Seven million viewers need a bitch slap

The prequels, for Darth's sake, not even the originals...

In a cable battle of the trilogies, the Star Wars prequels dominated the Lord of the Rings movies, averaging on the whole nearly 1 million more viewers, the latest Nielsen Media Research stats show.

The showdown marked the first time Spike TV's Episode I-III films matched up against TNT's LOTR films in a chapter-for-chapter, night-for-night competition for bragging rights.

Star Wars: Episode III—Revenge of the Sith, which aired Sunday night, led the way, averaging 4.2 million viewers, tops for a movie in all of cable. TNT's Sunday-night offering of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King was nearly as big, averaging 4 million.

Elsewhere, it wasn't even close.

On Saturday, it was Star Wars: Episode II—Attack of the Clones (3.4 million) killing The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2 million). And on Friday, it was Star Wars: Episode I—The Phantom Menace (2.8 million) topping The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (1.9 million).