Veknoid Ranks the Star Wars Movies

[Johnw1104]

Veknoid_Outcast said:

I cannot focus at work today, so I decided to compose a list of the Star Wars movies. Because that's what I do when I'm bored  

I recently rewatched all seven mainline movies, and the spin-off Rogue One. Here are my thoughts.

 

8) Episode II: Attack of the Clones
What to say about this most ignominious Star Wars movie? It inherited all of the negatives of Episode I — wooden acting, lazy direction, stilted writing — then moved further away from practical effects and added arguably the most unconvincing, awkward romance in cinematic history. George Lucas makes one of his largest prequel blunders by pitting an army of disposable droids against an army of disposable clones, creating a scenario when it's difficult to care about either side.

7) Episode I: The Phantom Menace
From the very beginning of The Phantom Menace, red flags abound. The taxation of trade routes seems like a strange entree to a space opera. The audience soon meets several bland, forgettable characters and one profoundly annoying character, Jar-Jar Binks. By its mid-way point, the movie is buried under contrivances, plot holes, forced cameos, and unremarkable performances. A 12-minute-long pod race is a highlight, but its only meaningful addition to the story is to provide a flimsy pretext to separate young Anakin from his mother.

6) Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
The best of the three prequels, basically by default. Child actors are removed, boring political debates are tossed out (replaced by transparent allusions to Bush-era war-mongering), and there are actually, finally, stakes. The first act of the movie is a weird, tonally-incongruous space battle with a new inexplicable villain, General Grievous. After that, things get a little better, with Anakin's slow descent into anger and fear. Hayden Christensen does the best with the material and direction given him. As with the previous prequel movies, Lucas shows himself far more invested in special effects than encouraging his human actors.

5) Rogue One
This latest Star Wars movie is only slightly better than the prequel trilogy. Since everyone knows the ending of the story of Rogue One, the filmmakers needed to introduce sympathetic characters and genuine emotion to make the adventure worthwhile. Unfortuantely, the most interesting character in the movie is the comic-relief droid. The others are almost instantly forgettable. Apart from a truly spectacular space battle at the end of the movie, Rogue One doesn't add much of all to the Star Wars universe. It's a movie full of fan service — Hey, there's the rebel base! Look, it's Ponda Baba! — and cringe-worthy digital cameos, but lacking in what makes Star Wars so magical: a sense of wonder and adventure and joy.

4) Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
Following up the best Star Wars movie was always going to be tough, but the creative minds behind Return of the Jedi did an admirable job. The first act is spectacular, with Luke Skywalker and friends staging a daring rescue of Han Solo from Jabba the Hutt's palace. Quieter moments later on are equally compelling: Luke confronting Obi-Wan over his prevarication, Vader gripping Luke's lightsaber with a mix of pride and internal conflict, Leia recalling her mother's face and Luke regretting never meeting her. The third act, with its focus on Ewoks and Hamill's overacting, is the shakiest, but it's rescued by a breathless chase through the core of the Death Star and Vader's dramatic decision to protect his son at the expense of his master and his own life.

3) Episode VII: The Force Awakens
Apart from suffering from a serious case of deja vu, The Force Awakens was a triumphant return to form after three poorly-made prequels. Yes, the movie relies on many of the beats of A New Hope, but unlike Rogue One, it makes up for all the call-backs and allusions by introducing complicated, sympathetic characters. There's Rey, a naturally gifted mechanic and linguist who's suffering under the delusion that her family will return for her. There's Finn, a turncoat Stormtrooper who's torn between self-preservation and loyalty to Rey. And there's Kylo Renn, a brooding, uncomfortable young man struggling with his family legacy and his desire for control. Director J.J. Abrams embraces practical effects whenever possible, giving the movie texture, and, with the help of Empire screeenwriter Lawrence Kasdan, pens a script full of humor and genuine emotion.

2) Episode IV: A New Hope
It's a classic for a reason. Inspired by Flash Gordon, The Hidden Fortress, and Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces, A New Hope is a story immediately understandable and relatable. A young man fulfills his destiny to rescue a princess and save the galaxy. Filled with ground-breaking special effects and sound design work, set to an all-time great musical score, injected with humor and suspense, and starring arguably the most memorable movie villain of all time, Star Wars is a movie for the ages.

1) Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
A movie's identity is wrapped up with its director, and so Empire Strikes Back, the best of the saga, shares the vision of Irvin Kershner, who said famously "I like to fill up the frame with the characters' faces. There's nothing more interesting than the landscape of the human face." Thus Empire moved past the pulp origins of Star Wars and became a dramatic and emotional movie about real people, set in space. Sure, there's plenty of action in Empire — an armored assault on Echo Base, a high-risk escape through an asteroid field — but what makes Empire special is its more humble character development moments. Luke's training with Yoda is the emotional and philosophical center of the movie, with the budding romance between Han and Leia setting up incredibly romantic and, eventually in Cloud City, heart-breakingly somber scenes. The climactic scene with Vader's revelation and Luke's subsequent decision to destroy himself rather than turn is perhaps the defining moment of the entire Star Wars saga.

 

That's my list! What's yours?

Normally I wouldn't have read another "rank Star Wars", but then I saw it was you and was very curious haha

I can report that the trend of us seeming to share most opinions is mostly intact. List below:

1. Empire Strikes Back
2. A New Hope
3. Return of the Jedi
4. Revenge of the Sith
5. Force Awakens
6. Rogue One
7. Phantom Menace
8. Attack of the Clones

While unsurprisingly the top two are the same, I'd have bumped Revenge of the Sith up to #4 as it (to me) seems to be the closest to a traditional Star Wars movie  of the prequels while being fairly original and epic.

Something recently occured to me and I've since liked to ask people this question: "If the first two prequel movies didn't exist and Revenge of the Sith was a stand alone, would you think more favorably of it?"

I think it being linked to the other two has tainted it to an extent in all of our minds. While it's certainly not a great movie, the music was wonderful (as always), the visuals amazing, the story was actually interesting, the plot was almost entirely character-focused (finally), and it was mostly well acted (I never much cared for Jackson as Windu but he was ok here, and Hayden honestly did a great job for once during his fall to the dark side). Otherwise, it did the ongoing Skywalker saga justice, actually got me emotionally invested at times (seeing Obi Wan and Padme's heartbreak was legitimately painful), and was really its own unique movie within the franchise, not recycling much for the most part (no murder spheres to explode? Wtf?)

In my opinion, the first two films in the prequel trilogy almost feel unnecessary to the story; all we really needed was Revenge of the Sith, and I think it would have been better received if it was the first and last of Star Wars we saw at the time. It's no original trilogy classic, but it was enjoyable on its own.

Otherwise, I think the Return of the Jedi's reputation suffered a tad unfairly over the years as it spent so much time sitting beside two all time classics as the "third" Star Wars movie that didn't quite live up to the crazy standards of the first two. While the second death star certainly seemed a bit lazy, I'm rather glad for it as the third film provided what was easily the best and most exciting space battle I've seen up until the recent Rogue One. While it can seem a bit oddly paced, the settings, scenes, and characters were just so incredibly iconic and inventive (Jabba who up until then was a cut scene of a fat dude, his palace where we really see just how much Luke has matured, the Gamorans, the Rancor, the Saarlac pit, Admiral Akbar, Lando's redemption, the battle of endor and space battle of endor, the awesome speeder bike scene and so forth) that, unlike most of the other films, a huge amount of Star War's identity would be lost were this film to vanish.

Besides that, one of film's greatest villains (Darth Vader) finally received some character development, and I can honestly say it was handled more smoothly and convincing via nothing more than head tilting and a few sentences than the entirety of the prequel trilogy lol... Aside from that, it has my favorite lightsabre fight at the end of the film, where the sheer emotional weight and importance of the moment and realistic steps and strikes set to that epic-as-always John Williams music still give me chills and impress me far more than any cgi sommersaults could. 

It's certainly a little cheesier than the previous two and merchandising was obviously a high priority, but as far as capping off two all time classics goes Return of the Jedi was wonderful. While there may be parts that adults have trouble taking seriously it really just had that campiness that most of the best, fun movies of the 80's (such as the Indiana Jones films) had, and I suspect most people don't even realize how many of their favorite characters, species, visuals, vehicles, settings, scenes and so forth from Star Wars either originated or were highlighted in Return of the Jedi. For me, it is easily #3.

To quickly comment on the other changes, Force Awakens definitely captured the atmosphere and feel of Star Wars, but I can honestly say I've seen remakes that borrowed less from the film it was recreating than this "sequel" borrowed from past films. I honestly don't remember an original moment or scene in that movie. Thankfully, I love the cast and their characters, the visuals were amazing, and while all of the events were basically carbon copies of scenes from past Star Wars movies, the trajectory of this story certainly has potential. Besides, by having essentially plagiarized every scene imaginable from the past Star Wars films I think it basically requires that they do something new in the next one, right? :D

Finally, Rogue One was, if I'm honest, mostly a boring film. They never really fleshed out any of the characters, the characters themselves were generally bland and rarely (if ever) showed any emotional investment in the moment, and quite a few bizarrely weird things happened that made next to no sense (mind-reading octopus? It makes people go insane, except that apparently it doesn't?). What made the movie for me (and apparently for most), then, were the many fun references to past Star Wars characters, and the incredible battle scenes that are easily the best in the franchise. Cap that off with us finally getting to see film's most badass villain being the unstoppable badass we all KNEW he was but hadn't actually yet SEEN was amazing; seriously, I'd see the movie just for that last Darth Vader seen. So yes, it's a forgettable cast of characters and a forgettable story, but those battles and the Vader scene bumped it up from disappointment to worth watching; I just think I may employ the scene skip button on occasion in future watchings lol

 

Still though, we seem to have pretty similar opinions.