As ongoing film producer education, and as part of my job as CEO of the nascent Cyan Pictures, I watch a lot of movies – usually at least one a day. It is to that, rather than to a love of the series or to high expectations for the film, that I attribute having gone to see Star Wars: Episode II on the day that it opened.

Unlike the critics, who screened the film hell-bent on skewering it sooner and more harshly than their competitors, and the die-hard fans, who frankly would have accepted even a flipbook of line drawings by Lucas as a work of unparalleled genius, I came to the film with a relatively clear and open mind. Having spent the few days since digesting mentally, I’m left with these main thoughts:

1. Sadly enough, the critics are, by and large, correct. Attack of the Clones is less a movie than a marketing event, replete with poor plot, dialogue and acting, and overwrought CGI effects that somehow lack the charm of the more slapdash originals.

2. None the less, I don’t in any way regret having spent $10 on the film. Lucas’ universe is immersively exhilarating and visually stunning, while Williams’ score bridges earlier and later themes in a sort of Wagnerian ring-cycle so beautifully realized it nearly justifies another trip to the theater just to hear the music again in Dolby THX.

Frankly, though, what I or anyone else says doesn’t much matter; everyone is likely to see Episode II anyway, which is why, in less than 24 hours, the movie grossed an obscene $30.1m at the box office, already recouping over a quarter of the cost of the film (the most expensive Star Wars episode to date).

So why bother to write this review? Mainly, as long-winded introduction to these two quirkily erudite articles: Jonathan Last’s The Case for the Empire and Joshua Tyree’s On the Implausibility of the Death Star’s Trash Compactor. Read them both, now. Or else.