I can laugh as much as anyone at how busted the lightsaber battles of The Phantom Menace were.

But did you know the The Clone Wars show regularly showcases lightsaber battles that are more exhilarating than any ever put in even the best Star Wars films?

And that it does the same for space battles? (Sorry about the music that the person who made that compilation used!)

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The Clone Wars is a series ostensibly made for children. I've seen adults turn their nose up at it for that reason. Mistake. It has the characterization and heart of the old movies, and it out-dazzles any spectacle early-Lucas ever produced. It is the progeny of his vision even though he's barely involved in it, and it's as great Star Wars content as there's ever been. It even sometimes makes Jar Jar Binks interesting.

The ideas that old Star Wars was perfect or ineligible for parody or impossible to further serialize is as flawed on the complaints from yesterday's grandpas that the music or TV or movies of today is no good. George Lucas messed up by messing with his old movies, by doing the opposite of the video game studio BioWare and changing his epic when no one was even asking him to. But his re-editing of the past doesn't prevent the future of Star Wars from being wonderful and sometimes a bit camp.

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Current Star Wars is plenty good. Some of it is better than the things Star Wars old-timers like me loved when we were kids.

KSW_KASHYYYK

And Han Solo dancing in Cloud City? That's funny (it's just the rest of the game that stinks).

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It's time to complain about something else. Star Wars is doing just fine.

(Star Wars concert photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images; Lucas photo by David Livingston, Getty Images )

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