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This weekend, I had the dubious pleasure of watching G4′s coverage of the 30th anniversary of Star Wars, a mostly excruciating farrago that more or less represented everything I hate about genre fandom. Runaway consumerism, fat guys with three chins squeezed into Anakin Skywalker outfits doing Wookiee growls, and G4′s time-tested formula of Dweeb and Tits — a nerdy imbecile who can’t shut up, and some down-on-her-luck model crammed into a tube top, clumsily reading Star Wars trivia off cue cards in an obvious attempt to lubricate the feverish masturbatory dreams of stereotypical sci-fi virgins everywhere. In other words, everything you’ve come to expect from any kind of Star Wars convention. Seeing Jeremy Bulloch was a pleasure, though, and watching Ray Park goof off is always deeply rewarding, so it was only nearly a complete loss.

In somewhat belated honor of the 30th anniversary of Star Wars, I’d like to do what Star Wars fans do best, which is complain. No, wait a minute, come back here. I mean complain in the most loving and affectionate way possible. One sure sign that you love a movie is when you can complain a great deal about inconsequential, nitpicky shit that most well-adjusted human beings wouldn’t even bother noticing, what with their high-paying jobs and significant others and fashionable luxury automobiles. Here, then, is a short (and far from complete) list of little things about Star Wars that have always bothered me.

In the interest of not being unbearably dull, I’ve left out drab criticisms like “why is there sound in space?” and “how did the Ewoks defeat the stormtroopers?” These points have been exhaustively covered in apocalyptic fanboy clashes the world over, and further discussion will only bring tears and more Kevin Smith quotes.

Before I begin, I should not that I know there are probably some very boring, canon answers to nearly all these lingering questions. So, before you start frantically writing comments to correct me, I want to tell you (in the nicest possible way) that I probably don’t want to know. I’m sure that some fan, somewhere, if not Lucas himself, has laboriously catalogued every xenological quirk and plot hole in the Star Wars saga. But, see, I like the mystery. I also like to complain. And, most of all, I like cheap laughs. So here we go.

#1. Droids: Why Won’t They Serve Their Kind Here?

Geez, everyone’s rubbernecking, this is so humiliating.

When Luke, Threepio and R2 walk into the Mos Eisley Cantina, the bartender aggressively informs them that they don’t serve droids, and they’ll have to wait outside. Never mind the fact that I don’t know what you’d serve a droid, anyway. Robots aren’t big drinkers, as far as I know — Bender notwithstanding. What happened to make the bartender so angry at droids? Did a 2-1B get drunk on Shirley Temples and trash the joint? Do astromech droids win at keno every time? Jeez, just let them come in and sit down.

Things were nicer in the Old Republic, when they appeared to have some sort of droid Equal Rights Amendment which granted them the right to low-paying menial jobs serving Jawa juice to thirsty Jedi. (How exactly do you juice a Jawa? I would not drink Jawa juice.)

#2. Eject, Porkins?

Eject, Porkins, eject! I don’t mean to be obvious, but this seems like kind of bad idea when you’re not wearing a spacesuit. Maybe this is some sort of long-standing joke — hey, let’s tell Porkins to eject, watch what happens to his eyeballs! It all seems to fit: beefy, clueless Porkins seems to die not so much from an enemy hit, but from being unable to pilot his ship, and just plows it in while fiddling with the controls like my grandfather pokes at the TV remote. My theory is that the Rebellion was so hard-up for pilots that they had to troll the Yavin cafeteria for prospects, drafting the Star Wars equivalent of Mustard Man into military service.

#3: An Empire Without OSHA

Seriously, guys, ever heard of handrails? A lot of really long drops around here, and not much in the way of safety equipment. We won’t even talk about that light bridge that hasn’t worked since you installed it. Apparently, in addition to sweeping away the last remnants of the Old Republic, the Emperor also swept away a burgeoning pile of wrongful-death lawsuits.

Are you sure this is good for us, Larry?

All things told, it’s probably a good thing those Imperial engineers died in the explosion — they didn’t have to face the inevitable testicular cancer from constant exposure to that superlaser.

#4: Imperial Targeting

What the… not again! OK, just hit CTRL-ALT-DEL…

After watching this movie about twelve times, and noting each time that the Rebellion’s aerial strategem of flying in a straight line and getting blown to smithereens never seems to work, I started to wonder if maybe the Empire wasn’t right in wanting to wipe these clods out. Several times during the climax of the film, Rebel pilots talk about how they “can’t hold him,” where “hold him” appears to be a euphemism for “get shot by him.” Finally, they manage to hold ‘em. What makes it doubly funny is that Imperial targeting systems seem equally as dismal — the readout clearly shows the target to be squarely in the crosshairs, yet when the Imperial pilots fire, the laser blasts just sort of lazily wander over to the target, finally hitting them almost by accident, roughly akin spraying one’s enemies with an unruly garden hose. Of lasers. The whole climax plays like a grand, clunky showdown between the Rebellion’s rank incompetence and the Empire’s shitty technology, lending a certain poignance to Luke’s decision to shut down his X-Wing’s antiquated copy of Windows Me.

#5 Your Tauntaun Will Freeze Before You Reach the Exit

Then I’ll see you in the undefined, secular Star Wars equivalent of Hell!

First of all, I want to say that I just love the offscreen actor’s cue-card read on this line. “Okay, here we go. Don’t get it wrong, Neil. Don’t fuck it up. Your tauntaun will freeze before you reach the first marker!” The guy sounds like he’s leaning against a bulkhead with a clipboard in hand, wearily delivering this warning thirty times a day to bored Rebel teamsters who are taking out their tauntauns, only to have them freeze before they reach the first marker and coming back angrily demanding a replacement.

What’s doubly puzzling to me is how anything works on Hoth. So you can’t adapt the speeders to the cold, and the native animals die when they’re exposed to the weather? They can’t survive the cold? The whole planet is ice, for fuck’s sake. How are the tauntauns not extinct? Did some feckless Rebel engineers ship them in from Floridon, the Balmy Planet, just to see if they would die when exposed to subzero temperatures? “Uhh, sorry, Lieutenant Claven, we thought for sure this would work.”

In all fairness, the whole “tauntaun freezing” bit is probably just a script tweak to keep the kinder, gentler Han Solo from unceremoniously putting a blaster bolt between the poor beast’s eyes before gutting it like a trout to keep his buddy warm for a few more minutes.

#6 Mynocks and Space Slugs, Oh My

Georgia O’Keefe would have a field day with this one.

Generally, I’m the last person to nitpick about scientific implausibilities in space opera. Sound in airless space, laser swords, that alien that looks like a giant wedge of quiche — it’s all good. But the whole “space slug” thing just rubs me the wrong way. So there’s a giant slug that lives in hard vacuum, so big that it has little creatures who chew on power cables. So, do they get a lot of power cables in slug stomachs? Is this a sound nutritional choice for wandering space polyps?

Come on, Cohagen, give da people air!

Also, how do Han and Leia’s eyeballs not explode when they emerge into the vacuum of space? It’s obvious the slug lays around with his mouth open — he sure isn’t creating a pressurized environment for wayward spaceships who just happen to wander by to tool around in his innards. Goddammit.

#7: Ooh, You Droid Varmint!

Unfortunately, I was unable to capture the sound clip from Empire Strikes Back when C3PO gets gunned down like a dog by what we can only assume is a stormtrooper going to the bathroom. Next time you’re watching the film, though, listen closely when the offscreen character says “who are you?” The stormtroopers of Empire Strikes Back are clearly clones of Yosemite Sam. Also, why shoot C3PO? Didn’t another loudmouth protocol droid just come out of that room? Maybe there was a big argument about domestic issues that ended with Stormtrooper Sam saying, “I swear to God, if you come back in here, I will shoot you in the face!”

#8. Alrighty Sarlacc

So, can you guys hear anything he’s saying, or…? Um… nevermind.

Despite the presence of the Ewoks, I find I have very little to complain about when it comes to Return of the Jedi. My one big grouse, however, is a fairly obvious one: how can you be “almighty” when you’re a giant gaping sphincter in the middle of a vast, trackless desert? Was Jabba engaged in a bit of ironic humor? Does he wander by in his sail barge every once in a while to taunt the Sarlacc from behind his corrugated sheet-metal Venetian blinds? Haw, “almighty” Sarlacc! Guffaw! Am I right, Salacious Crumb? High five! Okay, maybe later.

Being dependent on occasional sacrifices from bored intergalactic mobsters for your sustenance doesn’t exactly speak volumes for one’s omnipotence. But then, maybe there’s something about the sarlacc we really don’t know. Maybe he’s “almighty” in other ways. Like, really good at playing baccarat or something.

Tomorrow: Prequel Edition! And, surprisingly enough, it’s only one item longer.