9/10

I saw this one after Episode 1 and liked it...but didn't like it as much as Episode 1. Not anywhere near enough Jedi, no coruscant. I wasn't that interested in the rebels fighting against the Empire.....my mind was full of things from Episode 1 with the Senate, droid army, Jedi temple, awesome planet of Naboo. Episode 4 didn't have any of that at all.

Special effects were clearly lacking compared to Episode 1

After seeing Darth Maul vs Obi-wan/Qui-gon.....the lightsaber duel between Darth Vader and Obi-Wan felt awful.

What it did have was the two awesome characters, Darth Vader and Han solo, he stole the show in every way possible, each scene with him in it was awesome. In the end though it was still better than most films I'd seen up till that point.

It was very hard to digest that Darth Vader was the little kid from Episode 1 when my dad told me that.

9/10. Everything about this film puts the prequel films to shame.  One of the best films ever made and off the star wars movies second only to Empire Strikes Back. 

7/10. It started off slow and it had unbelieveable things in it like a Death Star.

I'm judging the original (or updated-original 80's version) without all the extra crap thrown into it.

8/10

An all around fantastic movie.  While it doesn't boast the action of the prequels, every scene is infintely more emotional because we actually care about the characters.  We get time to know them and like them all.  I actually can't think of anything bad to say about the movie and I'm only rating it an 8 because I want to be able to go up for the next movies.

And two things from reading what others have said:

• Lucas' original vision was nothing like the Star Wars we have now.  His original vision would have been worse than the prequels.
• The scene between Obi Wan and Vader may have been dull compared to the anything in episode more 1, but there was just so much more tension in that scene.  I actually cared who won and the tension before each strike was great.  Something doesn't have to be flashy to be fantastic.

Why are people rating this film below a 10 just because the next one is better?

Does the next film being better somehow make this one worse?

Lets not forget the possible reason for this is that George Lucas is not a good director; he never directed any of the original triliogy, but he did direct the prequels. imo this explains why everything was different, not to mention the man is obsessed with CGI and its obvious in the orginals where hes put CGI in, and it has spolied it imo.

I feel like at the end of the day I'd like to be able to rank them.  If I give them all a 10, that makes it harder.

Agreed, the film is excellent. perhaps one of my faviourite scenes in any movie is when Luke looks up at the setting suns of Tatooine, it really is an emotional scene, and quite possibly the best in the whole of the 6 films.

Actually, before he put all the CGI in the originals he called things like that a crutch for bad film making.

As usual you spew hate without any research.

George Lucas directed Episode 4.