I did it

I finally saw Attack of the Clones last night. (Probably the last week it'll be in theaters around here, too, since it's down to one screen in only one theater now, and all sorts of big new stuff is coming out. Kinda sad that a Star Wars film has come and gone so fast.)

Now that I have seen the movie, I can make the following statements of possibly varying degrees of controversiality:
1. Attack of the Clones is, technically, probably a better movie than Return of the Jedi.
2. Return of the Jedi is definitely a more entertaining and likeable movie than Attack of the Clones
3. Attack of the Clones is at least worth seeing for the Yoda fight.
4. They reigned Jar Jar in so much for this movie, it was horribly obvious and even off-putting. I swear he looked and acted like a dog that had repeatedly been beaten mercilessly by his owner, and was now terrified to step out from behind anyone to say anything for fear of his life.
5. Lucas still hasn't completely learned why the Jar Jar "humor" from Phantom Menace doesn't work. C-3PO sadly takes over for a few too-obvious instances of "Hey, look at me! I'm saying or doing something stupid and silly and funny to distract from the seriousness of what's going on!" (I'm specifically talking about those several cringe-worthy out-of-place and almost-out-of-character puns he spouts when Artoo's putting him back together in the battle arena.) It's still nowhere near as horrible as Jar Jar, so there is a definite improvement.
6. My updated ordered list of favorite Star Wars movies is now:
(1) The Empire Strikes Back
(2) Star Wars
(3) Return of the Jedi
(4) Attack of the Clones
(6) The Phantom Menace
(Yes, I'm ignoring the Ewok movies. They're stupid. The Droids TV series might rank slightly above or below TPM, but I haven't seen it in a long time, and it's not a movie, so it doesn't count for this list. And yes, TPM is deliberately counted as #6, despite the fact that there are only 5 movies on the list.)

One last thing: I read a Lucas quote not too long ago where he said that fans were upset at him because they were expecting The Phantom Menace to be more like The Matrix. Huh? Wha? Um, no. Maybe there were a few weirdos out there who for some inexplicable reason expected The Matrix in space, but I'm pretty sure most of us Star Wars fans were upset because we expected a movie more like Star Wars than what he made. He just... doesn't... get it. Sigh.