The fifth explanation for the phenomenon, however, lies in a development of which most churches disapprove: Dysfunctional Families. It seems much more obvious in the 1990s than it perhaps did in the 1970s that at the heart of the Star Wars films is the story of a boy whose father has left him.
Luke Skywalker has an absentee dad who is eventually shown to have betrayed the family in a terrible way by defecting to the enemy and becoming the evil Darth Vader. Luke's journey is to redeem his relationship with his father, and he is helped in this by a series of father-figures, including Han and Obi-Wan, representing glamour and wisdom, respectively. Two years before Hollywood released its big divorce story - Kramer vs Kramer (1979) - it seems that Lucas may already have entered that room in disguise.
By coincidence, a novel due to be published this summer soon after the appearance of the latest Star Wars instalment - Man And Boy, by writer and broadcaster Tony Parsons - explores the possibility that the films are marital parables. In the novel, children of the current pre-teen generation obsessively watch the videos as they are shunted between the separate homes of their mummies and daddies, clutching plastic Jedi lightsabres and other tie-in merchandise. Crucially, not only do they identify with Luke, the child of a broken home, but a love of these celluloid fantasies gives them a bond with their parents, who share this language with them.
That suggestion of inherited passion brings us to the sixth postulation of Lucas's profits: The Time Warp. It should, perhaps, be no surprise that the most successful cinematic franchise of all time should have originated in the 1970s. For there is increasing evidence in our current culture that the generation that grew up in that decade is becoming tyrannically nostalgic, engineering the return of its formative obsessions to stage, screen and record store, and imposing its infatuations on a new generation.
Numerous movies (Boogie Nights, The Ice Storm, Jackie Brown) revisit the 1970s. Rereleased episodes of Starsky & Hutch beckon from the windows of video shops. Abba are back at number one in the album charts. And now the great cinematic experience of that time - the opening over six years of three Star Wars films - is about to begin again.
This age group need never truly grow old, because, in culture at least, their childhood continues on a permanent loop. This phenomenon was wittily acknowledged in an episode of the cult thirtysomething sitcom, Friends, in which one character's ultimate sexual fantasy was for his girlfriend to dress up as Princess Leia.
When cultural historians look back at our time, they will acknowledge a strange mutation in the parents of Europe and North America in the last decade of the 20th century: the emergence of the child-adult. This creature can dress in jeans and baseball cap until death if desired, while playing with video games designed for children and watching again, courtesy of cable channels and video publishers, all the programmes it first saw while growing up.
The Star Wars phenomenon is the apotheosis of the child-adult. Twenty years ago, George Lucas admitted that his ambition was to "create new myths for children". But the people lying on the LA sidewalks waiting for the advent of The Phantom Menace are not children.
Until the early 1990s, it seemed that Skywalker-formed parents who wished to take their offspring to see Star Wars would always have to persuade them to see re-runs. But a surprise development in the publishing industry - the unexpected rise of a Star Wars spin-off novel to the top of the New York Times fiction bestseller list - seems to have alerted Lucas to the demand for more stories from his imagined galaxy.
RUMOURS of a new trilogy were confirmed with the release in 1997 of a revised video version of the trilogy to mark the 20th anniversary of the film at which De Palma had laughed. Not only had special effects been enhanced through new computer techniques but, almost certainly for the first time in cinema history, famous films had been retitled. Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and The Return Of The Jedi were now called Parts IV, V and VI. The effect of the numerals is Shakespearean, which may be either accident or arrogance.
In 22 years, having moved from a Star Wars film that nobody much wanted to see to a Star Wars film with the largest potential audience of any movie ever, Lucas is being cagey about the contents of Part I: The Phan- tom Menace.
The trailer available in cinemas and on the Internet establishes the familiar sand of Tatooine/Tunisia and a small, blond boy. A bearded and pigtailed Liam Neeson wields a light-sabre, and Ewan McGregor wears a brown cowl marking him as a member of the same order as Obi-Wan.
It has become clear from interviews with the director that the blond tot is Anakin Skywalker, Luke's father. McGregor is indeed playing the young version of the Guinness role, while Neeson is another Jedi knight, Qui-Gon Jinn.
Lucas has also released a little of the trademark pre-credits caption, which races away from the viewer at the beginning of each film like a fleeing spaceship: "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away . . . Turmoil has engulfed the Galactic Republic. The taxation of trade routes to outlying star systems is in dispute. Hoping to resolve the matter with the blockade of deadly battleships, the greedy Trade Federation has stopped all shipping to the small planet of Naboo . . ."
The few available details have already prompted volumes of analysis in cyberspace, but certain conclusions can be drawn, in line with the theories about the success of Star Wars outlined above. Politically, the film's concern seems to move on from Cold War to economic conflict. But it is in its emotional sub-text that this film - which millions of Western children are likely to see twice, taken separately by estranged parents - sounds most intriguing. It seems that the theme of this new trilogy is what made Anakin Skywalker such a bad father, and how this affected young Luke.
A note of caution should, though, be entered with regard to the relationship between cinematic anticipation and satisfaction. The first Star Wars (now the IV) was a film of which nobody expected anything, yet which delivered almost everything. The Phantom Menace is a film from which millions expect almost everything . . .
Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace opens in Ireland on July 16