Is it OK not to like 'Star Wars'?

May the Force be dissipated.

Seriously. Let it go already. And as that happens, may mentions of "the Force" also fade away, except in the case of big-city cops talking about their place of employment.

Maybe I'm late to the noticing party, but I feel as if I've been besieged in recent years by references to "Star Wars," a series of six movies of generally diminishing quality that began 36 years ago and, with the recent purchase of the franchise by Disney, shows no signs of stopping.

George Lucas' films, of course, enshrined the idea of a universal "force" guiding our actions, just as they enshrined Darth Vader as an ultimate villain, pride in geeking out over an aspect of popular culture and turning films into shameless marketing juggernauts.

Instead of slipping into a corner of memory from which it can occasionally be summoned, the "Star Wars" saga continues to be pushed front and center by its devotees. And those of us who maybe didn't wait in line to see "The Phantom Menace" or, worse, "Attack of the Clones" are expected to know Naboo, Sith Lords and "Phantom Menace's" spot in the chronology as well as we know the Constitution. Wait. Bad analogy. As well as we know the hierarchy of Special K flavors, which, indisputably, begins with Red Berries.

I guess I'll find out the answer after this piece runs, but I've been wondering for a while if it is OK to not particularly like "Star Wars," to be put off by the continued reverence for movies that appeared a long time ago in decades far, far away and, frankly, come across that way. Thank you, Mr. Comedian on TV or fellow guest at dinner party, but, no, I don't want to automatically laugh at your Jar Jar Binks reference, just as I didn't laugh when Lucas had the Jar Jar character doing comic shtick in the middle of a pitched battle during "Menace."

Just a few examples of how we are force-fed "Star Wars":

(Chewbacca is just a first-order "Star Wars" reference, one most of us can't help knowing, but it would be inconsistent to lament all these mentions and then expect readers to know them. So: Introduced in the first movie, he was a Wookie, a sort of superintelligent Yeti who co-piloted the Millennium Falcon starship and turned out to be one of the better in Lucas' insistent and often awkward menagerie of nonhumans.)

You get the feeling that if life had broken a little differently for Colbert, he would have been one of those guys in full "Star Wars" character regalia at the annual Comic-Con gathering. Just last year, he used an elaborate "Star Wars" comparison to explain the Republican presidential primary. President Obama, in Colbert's faux-Republican worldview, was Darth Vader, and the GOP was the Rebel Alliance, and it went on from there.

Obama himself tried — and notoriously to some, bungled — a "Star Wars" reference in March. He said it would take a "Jedi mind meld" to make Congress avoid the federal spending cuts known as sequestration. "Jedi" is a "Star Wars" term, while "mind meld," it turns out, comes from "Star Trek." Instead of showing pop-culture savvy, Obama committed a form of nerd apostasy.

But the point isn't that the president got it wrong. It's that this man who clearly has just the right amount of "Star Wars" knowledge (i.e., a little) felt obligated to try to go deeper into the mythology.

Volkswagen ads in recent years used "Star Wars" for both good and ill. The little boy in the Darth Vader suit, as John Williams' score played in the background, was note-perfect: funny, touching and comprehensible whether you've seen all six films 10 times each or wouldn't watch one of them even if your Internet was down and it was the only thing left in Redbox.

The world is full of people who testify that the first "Star Wars," or the first trilogy, changed their lives, and I am in no position to argue with them (or, thank goodness, date them).

But I can say that, seeing it again, I was reminded that even when I first saw it as a 13-year-old, it didn't blow me away. If you had read, for instance, Tolkien, the "Star Wars" story seemed threadbare, especially next to the special effects. It's filled with a lot more talking in hallways than you remember, and nothing will lead you to contest the general opinion that dialogue and plotting are not Lucas' forte.

That film, renamed "Episode IV: A New Hope" after the sequels and prequels came along, is important, to be sure. It put sci-fi space opera on the big screen and pushed filmmaking down a special-effects path that has led to today's CGI showcases (with occasional interruptions from humanlike characters).