The Sith reviews, both professional and otherwise, are starting to trickle in, and, so far, they’re generally positive. Just about every one I’ve read takes the obligatory potshot at Uncle George’s less-than-stellar dialogue-writing abilities, but the emerging consensus is that ROTS is the best of the prequel trilogy — a dubious distinction, I’ll concede, but hey, you take what you can get. A few reviewers are even enthusiastic enough to rank it alongside the original Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back as the best of the entire saga.

That’s good to hear. Because of those reviews, I am finally beginning to relax a little. There’s never been any question that I would see this movie regardless of the reviews, nor have I worried about whether everyone else in the theater hates it except me. I figure I’ve been in the position of defending the indefensible plenty of times before, so what’s one more battle? But I have worried that maybe I wouldn’t like Revenge of the Sith. And I really, really want to like this one.

It’s hard to explain that desire to someone who sees these movies simply as movies. It’s hard to explain even to myself, since I’m not a huge fan of the prequels. While I have stubbornly maintained that they aren’t the disasters everyone says they are, despite their very obvious flaws, Episodes I and II didn’t generate any deep affection in me like the original Star Wars films did. In part, that’s because they were so disappointing on so many levels, but I think it’s also because, historically speaking, I’ve never really wanted to see any SW films beyond the original trilogy. Unlike many fans, I was satisfied at the end of Return of the Jedi that the main story was complete and we knew as much of the backstory as we needed to know. I had no great curiosity about the legendary nine-part saga that Lucas supposedly planned to make (in part because I always doubted the veracity of his claims that it was already planned out), and I had little interest in stories that didn’t feature my beloved childhood heroes, Han, Luke and Leia. In short, I would’ve been perfectly happy if three SW movies were all we ever got.

Once the prequels became inevitable, however, I found that I wanted them to turn out well. I wanted the phenomenon we all experienced back in the late ’70s to repeat itself, for everyone to fall in love with these movies and get excited about them and want to share them with friends and family. And that just hasn’t happened. It’s a different time and a very different culture now, obviously, but the big problem has been the prequels themselves. I don’t think any movie could’ve lived up to the expectations that have been placed on these prequels, but I can’t deny that they haven’t been very good on their own terms either. And it sucks to have to admit that.

It also sucks that something that used to be pretty much an unalloyed good for the people of my generation — the entire Star Wars saga — is now tainted with the stink of artistic failure and empty hype and overblown commercialism. It sucks that fans are now divided into factions and filled with anger and bitterness toward each other, and toward George Lucas for not being the god we always assumed he was. Revenge of the Sith is George’s last chance to undo some of the damage he’s done, to make amends and settle arguments (if he can), and to finally get it right, or at least as right as possible given what he’s got to work with. This is the film that will tie the prequels to the original trilogy, and, since it’s going to be the final film in the series, it will probably be the one that leaves the lasting impression on ordinary film-goers who don’t live and breathe this stuff.

And for me personally, it will be the culmination of a lot of complex emotions that I still haven’t quite sorted out. I feel like I’ve been on a very long journey with these movies, all six of them; we’ve faced adversity together, they’ve let me down at times, and my faith in them has waxed and waned. And now we’re coming down to the end of it, the final act, our last few moments together before we disband and head for home. And I just want it all to end well. I want to feel satisfied in the end, like I felt the first time I thought it was all over, back in 1983. I want to be able to hold my head up again and say, “I’m a Star Wars fan,” without fearing that I’m about to get into an argument, or have someone snigger at me.

For the last couple of years, I’ve dealt with the relative failure of the prequels by compartmentalizing them away from the original trilogy in my mind. I’ve tried to think of the two trilogies as two entirely different animals that have only a slight relation to one another. I have plenty of reasons why I don’t think they fit together as a contiguous story, ranging from the look of the films (the slick new CGI doesn’t visually match the grungy photography of the originals) to the timeline (the ages of Anakin and Obi-Wan don’t map properly between the prequels and the originals, among other things). I really don’t think the success or failure of the final prequel is going to affect my feelings and ideas about the three movies I grew up with. But it is possible that it might.

And maybe that’s what’s really been bothering me. Maybe I fear that if ROTS sucks, I’ll no longer be able to watch my beloved originals without thinking of Sith‘s failure. I’ve been preparing myself for disappointment for months, but there’s disappointment and there’s disappointment. If ROTS ends up being no better or worse than the other two prequels, well, I expected that. No big deal. But if it’s so bad that it takes the entire Star Wars saga down in flames… I don’t know how I’ll handle that. What do you do when something you’ve loved your entire life suddenly turns into a joke? Perhaps it’s unhealthy to invest so much emotion in something as inherently superficial and disposable as movies, but that’s what I’ve done, for better or worse.

And that’s why I’m very pleased that the early press is looking good. Because I need this film to look as if Lucas at least tried to make it work. I’d love to see him knock the ball out of the park and restore the faith of all those apostates who’ve turned away from the Way of the Force, but I’d settle for evidence that he just really tried this time. And so far, that’s the impression I’m getting.