I have just opened iTunes on my computer as I sit down to write the coming words. I create a new playlist and title it SW, because, although it is composed entirely of music from the Star Wars films, I don't want my wife to be reminded what an unmitigated dork she's hitched her wagon to should she casually glance at the screen. I think I’m just kidding myself with such surreptitious futility. It is somehow symbolic of my mixed emotions of the whole twisted franchise.

With E3 (in this case, I mean Episode 3) fast approaching I find my cultural identity split in twain. It's not that Star Wars has particularly created this cognitive fissure as much as it has exploited a fault line in my psyche. I've described myself before as a kind of snob, interested in fine literature, music, cinema, and the like, but, as should be evident from the fact that I help run a video game website, I am also‚ an absolutely helpless child of pop-culture. With Lucas’ supposed swan song prepared to inundate mass media with his postmodern mythos, I am at once disgusted by Star Wars and completely captivated by it. I lust for Episode III, and it makes me feel as dirty as if I were lusting for dairy cattle or had taken to posting on ‚"˜furry’ message boards.

I didn’t want to want to see the new Star Wars. I wanted to be angry at Lucas, angry at the disappointment of the last few films, angry at the ruin of what I imagined the films should have been, and mainly just above it all. I wanted to be completely disinterested, so much so that I didn’t even care to point out just how disinterested I was. I wanted complete obliviousness to all things Episode III, partly because I’d been burned the last two times and I figure one of these days I should stop sticking my hand in the campfire, and also partly because I knew if I started paying attention I would slip-up.

And yet, I am a product of my own past. I have clicked every link to minor tidbits of Episode III news I could find with a casual, feigned apathy. I’d tell myself I was just justifying my total lack of curiosity by seeing what poor George Lucas had screwed up now. I’d pretend to be entirely bored with what I was reading. Pfff, looks like they’ve named it Revenge of the Sith. Yawn, looks like there’s some images here of Darth Vader. Hmmm, some teaser trailer is up for it, what a bore. But, truth is, I was always there, eating it up, feeling my willpower slip with each element, knowing deep down that I wanted to see it. Had to see it.

Sometimes I wonder why I’m so resentful of the whole thing in the first place, so resistant to what should be a throwaway afternoon of laser blasts and saber battles. Why am I so angry at Star Wars?

A friend of mine recently took his boy to the big Star Wars convention in Indiana. They drove nine hours because this kid ‚and by kid I mean both my friend and his son wanted to see some minor celebrities who’d been immortalized in Star Wars, maybe get a few autographs, and be a little bit Jedi for a weekend. They arrived at the convention and got in line to get some figures signed by a variety of people. They were both terribly naive.

When presented with essentially a menu of celebrities ‚I use the term loosely in most cases ‚they were surprised to find dollar amounts tied to each person. Like I said, they were naive, innocent in that they’ve never attended a convention like this before, never followed the Star Wars stuff online much, never really been introduced to the mindset we’re dealing with here. They had the preconceived notion that they’d bring stuff to sign and these people would just sign it, like happens at baseball spring training, or a book signing, or when you run into Ernest Borgnine at the local Outback. That’s, of course, not how it works. Most of you probably know this, but to get anything signed, to even shake hands with these people, you have to drop dollars. And I don’t mean just a few dollars. It’s something like fifteen or twenty bills just to talk to the fat Rancor handler who cries in Jedi.

And that begins to touch upon what irks me about Star Wars and its trappings. I know I shouldn’t imagine that successful films are an altruistic venture, a donation to the cultural consciousness, and I don’t. It’s just that the whole thing has been and continues to evolve into an ever growing money siphon. I walked through Target today and saw Star Wars slapped onto no less than a dozen different packages. Here was Luke pushing fruit juice, there was Darth Vader enticing me to eat Pop-Tarts. ‚ A right hand to evil and Sith‚ Lord selling pastries!‚ In my mind Lord Vader is holding out a non-frosted Pop-Tart and saying ‚"eat the dark Pop-Tart, Elysium!‚ It is your destiny!‚" Star Wars is the Krusty the Klown enterprise of reality, a marketing megalith designed to deliver boatloads of dollars into the unapologetic gaping pie-hole of George Lucas.

George Lucas is the kind of guy who’d give you the finger and then send you a bill for labor.

I think when George Lucas meets a Star Wars fan, what he sees is a big walking wallet with fives and one bursting out where hair is supposed to be. I envision him consuming money like Cookie Monster eats cookies; finding a plate of twenty dollar bills and suddenly shouting ‚"Money!‚" before slurping them down with big slobbering gulp sounds. Money is to Lucas as Scooby Snacks are to Scooby Doo. In fact, from now on I plan to call paper currency Lucas Snacks.

So, I don’t much like George Lucas. And the reason is not just that he has a lot of your money. It’s more precisely that he has a lot of my money. I started to try and estimate the sum total of money I have expended on Lucas’ various devices, toys, films, soundtracks, games, books, breakfast cereals, electric toothbrushes, and stool softeners, but found myself slipping into a deep funk. ‚ I think it ‘s safe to say that had I instead invested this money in other ventures I might very well be better educated, better dressed, and driving a much nicer car. I am in an entirely different tax bracket because Lucas once decided a cool idea for a movie would be a whiny moisture farmer who grows up to destroy a big metal moon.

But, that’s not really the problem either. I mean, I’ve shelled out at least as many dollars on internet access fees or for games, and I don’t irrationally resist those. No, there’s a deeper problem here, one that goes to the heart of resentment, and it is simply this: George Lucas manipulates me. I am a horse on the reins. I chomp against the bit, and buck ever so slightly, but George gives me the spurs to the side and points my head in the direction he desires, and off I trot.

So why don’t I stop? Partly it’s because I now have a twenty-five year relationship with the franchise. I was a six-year-old boy hiding under his movie seat when Darth Vader first stormed onto the screen, and a six-year-old boy who cheered wildly when Luke finally blew up the Death Star. For that matter, I’m a thirty-year-old man-child who still gets goose bumps listening to the music from The Battle of Yavin at the part where Han Solo saves the day shouting, ‚"you’re all clear, kid; now let’s blow this thing and go home!" I was a ten-year-old kid with a battered Luke action figure that regularly engaged in cross-cultural battles with Megatron, Cobra Commander, and a troublesome one-armed Cylon. I was, and have always been a Star Wars nerd. I’d like to say I’m unapologetic about it, but it’s clear that’s a lie. After all, I have an iTunes playlist simply titled SW. Like I’m fooling anyone.

Also, George Lucas rides me like a cowboy. The bit is in my mouth. The spur in my side, and I’ve got a pocket full of Lucas Snacks.

- Elysium