Roger Ebert’s review took a swipe, or a bunch of swipes actually at fanboys, both the movie Fanboys, and actual Star Wars fanboys, touching off a backlash from fanboys, the real ones, not the movie variety. Now lately Roger Ebert has fallen into the habit of not so much reviewing the movie, as going there and rambling on loosely related topics in the review. You can’t deny the man his Grandpa Simpson phase, but both Ebert’s review and the backlash toward it are classic unintentional internet comedy. Ebert damned himself by dedicating an entire half hour to the release of The Phantom Menace, a movie now considered infamously bad. I watched with complete disbelief as Siskel and Ebert spent a half hour, minus assorted commercials though the entire special was really one long commercial for George Lucas and Phantom Menace, going gaga over the movie. Now this was all the more unjustified because while Star Wars fans may have been fooled by the hype, many critics weren’t. The New York Post, owned by FOX owner Murdoch, had to drag in its editorial page editor to praise Phantom Menace because all four staff critics on the paper gave it a bad review. Clearly they either had more integrity or better judgment than Roger Ebert. Star Wars fanboys, the real and the movie version, can be forgiven for being taken in by their own hopes. But what was Ebert’s excuse for spending half an hour shilling for a terrible movie? The only thing worse than being a fanboy, is being a hack.