Like Pink Floyd and Pinter, Star Wars is from the galaxy of duds

Sorry Harrison Ford, the old mega-hit movie flew on the words of the first critics. Like much else, it is ripe for debunking, says Emma Forrest

Last weekend I saw the worst film I've ever seen in my life. It's this sci-fi flick called Star Wars. Bearing in mind that I think the Clash are just a bad version of the Manic Street Preachers, who else thought Star Wars was simply a less fun Independence Day? Well, the girls my age I saw it with. I've never seen such bad directing, such terrible dialogue and such uninspired acting, but above all I've never been so bored.

I was going to leave after half an hour, but I'll watch anything with Harrison Ford in it. I sat through Regarding Henry, I reminded myself - a film about a businessman who gets shot in the head and becomes a better person, buying his daughter a puppy the minute he gets out of hospital. The critics wanted to shoot Mike Nichols in the head to see if he'd become a better director, but I stuck with it for Harrison. But Star Wars tested my devotion to the limit.

I feel like my life is becoming one long sitting through bad movies because someone I fancy is in them. Considering that my other favourite men are Bill Murray, Ray Liotta and Chevy Chase, that's a lot of bad movies. But I preferred Space Jam to Star Wars. I preferred the one where Bill Murray's best friend is an elephant to Star Wars. And the trauma of seeing Carrie Fisher who I have long admired for her writing and marriage to Paul Simon with a white robe, no bra and two muffins stuck to the sides of her head, is not something I will get over lightly.

For every film you have to see that you really don't have to at all there is a TV show, designer, playwright, novel and record as well. We all thought we had to watch Alan Bleasdale's Jake's Progress, even though we knew it would be rotten: just because something is long and boring doesn't make it Dickensian. That goes for The Satanic Verses, the ultimate book you need to own but never read. You don't ever have to listen to a Neil Young record despite what Mojo magazine may say. When it comes to Neil Young (vaguely), in the words of Sheryl Crow "Every song is a whining drone". Own, but don't listen to Pink Floyd. The Dark Side of the Moon is exactly where they should stay.

Vivienne Westwood talks a great outfit, but would you want to wear it? Not a lot. And kids today come out of their first Harold Pinter play positively angry at the time they've wasted listening to nothing slowly.

Growing up, you realise that that is what life is about - everybody talking a great game. Art becomes encased in what was first said about it. Actually, this generation is smarter than the people who went before us, and I'm sure they will see Star Wars for the hollow rubbish that it is.

PS Star Wars came out the year I was bornn