Last weekend, Cinemax ran a constantly-repeating marathon of the entire Star Wars series, beginning with Phantom Menace and ending with Return of the Jedi. I watched four of the six movies in their entirety (sorry, but there is no fucking way I will ever sit through Phantom Menace one more time. Fool me once, you can't get fooled again, y'all) but I did my best to watch Attack of the Clones, before giving up about 30 minutes in and letting it run in the background while I played PLO/8 at Pokerstars.

I gave Revenge of the Sith more of my attention, though, because I'd never seen it before, and my nerd friends all agreed that it wasn't as horrible as the other two. (Uh, if the best thing you can say about a movie is that it doesn't suck as much as another movie, that's sort of a problem, isn't it?) After watching the entire thing—which was about 30 minutes too long—I can agree with them. It's not as bad as the prior two, but it doesn't rise to the level of the original Star Wars, and isn't even close to Empire Strikes Back.

After about eleven hours of Star Wars movies, though, I wondered: why exactly is the Star Wars trilogy such a big deal to some of us, even though it's clearly flawed, and ends with a bunch of muppets singing around the campfire? Why do so many of us love it so much? Why did so many of us take it as a personal affront when the new movies and re-releases didn't meet our expectations? Why did most of us go back twice after Phantom Menace, like we were in a dysfunctional relationship, hoping that if we just worked a little harder, we'd find a pony?

To me, and I suspect to many other people in my generation, Star Wars was more than just another movie; it was a cultural phenomenon that carried us through elementary school and primed us for Voltron, He-Man, GI Joe, and all the other action figure-oriented entertainment of our youth. While our parents played Cowboys and Indians, we played Star Wars (and Batman and Star Trek, but mostly Star Wars) on the playground, and in the park, and on the floors of our parents' kitchens. Every flashlight or broomstick we saw was a potential lightsaber, and we dreamed of someday using the Force for real.

We love Star Wars because, when viewed from our complicated adult lives through the lens of childhood nostalgia, we see a simpler, happier time, and recall this phenomenon that was an integral part of our lives. Remember what it was like to see the Death Star blow up the first time? Remember how you just couldn't believe it that they froze Han Solo? If you were young enough at the time, will you admit that you thought the Ewoks were actually kind of funny and cool? (I will.) And how much did you run around the woods near your house, pretending to be on a speeder bike? See, it's more than a movie; it's culture.

And that is why the prequels, especially Episode I, are such a kick in the balls to us. To be fair, it's pretty impossible for George Lucas to create something with Phantom Menace that matches up to the idealized version we all created in our minds, but releasing a movie that felt like an excuse to sell ILM's new toys to studios, and sell actual toys to kids was not a good place to start.

My brother and I sat in line for 18 hours for that movie (it's not the several days that the real Star Wars nerds put in, but everything is relative, and 18 hours on the concrete in Burbank was a significant commitment for us.) To maximize our geekiness, we played Magic: The Gathering for most of the time we waited, and I am not ashamed to admit that I got goosebumps and a little misty when the lights dimmed in the theater, and that iconic music started. It was all downhill from there: "My name is Anakin, and I'm a person!" and "Yeah, the Force? Well, it's not as much a mystical energy that runs through the universe as it is a virus that's carried around by nanites in your blood. Hey, Star Wars fans? Fuck you! I got your money! Ha! Ha! Ha!" And don't even get me started on Jar-Jar Binks. By the time the film was over, I wasn't just disappointed, I was mad. No, I wasn't mad, I was furious, and I didn't bother to watch Episodes II and III until they were on cable this weekend, and even then I ignored most of Episode II, lest my fury rise again.

See, can you imagine having this sort of reaction to anything else? I thought it was lame that Molly Ringwald went with the Andrew McCarthy in Pretty in Pink but it didn't make me mad. I thought Ghostbusters 2 was pretty stupid, but I didn't want to punch a door when I walked out of the theater. Star Wars wasn't just a movie, it was personal.

But now that some time has passed, I can take a longer view and ask: Did Lucas really betray us with the new movies? Well, I don't know if it's fair to say that he did, because I don't think he ever cared about us as much as we cared about them. It's obvious now, especially after watching all of them and seeing what Lucas does when he's left entirely to his own devices, that the movies are just excuses to show off his special effects and sell toys.

But ultimately, all of that matters as much as we allow it to. Yes, the new movies suck out loud and should be dumped into the Sarlacc pit, but we'll always have the original trilogy, and its halcyon memories.

Some of us even have our action figures, so we can recreate that famous scene in Mos Eisley where Han shoots first.

Wil Wheaton picks up all his power converters at Toshi Station.