So everyone's all excited about the release of Star Wars, Episode III: Assault on the Myth. And just as with the previous two, we're seeing all sorts of cringe-inducing commercials that exploit our instinctive, nostalgic loyalty to the franchise. Against my will, I find myself amused by the M & M parody of the famous Darth Vader strangulation scene. (Nooo! They're using my own childhood against me!) But really, there are plenty more of these ads that are not even funny at all, that in fact have the effect of filling you with unbearable regret. With these commercials, it doesn't so much feel like shameless advertising as it does like the characters themselves have fallen on hard times. When I see Chewbacca in the recording studio, for example, I have the unpleasant sense that he's only agreed to do this because his five little furball kids are going hungry. I don't want to think of Chewbacca as a father struggling to feed his family; this makes me sad, and there are enough real life things to be sad about.

Yes, folks, it's the return of Lukesploitation.

As each of the new films has come out, the ads have gotten progressively weirder. I heard one yesterday that totally threw my spiritual planets out of alignment: it was for some phone company, and it featured two soccer-mom-sounding women discussing how you could get Star Wars tickets or movies or something for signing onto a particular plan. So the first woman says, "I don't know, I'm not a super-fan or anything." The second woman then proceeds to quiz her in order to prove otherwise. "Finish this name: R2___? Jabba the ___?" Woman #1 is able to answer these questions immediately and, faced with such overwhelming evidence of her geekhood, she finally relents. "Ok," she says. "I guess I'm kind of a big fan." Riiiiiight. Because only hardcore fans would know about an obscure character like R2D2 or Jabba the Hutt. Those guys sort of slipped under the radar for most of us, didn't they? I mean, how could a casual viewer possibly be expected to remember the name of the beeping trash can thing? And I must have watched Jedi ten times before I noticed the GIANT GELATINOUS MUPPET WITH AN ENLARGED LIBIDO THAT IS A PIVOTAL FIGURE IN THE PLOT. But seriously, what is up with this commercial? Is there some dramatic culture shift that's occuring of which I'm unaware? Is it now desirable to be identified as a hardcore Star Wars geek? Are soccer moms really stitching their own Jedi cloaks now? Or is this all, perhaps, just another ludicrous construct created by the marketing Mephistopheles of our time?

The funny thing is, Woman #1 wouldn't even have had to see the movies to know the answers to those questions. All she would have to do is be alive and at least the cognitive equal of a box of rocks. Because you can't avoid Star Wars. It's like a vengeful Mafia. It will hunt you down where you live. It will ooze through the holes in your duct-taped door frames. You would have to become a total recluse to escape it, and even then, you never know when a long black Caddy full of Storm Troopers is going to pull up in front of your remote schack and take you for a ride. So the idea that being able to regurgitate the basic character names qualifies you for membership in some exclusive subterranean organization is pretty comical to me. Once Mel Brooks has made a parody of your movie, it doesn't exactly qualify for underground status anymore. (Sidenote: I do happen to be a huge fan of Episodes IV-VI, but it's probably just Stockholm syndrome.)

Here's the best part. At last, the commercial is winding down and the phone prices and restrictions have been duly recited. Woman #1 then says this (shudder): "Do I get to see Anakin in leather pants?"

What what what?! Anakin in leather pants? Woman #1 wants to see a whiny genocidal teenager in leather pants? Is this the new standard in sexiness? If so, I've got some great pin-ups of Pol Pot as a young man. Look, I'm a healthy girl, but I've never once found anything even remotely attractive about Anakin Skywalker in these movies. (Not that this is Hayden Christensen's fault; he's quite good-looking ordinarily, he's just had all the sex appeal syphoned out of him by that awful Lucas dialogue.) His character in Episode II was creepy, annoying, and just begging for the inevitable Kenobi Kung Fu that will necessitate full-body reconstruction and the grafting on of that nifty James Earl Jones voicebox. And that was just in the second movie. I don't even have to see the much-hyped Jedi Cub Scout bloodbath to know that he's not exactly the Jack Lemmon for this Ann-Margret.

Yuck. Please give me my normal commercials back. I'd rather tolerate the everyday condescension, insults, and gender exploitation of modern advertising than have to think about whether Chewbacca has a pension plan.