I’ve read a lot of lukewarm and negative reviews of Spider-Man 3, and most of them raise some very good points. Even though I really enjoyed it I don’t expect it will be everyone’s cup of tea, and I welcome all informed opinions. But one person whose opinion deserves nothing but scorn is ol’ turkey-neck himself, George Lucas.

Recently, George chimed in on the latest Spidey installment, and apparently didn’t think too highly of it:

“It’s silly. It’s a silly movie,” he said. “There just isn’t much there. Once you take it all apart, there’s not much story, is there?”

Well, it’s not “Star Wars.”

“People thought ‘Star Wars’ was silly, too,” he added, with a wink. “But it wasn’t.”

Now, I’m a huge Star Wars nerd — I’ve seen the movies, read a bunch of the books, and played many of the games – but Lucas is so full of shit his eyes are brown. You wanna talk about “silly” George? OK, then to quote Rainier Wolfcastle, let’s get silly. (Disclaimer: Most of this applies to the new trilogy.)

• The Galactic Empire is brought down with the help of teddy bears armed with slingshots. Was Dennis the Menace not around to help?
• The Force is actually nothing more than some friggin’ space bacteria.
• More lame fart and poop jokes than a boys’ slumber party.
• Darth Vader, perhaps the greatest villain in movie history, is reduced to recreating scenes from Frankenstein.
• Four words: Jar Jar Fucking Binks.

I could go on, but I think I’ve made my point. Look, I’m not going to argue for Spider-Man 3‘s place among the classics of cinema. But as a piece of escapist cinematic fantasy, it surely outranks anything George Lucas has attached his name to in at least the last twenty years (really, the Indiana Jones movies are all about Steven Spielberg). So really George, stop being jealous and just shut up.