After finishing the Wieland family's first ever 10K race in Brentwood over the weekend, the wife and I finally took in the 3rd episode of the Star Wars saga with some friends on Sunday night.

And you know what? It wasn't half bad. It was pretty good, truth be told.

Don't get me wrong. Hayden Christensen basically sucks. And Natalie Portman's not going to be getting an Oscar nom for this one. But the story's pretty solid and fun. I like that Anakin Skywalker had a good, solid, emotional reason for his turn to the Sith. The fight on the lava planet was cool.

Most of all the movie left me feeling like I knew and understood the whole story. I appreciated it all in a way I haven't since before these new flicks started coming out. Hell, they even cleared up that damn virgin birth thing from Episode I (that was waaaay too Catholic).

So I'm not WC Fields anymore. Go, pop culture, go!

But seriously, can anybody tell me what George Lucas has against the human hand? Like four different people lose a hand or two in this movie. And that's on top of Anakin in Part 2, Luke in Part 5, and Darth Vader again (kind of repetitive now) in Part 6.