I haven’t seen The Clone Wars. It could be really good. It could evoke in me a stirring sense of pathos for its daring portrayal of the plight of jedi knights, wookies, hutts, clone troopers, gleep-glops, hoogamans and wobwobs. But I’ll take a wild guess and say I won’t like it.

I’m not arguing that Lucas is bad at making money. He is clearly very, very good at it. That’s exactly the point. Time and again he pursues projects that are transparently cash grabs whose only creative aspiration is to squeeze the last sputtering gasps life out of something he created three decades ago. Now he wants to do a serious project involving real live actors (I’m guessing that computer animated gleep-glops won’t be flying these planes) and anyone who has been paying attention has the right to be a little skeptical. And my schadenfreude levels are just about right.

That’s a lot of schadenfreude, Joel.

Three still equals millions of dollars, which isn’t so bad for a commercial to a TV show that every single critic hates.

Lucas may have lost it, but he’s still damned good at making money… now when it comes to films outside of Star Wars and Indiana Jones that’s another story. Howard the Duck and Radioland Murders might have helped Lucas decide to stick to mainly doing what he knows, which is making bucket loads of money.

I experienced a singular moment of schadenfreude when this weekend’s box office tallies were posted and The Clone Wars debuted at number three. I guess you can only go so far marketing cheap garbage to 6-year-olds.