Oh, yes. I am that good.
I sent the third chapter of Home Again to be beta'd the other day, and I just got the reply email with no attachment and Alicia leaves for Washington tomorrow and will be gone for a week and unless some miracle occurs I may have a mini-breakdown. *cries*
There. Now that I've got that out of my system:
I recently finished reading the Revenge of the Sith novel, and it is awesome. Really. I highly recommend that everybody read it. It enhances the movie beautifully. That said, there are several things that happen or are said that I totally called. Like, years ago. I just take this as proof that I know these characters and this story quite well. A compliment to my perception and understanding. As an example, I present you with the part of the novel that made me cry. It is about Vader's awakening in his suit. You may notice some marked similarities (most apparently in paragraphs 4-6) to my Vader vignette "Breathing," which I wrote a good two years ago.
"This is how it feels to be Anakin Skywalker, forever:
The first dawn of light in your universe brings pain.
The light burns you. It will always burn you. Part of you will always lie upon black glass sand beside a lake of fire while flames chew upon your flesh.
You can hear yourself breathing. It comes hard, and harsh, and it scrapes nerves already raw, but you cannot stop it. You can never stop it. You cannot even slow it down.
You don't even have lungs anymore.
Mechanisms hardwired into your chest breathe for you. They will pump oxygen into your bloodstream forever.
Lord Vader? Lord Vader, can you hear me?
And you can't, not in the way you once did. Sensors in the shell that prisons your head trickle meaning directly into your brain.
You open your scorched-pale eyes; optical sensors integrate light and shadow into a hideous simulacrum of the world around you.
Or perhaps the simulacrum is perfect, and it is the world that is hideous.
Padmé? Are you here? Are you all right? you try to say, but another voice speaks for you, out from the vocabulator that serves you for burned-away lips and tongue and throat.
"Padmé? Are you here? Are you all right?"
I'm very sorry, Lord Vader. I'm afraid she died. It seems in your anger, you killed her.
This burns hotter than the lava had.
"No... no, it is not possible!"
You loved her. You will always love her. You could never will her death.
Never.
But you remember...
You remember all of it.
You remember the dragon that you brought Vader forth from your heart to slay. You remember the cold venom in Vader's blood. You remember the furnace of Vader's fury, and the black hatred of seizing her throat to silence her lying mouth--
And there is one blazing moment in which you finally understand that there was no dragon. That there was no Vader. That there was only you. Only Anakin Skywalker.
That it was all you. Is you.
Only you.
You did it.
You killed her.
You killed her because, finally, when you could have saved her, when you could have gone away with her, when you could have been thinking about her, you were thinking about yourself...
It is in this blazing moment that you finally understand the trap of the dark side, the final cruelty of the Sith--
Because now your self is all you will ever have.
And you rage and scream and reach through the Force to crush the shadow who has destroyed you, but you are so far less now than what you were, you are more than half machine, you are like a painter gone blind, a composer gone deaf, you can remember where the power was but the power you can touch is only a memory, and so with all your world-destroying fury it is only droids around you that implode, and equipment, and the table on which you were strapped shatters, and in the end, you cannot touch the shadow.
In the end, you do not even want to.
In the end, the shadow is all you have left.
Because the shadow understands you, the shadow forgives you, the shadow gathers you unto itself--
And within your furnace heart, you burn in your own flame.
This is how it feels to be Anakin Skywalker.
Forever..."
*tear*
Oh, and there is one part that was cut from the movie but should be on the DVD that I think everybody should be aware of: Padmé's part in the founding of the Rebellion. Basically, she knows that Bail Organa and Mon Mothma are doing things, beginning to orchestrate things, but she begs them not to tell her any specifics. She tells them this is because the fewer people know exactly what they're up to, the better. Really, she just doesn't want to lie to Anakin. She presents the Petition of the 2000 to Palpatine. Many of the names on that petition begin to encounter problems...
And then Palpatine declares himself Emperor:
"'We can't let this happen!' Bail lurched to his feet. 'I have to get to my pod-- we can still enter a motion--'
'No.' Her hand seized his arm with astonishing strength, and for the first time since he'd arrived, she looked straight into his eyes. 'No, Bail, you can't enter a motion. You can't. Fang Zar has already been arrested, and Tundra Dowmeia, and it won't be long until the entire Delegation of the Two Thousand are declared enemies of the state. You stayed off that list for good reason; don't add your name by what you do today.'
'But I can't just stand by and watch--'
'You're right. You can't just watch. You have to vote for him.'
'What?'
'Bail, it's the only way. It's the only hope you have of remaining in a position to do anyone any good. Vote for Palpatine. Vote for the Empire. Make Mon Mothma vote for him, too. Be good little Senators. Mind your manners and keep your heads down. And keep doing... all those things we can't talk about. All those things I can't know. Promise me, Bail.'
'Padmé, what you're talking about-- what we're not talking about-- it could take twenty years! Are you under suspicion? What are you going to do?'
'Don't worry about me,' she said distantly. 'I don't know I'll live that long.'"
So, there you have it. A beautiful bit of dialogue hits the cutting room floor, and although I can understand why, I do think it's important. Padmé is the mother of the Rebellion. Anakin serves the Empire. Their twins are the only hope of balance.
I love these movies. :)