There was a moment whilst watching Episode III (There were several moments actually, but one in particular springs to mind....), when I found myself grinning stupidly from ear-to-ear, giggling like a little kid.

The moment I'm thinking of was just as the Obi-Wan/Grievous chase kicks off. Let me take a minute to try to sum up that sequence:

- A warrior-wizard, riding atop a giant blue lizard, tears through giant caverns and sinkholes on an alien planet at 100 mph, chasing after an evil reptilian cyborg driving a giant buzz-wheel.

That's.... that's.... that's just completely nuts, that is!

It's stupid, it's bizarre, and it's totally unrealistic.

And I love it!

No other movie series comes close to that level of otherworldly inventiveness. You've got to admire the imagination that came up with a scene like that.

Each and every Episode in the Star Wars saga is full of dozens of such examples of inspired lunacy:

- A farm boy, a pirate and an 8-foot hairy monster break into a cell-block in a moon-sized space station that blows up planets, to try to rescue a princess (who is secretly the farm boy's long-lost twin sister)....

- Little hovering ships fly around humungous 50-foot walking tanks, dragging cables to try to tie the tanks' legs together and trip them up....

- A gang of man-eating teddy bears defeat an entire legion of the Galactic Empire's finest troops, by chucking sticks and stones at them....

- A 9-year-old slave races a tiny cockpit strapped precariously to 2 jet engines, through desert canyons at 600mph, to win spare parts for a royal spaceship....

- A group of heroes are about to be executed by an army of robots for the amusement of a crowd of termites, when a small green frog-like creature arrives with an army cloned from a mercenary jet-packed assassin, to save the day....

Ultimately, it's moments like these that define Star Wars.

Oh, you can go on about the characters, the philosophy, the mythology, the "Hero's Journey" and all that. All of that stuff is important. All of that helps support the action and sustain the storyline through nigh-on 13 hours. It helps us understand and connect to the vast array of bizarre characters and events that are put before us.

But that's not what makes Star Wars great. That's not why we love these movies. That's not what gives us a giddy adrenaline rush every time we hear that trumpet fanfare and see familliar yellow words scrolling up through space.

When you stop to think about it, Star Wars is pretty darn silly. It makes me laugh when I hear fans say these aren't kids movies, talking about them with hushed reverence and treating them as some realistic and deadly serious adult tale.

This series ain't realistic. It never was and never will be. And we'd never want it to be either. It's good, light-hearted, escapist fun.

People occasionally complain about the over-abundance of special effects and the cheesy, excessively-theatrical dialogue, but surely that's all part of the charm? This is escapism we're talking about. It all fits in with this wonderful alien world that is a hundred times larger than life.

Essentially, Star Wars is nothing more or less than the biggest, wildest, Saturday-morning adventure show ever created.



- The evil Dark Lord of the Sith and Emperor of the Galaxy trades insults with an 800-year-old midget, leader of the Jedi Council, as they prepare to cross energy swords with each other.

"If so powerful you are, why leave...?"

BRING IT ON!!!