I don't know if Gabe's responding to the new Episode here, but regardless lemme agree: those were the freaking days. My wife decided to rent the original SW trilogy this past weekend--a decision I for some reason resisted at first--and holy crap. My brother has tried to tell me the Sith was his new favorite, and I'm trying to tell him he must be smoking bananas. Ep4 is fricking transcendent, and Ep5 is a miracle.

Sith is hands down the third best, and between the three of them you could could craft a nigh perfect trilogy of politcal depression: fascism rises, a rebellion has temporary successes, but then the full force of state power comes crashing down and atomizes the rebellion. Shouldn't have been so indecisive, Leia. Now both your boytoys are dead and you're stuck with Billy Dee and his velvet cape.

I haven't written much about the Sith because I was doing a book review when I saw it, and so many other people had thoughtful things written the morning it came out, and because there were a million good critiques of what Lucas did right and wrong long before this one came out.

Having read, oh, all of them, the only thing that I think still needs to be recognized is what a light-swinging badass Obi Wan Kenobi turned out to be. Obi Wan is the Joe Namath of the Old Republic, leaving a trail of dismembered fools behind him as he roams the galaxy with only above-average talent at his disposal. Obi Wan should have guarunteed a victory, then showed up on Mustafar in a fur coat and glacier glasses, wiped the floor with DV, gone back and told Yoda he was a turkey for not taking down Palaptine, and then spent the rest of his youth doing pantyhose ads and running a cantina like Joe did.

Alas he did not, and instead Lucas stuck McGregor with that godawful final bit of Qui-Gon exhibition. Way to go George Porgie, Chin Engorgey.