Back in 1999, I felt a great disturbance in the Force… as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced… I feared something terrible had happened. 1999 was the year that George Lucas released Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, and the reaction of the fanbase was something akin to those soldiers at the beginning of Saving Private Ryan. Young men and women everywhere, dressed as Jedi Knights and Storm Troopers, littering the landscape in various states of shellshocked horror, all to the strains of Samuel Barber’s Adagio. Some wept openly… some flew into a panicked rage over what they had seen… some calmly wandered the aisles in a state of shock, trying to find the other half of their lightsabres, which had been cruelly broken in the melee… it was a bloodbath…

Okay, okay, it was nowhere near that bad, though to hear the stories now, you’d think Lucas had launched a catastrophic blitzkrieg on the collective childhood of everyone born since 1967 using an experimental aircraft that announced “Yoosa peepol gona die!” as it sped towards its target. However, the reality of it was a deep and profound disappointment. That bit in the first episode of Spaced’s second season, where Tim ceremonially burns his Star Wars memorabilia in the manner of Vader’s funeral pyre? That’s probably a more appropriate dramatic equivalent of the feelings of every Wars fan since then. And since then, we’ve seen a further two prequels (Attack of the Clones in 2002 and Revenge of the Sith in 2005); releases on DVD and Blu-Ray of all films, all with new much-derided tweaks, changes and restored scenes; an animated series about the Clone Wars of the prequel trilogy; adverts featuring Vader and Yoda selling phones and toasters; and so on. Now, in fairness, the Star Wars franchise has been the most milked cow in the movie industry, with spin-offs and tie-ins appearing since it began in the late 70s, so all of this isn’t exactly a new thing… but then why have we, and by “we” I mean “I”, felt so throttled by all of this over the past thirteen years? Not for nothing, but the old school Stars Wars original trilogy poster that hangs over my bed (yes, that’s right) that reads “A Once-In-A-Lifetime Spectacular” just grows more and more bitterly ironic as the days go by.

Part of this was hype. Each of the prequels, not to mention the remastered original trilogy in 1997, received an almost unprecedented amount of hype before their release. Hell, you could probably have argued that The Phantom Menace was one of the most successful films of all time before it was even released, just from the merchandise alone. And everything had it. Every film, every TV series, every game. But hype leads to expectation, expectation leads to disappointment, and disappointment leads to suffering. The weight of anticipation was almost inevitably going to crush it all. And it did. This leads us to the next part – Fan Reaction.

Although for a long time, my voice rang with the millions of others who hated these new films, I eventually grew tired of the yelling and stopped. Many others, however, did not grow tired. If anything, the longer it has gone on, the louder it has become. But these people, like so many others were hurt by this event, so they turned to the only place they could vent: the Internet. As it is, you can’t find somewhere to sit on this thing without having to move someone’s carefully annotated deconstruction of Jar Jar Binks’ role in the fall of the Star Wars Empire onto the floor first. It’s gotten pretty gritty. Every single word in this sentence is linked to a different YouTube video of someone reacting to one of the prequels. That’s messed up, right? Every once in a while, you’ll find someone saying something new or intelligent about the whole debacle (like the documentary The People Vs. George Lucas or the superb prequel video reviews over here), but these are the exception. Mostly, it’s just people arguing over what was the straw that broke the Ton Ton’s back (Greedo shooting first, Jake Lloyd, “killing younglings.”).

And then there’s part three – Lucas. For all of the fans across the world that refuse to let this thing die, George Lucas is just as bad as any of them, or as all of them. Whether through arrogance, egotism, stupidity, or just simply not caring, he’s been flogging this dead horse for as long as anyone, ringing every last drop from it that he can. Now, of course, he’s going to do that. He actually makes money from these things, and he knows that people will buy into it because, deep down, people always have the hope that something will happen, something will change, something will come along and restore balance to the Force.

Well, as the Albert Einstein line most often quoted in movies goes, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results… and I’m not as crazy as people think. Coming next week, 9th February to be exact, there shall be a general release of Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, now presented in fully digital 3D. It’s the first of the series to be done so, and the rest shall follow over time as the release dates eventually sort themselves out…

This is me officially and finally declaring that I shall not be seeing any of them. Ever.

I won’t be seeing them because I’ve seen them already and don’t like them. I won’t be seeing them because I don’t like 3D and think it’s a crock. I won’t be seeing them because I have given George Lucas enough of my money for his giant Death Star-sized piggy bank for Star Wars-related items. I’m sick and tired of seeing his latest creations further destroy my love of those first three films. I’m sick of the fact that, long ago, I started amending my statements from “I love Star Wars” to “I love Star Wars… well, the original trilogy, not those new ones or anything like that.” I hate that Lucas is, little by little, eradicating the work of those really responsible for some of the best stuff in the canon, like Irvin Kershner, Leigh Brackett, Richard Marquand and Lawrence Kasdan… but, above all else, I’m just sick and tired of going on and on about it. If this were a cop movie, this is where I'd be handing in my badge and gun. I’ve got my poster, my soundtracks and my copies of the original trilogy (yes, on VHS and DVD) and I shall take my leave of the rest of it.

I wish that you would all join me in this, since a widespread denial of the 3D movies’ existence is the last chance to get through to George Lucas, but you probably won’t. For every one person who says they can’t take it anymore, there are ten who’ll say, “I know, but it’s the Wars, man… in 3D!” and that’s just what Lucas is counting on. He knows most people will cave and go back to him like some sort of abused spouse, convinced that this time will be different. I don’t believe that anymore. Should you venture out to the cinema next week to see the Wars in 3D, expecting it to finally round itself off nicely or some such thing, then good luck to you, you have no one to blame but yourselves. If there are some of you out there that find yourself wavering, considering whether or not to go, unsure if you will indeed abstain from the latest of George Lucas’ digital cash-ins, remember this… do or do not, there is no try.

Me? I will take my spot on the dunes and watch those twin suns of the Star Wars universe set once and for all.

Goodbye, Star Wars.