We never thought it could happen, but the fanboy bloom may officially — and dramatically — be off the Star Wars franchise after 30 loving years of devotion: Ain't it Cool News boss Harry Knowles has written a scathing review of the franchise's new, animated The Clone Wars. And we mean scathing — vicious enough to not only shake our faith in geek compliance to its very foundation, but also rouse George Lucas from his afternoon cash-bath with a cease-and-desist order straight from the top.

Click to viewHarry Knowles, the founder of fan-driven movie site Ain't It Cool News, published an unabashedly negative review ("hated the score, the animation, the shots, the characters and most of all the retarded ******** idiot story") of the upcoming animated film Star Wars: The Clone Wars a few days ago. Over the weekend, Knowles's post was unpublished, as we now say. Hollywood Newsroom cited an Ain't It Cool regular who claimed Lucasfilm got Knowles to yank the review — most likely by threatening to bar him from all future advance viewings — and reposted the review:

We were shuffling through the dessicated, juiceless items of today's Page Six (seriously, an item about equine herpes?!) when finally, we came across this tidbit from an interview Sly Stallone had granted to fans on Ain't It Cool News. Apparently, he'd had a bit of a tiff with legendary director/legendary dick Robert Evans at some point in the early 80s; it came to a head when Evans dumped a bag full of dirty Polaroids of Stallone's then-girlfriend on his lap. Sly's reaction?

Having seen Harvey Weinstein's temper lavishly documented in The New Yorker this week, Gawker doesn't particularly want to elicit the big man's rage. But it has to be said: Gangs of New York is, by all indications, a dud, and the usual round of pre-release press hype seems more contrived than usual. Item one: the guerrilla reviewers at Ain't It Cool News say it's not terrible, just not very good. Early critic reviews are similarly lukewarm. And insider internet trading on HSX forecasts a four-week US box office of only $50m, not enough to cover Miramax's costs. No wonder the Miramax press machine, while going through the motions on Gangs of New York, is also discreetly transferring its affections to Chicago.
· Gangs of New York press coverage [Google News]
· Early critic reviews [Rotten Tomatoes]
· Spoiler reviews [Ain't It Cool News]
· MovieStocks: GANGS [Hollywood Stock Exchange]