakin flambé. And then, finally, A New Hope and Empire, which are the reasons we put ourselves through this in the first place. So the going got easier, even though about halfway through Empire, the DVD player started to groan and stutter, much like the Falcon's hyperdrive.

By the time we hit Jedi, my brain was beginning to initialize its emergency shutdown sequence. And unfortunately, Jedi has that 25-minute stretch right in the middle (between the speeder bikes and Luke's arrival on the Death Star) when nothing happens except Ewok antics — so whatever momentum you've carried into the home stretch evaporates right there.

The finale, of course, is fairly satisfying (especially the death of the Emperor at the hands of his own apprentice, oh sweet irony!), but after 13+ hours, there's something a little disappointing in the fact that this long and impressive galactic saga ends with a bonfire and a musical number from The Muppet Show. Not the biggest payoff in history.

No matter. We done it. Nowhere to go from here but down.

And my head still feels like this: