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We never thought it could happen, but the fanboy bloom may officially — and dramatically — be off the Star Wars franchise after 30 loving years of devotion: Ain't it Cool News boss Harry Knowles has written a scathing review of the franchise's new, animated The Clone Wars. And we mean scathing — vicious enough to not only shake our faith in geek compliance to its very foundation, but also rouse George Lucas from his afternoon cash-bath with a cease-and-desist order straight from the top.

Naturally, Knowles capitulated — he did break the Lucas/Warner Bros. review embargo, we guess — but his insight into a true travesty of imagination has resurfaced elsewhere. And for sheer bile (excerpted after the jump), we've got to say we're really quite proud of the plus-size pushover's efforts:

(T)hey introduced Baby Jabba aka Rotta the Huttlet aka Stinky. ... (But) wait ... Little Stinky the Hutt isn’t the worst character in the history of STAR WARS… because Stinky got introduced earlier in the film. As much as I hated lil Stinky… I was weathering Stinky. I seriously was. But later there was a character of such immense **** – offensively bad. The character was so bad, so incredibly awful – that it was a slap to the face. It woke me out of my ****-accepting stupor and made me angry. SUDDENLY my “inner fanboy rage” was awoken. ...

I watched this terrifyingly awful character named Ziro the Hutt. A seemingly female Hutt – with tattoos and make-up that sounds like a racist take on a Black New Orleans Crack-Dealing Whore. Because this Hutt speaks ENGLISH – and it is many times worse than I’m actually describing. This character was actually too much for me. So bad that every flaw I was looking past, was now a road sign to inadequacy and mediocrity. ... I hated the score, the animation, the shots, the characters and most of all the retarded ******** idiot story.

I hated the film. HATED IT. REALLY HATED IT.

More like this, Harry, seriously. And: If we've said it once, we've said it a thousand times: A jailed George Lucas is a harmless George Lucas. Send in the SWAT team.

UPDATE: Good news! AICN is now emphasizing that Warner Bros. enforced the review embargo, not Lucasfilm or George Lucas himself. We knew the man responsible for Stinky the Hutt and Indiana Jones 4 could never lash out at his fans so indecorously.

[Photo Credit: Getty Images]