Rate the Star Wars Movies

[Legatus Legionis]

.

 

[jonesy]

The Empire Strikes Back: Everything works and the characters drive the story. John Williams was robbed of an Oscar.

Rogue One: The war movie I never knew I needed.

Star Wars (A New Hope): The rock solid original.

The Force Awakens: It really was a great start to a new story.

Solo: Much better than advertised, though it feels like it's taking too many cues from Firefly.

Return of the Jedi: Overrated, but basically alright. Goofier than I remembered.

The Clone Wars: Better than advertised. The only movie I can think of where it's appropriate to complain about it not having been a tv movie instead, as it's a pretty good start to the excellent tv-series of the same name.

Revenge of the Sith: There's a surprising amount of stupid filler in this movie that could have been cut away entirely to streamline everything. And instead of that filler, they could have included all those things that the plot skips over in its haste to get the characters to "where they need to be".

The Last Jedi: I have conflicted feelings about this movie. Occasionally awesome, other times infuriating.

The Phantom Menace: When the action scenes are the only thing worth watching. And only some of those.

Attack of the Clones: A CGI mess that only gets worse as it ages.

 

[Mallus]

From best to worst, without commentary (for now):

1. Star Wars
2. The Last Jedi
3. The Empire Strikes Back
4. The Force Awakens/Return of the Jedi (tie)
5. Rogue One
6. Solo (this isn't a bad movie)
7. Revenge of the Sith (neither is this - closer to it, though)
8. Attack of the Clones
9. The Phantom Menace

 

[Ovinomancer]

Oh, is it time to argue about The Last Jedi, again?

 

[Istbor]

Not much character development though. Hell there was arguably more in Rogue One than TFA+ TLJ. Look at the OT, Luke was a scrub level 1 or 2, got trained leveled up, went to Death star, leveled up and then fought the Battle of Yavin, leveled up (lvl 4 or 5), roll credits. Got a bit cocky in ESB and had his ass handed to him.

Rey untrained, flies the Falcon like a boss, defeats a trained dark Jedi (trained by Luke and Snoke), and kicks ass in TLJ. Its also really boring although the actor is doing a better job than than Haydan and Hamil episode IV, the writing is not her fault. Her supporting cast is a lot weaker than the OT though I don't really care about Poe or any of the others and the villains are stealing the show (Kylo Ren and Hux). When Lando and Fett as support characters are way more interesting than most of the main cast in the Disney films you may have a problem.

And in Empire you knew Luke was special because of who he was, there was an explanation for it that made sense in universe (and he still got his butt handed to him by Vader). Snokes a chump, Rey is Mary Sue, Kylo throws tantrums. And we should care because? The Droids are also stealing the show (BB-8 and the Rogue One/Solo ones).

So much simplification in this post.

Though somehow, I agree with Zard in his OP. I think the absolute worst movie of them all is The Attack of the Clones. That forced love story was so awful to me. They tried to show Padme as this strong capable person. A good fighter, and a good diplomat. Totally independent. Then tried to sell me that some angsty young man with Chosen one syndrome was able to woo her? I mean I guess... everyone has their thing, but I thought a lot better of this character that they tried to portray. And they were like... cus plot baby.

 

[MarkB]

I think the absolute worst movie of them all is The Attack of the Clones. That forced love story was so awful to me. They tried to show Padme as this strong capable person. A good fighter, and a good diplomat. Totally independent. Then tried to sell me that some angsty young man with Chosen one syndrome was able to woo her? I mean I guess... everyone has their thing, but I thought a lot better of this character that they tried to portray. And they were like... cus plot baby.

What they did to Anakin is just as bad. Instead of giving us a good man struggling to control his darker impulses, we get a whiny brat with so little self-control that it's hard to conceive how he ever earned the status of Jedi in the first place, Chosen One or not. This should have been a sympathetic character that we grieve to see corrupted to the dark side, so that we can cheer to see his ultimate redemption.

 

[Zardnaar]

So much simplification in this post.

Though somehow, I agree with Zard in his OP. I think the absolute worst movie of them all is The Attack of the Clones. That forced love story was so awful to me. They tried to show Padme as this strong capable person. A good fighter, and a good diplomat. Totally independent. Then tried to sell me that some angsty young man with Chosen one syndrome was able to woo her? I mean I guess... everyone has their thing, but I thought a lot better of this character that they tried to portray. And they were like... cus plot baby.

Movie also had to much CGI, bad acting, weak plot, and silly over the top battles (Yoda's cameo as Sonic the Hedgehog).

 

[RangerWickett]

Return of the Jedi
Empire Strikes Back
The entire Star Wars Rebels cartoon series if it's ever edited into a 20 hour film
Rogue One
The Force Awakens
Star Wars
Solo
The Last Jedi
The Phantom Menace
Attack of the Clones
Revenge of the Sith

Basically, the more the movie cares about the concept of goodness resisting darkness, the more I like it. Return of the Jedi is the best in the series for this reason. Empire, Rebels, and Rogue One all got this. They're all great.

The Force Awakens is better than original Star Wars. I mean, it's the same as original Star Wars, but with better acting and choreography, more emotion, arguably better music. The only thing it really lacks is an extra scene or two with Poe so we're more invested in his run on Starkiller at the end, and a bit more context and worldbuilding about why the First Order was opposed to the Republic.

Solo was a fun heist, but doesn't have any Force stuff, so it almost doesn't feel like Star Wars to me. Then The Last Jedi's plot makes no dang sense.

All the prequels sucked on both the metric of "the Force matters" and "the plot makes sense." Plus the figures moving on screen were not characters, just action figures.

 

[Jester David]

Oh, is it time to argue about The Last Jedi, again?

Always in dispute, the Last Jedi is.

 

[delericho]

What they did to Anakin is just as bad. Instead of giving us a good man struggling to control his darker impulses, we get a whiny brat with so little self-control that it's hard to conceive how he ever earned the status of Jedi in the first place, Chosen One or not. This should have been a sympathetic character that we grieve to see corrupted to the dark side, so that we can cheer to see his ultimate redemption.

Agreed. In this regard the "Clone Wars" cartoon series is a vast improvement over the actual films. Indeed, it's almost worth suffering the prequels as a price for getting that series.