A Jedi’s strength flows from The Force, and so does George Lucas’ – when he’s on his game.
But beware the Dark Side – where Lucas has gone far too often in the first five “Star Wars” movies.
How else to explain the two-headed Robin Williams wannabe emceeing the “Phantom Menace” pod race? Or the woeful under-use of Samuel L. Jackson as Jedi Mace Windu?
We sifted through tons of space debris and picked the 10 cheesiest, wimpiest and just plain insulting “Star Wars” moments ever.
But, as Yoda knows, many more, there are. Send your nominees for the most awful “Star Wars” blunders (and favorite scenes, as well) to starwars@nypost.com. We’ll publish the results next week.
10. The Ewok keg party
Every “Star Wars” movie ends with a cornball fiesta/award ceremony/dance that makes lightsaber-loving fanboys shift uncomfortably in their seats.
But dopiest of all was in “Return of the Jedi.” To the strains of Zamfir pipe music, the furry Ewoks bounced around playing bongos on stormtrooper helmets.
Everybody was so happy, happy, happy – it made us choke.
9. Han Solo vs. Greedo
The saddest thing about new-fangled digital editing is that it lets directors meddle with classic movies. In the remastered version of the first “Star Wars,” Lucas inanely decided to re-edit the cantina scene so that bounty hunter Greedo fires at Han first, instead of the other way around.
Was that because fans just couldn’t handle the truth – that Han is a rough-and-tumble, shoot-from-the hip smuggler and not a squeaky clean farm-boy like Luke? Please.
Like Princess Leia, we dig Han because he’s a scoundrel.
8. Trade wars
There’s so much that’s so wrong about “The Phantom Menace,” it’s hard to know where to start. How about the beginning -with the second sentence of the opening titles. Remember?
It was 1999. “Star Wars” was back. We were excited. But what the heck was Lucas talking about?
“The taxation of trade routes to outlying star systems is in dispute.” Whaaa? It read like an economics textbook, and promised just as much fun.
I’ve got a bad feeling about this, many fans thought to themselves – and they were right.
7. Space stereotypes
“Star Wars” has always played with archetypes – English butler C-3PO, Nazi storm troopers. But in “The Phantom Menace,” Lucas went too far.
The evil Trade Federation toadies spoke in bad Fu-Manchu Chinese accents – “Queen Amidawa, hersewf!” And unscrupulous Watto, the gnat-like alien who enslaved Anakin, sported an enormous hooked nose.
Lucas should have just gone all out with his intergalactic racism and referred to Watto as the Merchant of “Menace.”
6. Dex’s Diner
Speaking of stereotypes, what about Dex’s, the Mel’s Diner – or was it Arnold’s – of Coruscant?
In “Attack of the Clones,” Obi-Wan went there to cadge information from crusty ol’ Dex – a wacky, tubby fry-cook alien. He’s supposed to be a heavy player, but the guy works with a roller-derby droid waitress who serves steaming cups of “Jawa Juice.”
The under-10 crowd thinks Dex is hilarious – look, you can see his butt-crack! But the rest of us were thinking, He sure ain’t no Jabba the Hutt.
5. Dooku’s dirty dozen
Dooku! Dooku! Dooku! Or should we say, Dork-oo.
Christopher Lee’s evil count wasn’t so bad – actually, he’s kind of cool – but the name is beyond ridiculous. In “Attack of the Clones,” we felt sorry for respected actors like Ewan McGregor (Obi-Wan) and Ian McDiarmid (Palpatine) every time they had to say it.
And Dooku’s council of digitally animated alien advisers – the armored Techno Union army guy and the super-skinny Banking Clan representative – must have been inspired by design rejects from Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” movie.
4. Hello, dumb lovers
“I don’t like sand,” Anakin says to Padme as he tries to seduce her in “Clones.” “It’s coarse and rough and irritating and gets everywhere. Not like you. You’re everything soft and smooth.”
Any normal girl hearing that bizarre pickup line would back away and dial 911.
But in a twist only Lucas could think believable, Padme took the bait. Before long, Anakin is impressing her by surfing the back of some pod-shaped alien cow.
Natalie Portman may be talented, but even Meryl Streep couldn’t have pulled that off.
3. Boba Fett – girly-man
Lucas never gives his characters the respect that fans do – especially wicked bounty hunter Boba Fett, who started out as a bad-ass in a rockin’ Clone Wars outfit.
Boba captured Han Solo, for God’s sake! But in “Return of the Jedi,” Boba met a shameful end as the blinded Han accidentally knocked him off of Jabba’s barge into the pit of the lamprey-like Sarlacc.
If that weren’t enough indignity, our man Boba squealed like a wuss on the way down.
Would the Terminator cry? Or Hannibal Lecter whimper? No way. Neither would Boba Fett.
2. “But I was going into Tashi Station to pick up some power converters!”
Ah, Mark Hamill. Who doesn’t cringe whenever our hero -Luke Skywalker, the Chosen One – whines like a baby?
In “Star Wars,” he did it in his very first scene – with the “power converters” line. And in “Empire Strikes Back,” when Vader hit him with “I am your father,” he responded with a blubbery, “No! It isn’t true!”
The Chosen One. Yeah, right.
1. Jar Jar Binks
The most heinous, gnarly, despicable thing George Lucas ever did to “Star Wars” fans is a no-brainer. It is a universal truth that Jar Jar Binks is the lamest character in movie history.
Apparently inspired by a Rastafarian, this extraterrestrial Stepin Fetchit should have earned “Menace” an NAACP picket.
“Me-sah you humble servant,” the shufflin’ and jivin’ Gungan told Liam Neeson in the most offensive race act since “Amos and Andy.” “You-sah follow me now. Okey-day?”
Please, George, give us what we’ve always wanted – an official “Phantom” DVD where Jar Jar, he go bye-bye.