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Film In 1999 when I left our local multiplex having seen Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, I felt ellated. Not betrayed. No disappointed. Ellated. The rest of the day there was a smile on my face. In 2003, after watching Attack of the Clones, I called my friend Chris from outside the cinema, and jabbered down the phone at him at how good it had all been. I did the same this afternoon, although I was on the train home this time. During all of those moments, those Star Wars films are the best films ever made.

I've said before, there is always something slightly disappointing when you sit down to watch a film, the 20th Century Fox logo appears and it isn't followed by the one for Lucasfilm, because you whatever you are going to watch isn't Star Wars. That doesn't happen with New Line, who distributed The Lord of the Rings, or Eon who offer us a James Bond now and then.

There isn't a definable reason for this, although I know that there's some nostalgia involved. Being a child at school, the day when I think the teachers were on strike and all of the children, some four hundred of us, sat on the wooden floor of the main hall watching a 20 inch tv show a ropey vhs copy of the first Star Wars taped from Granada TV (possibly edited for violence). It's our chance return to those moments, to throw away the years of life which have crept up and ruined us, for just a few hours.

Which is why Revenge of the Sith is the best film ever, at least this evening. For that two hours twenty minutes, I no longer had to be the cynical sausage I've become, and I could just let the adventure wash over me, the ten year old version of me (sneaking into a 12a certificate movie) getting to see were Darth Vader, Luke and Leia came from and were the Jedi went.

In the days and weeks which follow, the cynicism will return and I'll start picking flaws, re-adjusting my appreciation. I'll notice the leaps in logic, the odd poor performance and clunky bits of dialogue. I'll wonder why Lucas didn't leave all this stuff to our collective imaginations which told the story the best way, our way. But until then, all I can say is go and see it, because it really is the best film ever.

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