I liked “Star Wars.” Let me get that out right here and now. I liked the whole trilogy, and even though I probably won’t get to see “Episode One” until mid-June because the movie lines will be filled with guys in Boba Fett helmets that have as much chance of ever getting laid as they have of getting both the Mace Windu and the Yoda tokens from Taco Bell, I would put even money on me liking the new episode of the George Lucas series.

However, it doesn’t take a Jedi master to figure out that there is something seriously wrong with a nation that becomes obsessed with a world that doesn’t even exist. From what I see, it merely takes two X chromosomes.

You see, there’s a big difference between liking a movie and naming your firstborn Obi-Wan. The former is the act of a man that has a semblance of sanity, whereas the latter is the act of a nation that needs to step off the dorkwagon and check in with reality.

If you’re not quite getting the point because you live in a deep dark hole under a bomb shelter in China (good place to be right now if you’re going to be in China), let me fill you in on the whole deal surrounding “Star Wars.”

A simple, little movie came out in 1977 to critical catcalls about a rebellious dude who lived in the desert doing farm work for his uncle. He gets a message from a trash can originating from a princess who later turns out to be his sister.

This woman is in serious need of some help, so the rebellious dude hooks up with an old spooky guy who lives around the corner and a smuggler whose best friend is a really bad Halloween costume. The four of them, plus the trash can, fly around in a ship that looks a lot like a futuristic dinner plate.

For the next few years and the next two movies, they spend the great majority of their time getting into adventures in a galaxy far, far away. We’re talking even farther away than Kosovo.

They fight a chain-smoker who’s dressed up in black who just so happens to be the rebellious dude’s dad, although by this time Dad has turned into part man, part machine and part plastic.

Our heroes blow up a ship as big as the moon, and the smuggler gets frozen alive at one point by a gigantic slug-like mobster with the kind of tongue you only see in pornos.

The whole time there’s a lot of talk about something called “the Force,” some weird-ass cosmic blanket that is surrounding us all if we just would wake up and pay attention to it.

I have always wondered why in the world this movie ever got produced. I mean seriously, if you boil “Star Wars” down, the plot line really sucks. If I wrote a screenplay like that, I’d probably hide in my disgustingly huge reclusive mansion for a decade or two myself.

Not that I’m bitter about the mansion and all. George Lucas took a really cheesy idea and turned it in to a whole hell of a lot of money. That’s the American Way if I’ve ever heard it. If the maker of the Thighmaster gets to be rich, I think George Lucas should also.

What does get under my skin is the way the general public has reacted to the “Star Wars” franchise. People that try to turn a movie into a religion are the kind of people that got picked on at the Air and Space Museum.

Let’s clear some things up. The battle between the good side of the force and the bad side of the force is not a metaphor for life.

Nothing is a metaphor for life, not even athletic competition — though I’ve always badly wanted it to be. The whole Jedis versus the Darth Lords match-up is just a convenient source of conflict for a motion picture. Really, I swear.

No, really, I’m serious.

Star Wars is not one of the great stories of our time. It’s not even the best story I’ve heard today.

There’s no subtext to the plot of any of the “Star Wars” movies. They’re just relatively cool science fiction flicks with pretty nifty special effects.

Perhaps the reason the whole nerd nation tries to make “Star Wars” into something more is based in the fact that “Star Wars” fanatics aren’t living their own lives.

That’s not a notion restricted to “Star Wars,” though. When Princess Di kicked the can a while back, there were American citizens who seemed to be truly and deeply affected.

I didn’t see how it could be possible to have strong feelings for a figurehead leader of an irritating nation that no one ever really met.

The source of the pain was that an individual died who had actually been successful in life, who was providing a forum for others to live through, vicariously.

The very same thing is happening with the “Star Wars” hype. Sure, there were probably a few folks standing in line for advance tickets for “The Phantom Menace” that were teetering close to normalcy, but most of them need to get a grip.

Believe it or not, there are issues in the world right now that are more important than whether or not a double-sided light saber is truly feasible.

Do something with your own life instead of having strangely erotic dreams about Ewoks.

Get a life, start paying attention to the aspects of life that should really concern you (such as personal hygiene), and please stop repeating lines from 20-year old movies and passing them off as witty.

Finally, just keep in mind that it’s only a movie. Seriously.

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David Roepke is a junior in journalism and mass communications. Luckily for Dave, light sabers don’t really exist.