"Rank the Star Wars Films

[HbgDon]

For me it's

1. Empire Strikes Back
2. Return of the Jedi
3. A New Hope
4. Revenge of the Sith
5. Attack of the Clones
6. Phantom Menace

[southern81]

1-Revenge of the Sith(bad guys WIN. i love it)
2-Empire Strikes Back (Great ending really dark)
3-A New Hope( don't know just like it)
4-Attack of the Clones(don't know why i just like it)
5-Phantom Menace
6-Return of the Jedi(i hate the ewoks)

[BluegrassCat]

First, I hate the way they killed off Boba Fett in Jedi. If Luke had taken him down like Mace took his father down that would have been satisfying but just to see him die for nothing more then a lucky break on the part of a blind guy? And we are suppose to believe this is the most dangerous non force user in the galaxy? Awful just awful.

Third, Mark Hamil's acting was just putrid, even Hayden didn't sound as stupid saying those dumb lines in Clones as Mark did in Return. I mean I cringe and look for the Fast Forward button every time I see that conversation between him and Vader on Endor. And boy did he do a great job showing grief when Anakin died....NOT!

Fifth, Palpatine must have developed Alzheimer's or something by that point because he lost even the most basic reasoning or common sense in handling the problems he was facing. The Death Star plot was plan stupid. You are telling me a brilliant dark lord of the sith that took down the entire Jedi order couldn't think of anything better to do then build another copy of a weapon already shown to have serious defensive flaws? Look Sidious was very appropriately named as was the Phantom Menace because he had a shit load more subtlety to his evil then that. Not to mention his attempts to turn Luke were incredibly weak. He took years and years to turn Anakin who was a demonstratively weaker individual from a character standpoint and he thinks he is going to turn Luke in a few minutes???

Sixth, what the fuck do Yoda and Obi Wan expect to accomplish anyway by sending a half trained Padawin up against both Sidious and Vader anyway when the two of them couldn't take down those two together? Neither one of them acted like they believed Anakin could be saved or turned back so what the Hell were they banking on anyway? Talk about boneheaded wishful thinking.

Seventh, the light saber duel in Jedi sucked ass. Vader was NOT that weak even with the suit, he doesn't even hardly use his ability to draw on the force outside of his dueling ability. And it's not like they made Luke like a dueling champ either. The dumb SOB hacked at Vader's blade like 10 times before he realized oh yeah there's his wrist why don't I just chop it off. Giving in to the hate make's you more powerful not more stupid.

I think a lot of your complaints are about how Lucas resolved the story from an inside-baseball type of view. I'm evaluating it just as a movie for entertainment. So I treat the story arc as revelation, either good or bad, but not open to revision.
But a few things: I've never defended Mark Hammil's acting, but it was just as bad in Empire as in Jedi. "Ben...Ben..."

No one ever said Fet was the most dangerous non-force dude in the galaxy, maybe the coolest, but not the most dangerous. But yeah, his death was weak.

I think the attempt to bring Luke to the dark side made sense from every character's point of view and was emotionally satisfying. It wasn't the Emperor's idea, but Vader's - probably driven by the vestigial desire for family. And remember how greedy Palpitine was for a new, younger, more powerful apprentice? Well he's older now and become more arrogant, with the Jedi Order ended. Luke wasn't trained in the Jedi Temple like Anakin, he took a summer course in a swamp and should be easy to break, plus you have his father leading him in. So the Emperor wanted Luke but was quite content to kill him off when he wouldn't replace his father. Makes perfect sense to me.

And by comparison with the prequels there aren't any good light saber duels in the originals. Empire's duel was fun because Vader used the force to throw the whole city at him. Jedi's duel had an emotional arc, from "won't fight", to "sister" to hatred (all with a great score by Williams) to a recognition by the son of humanity in the father and finally by the father a recognition of humanity in himself. It's a great scene, again in spite of Hammil's acting.

Oh & C3PO was actually funny in the originals but a whining school-marm in the prequels.

[msbhaven]

I think a lot of your complaints are about how Lucas resolved the story from an inside-baseball type of view. I'm evaluating it just as a movie for entertainment. So I treat the story arc as revelation, either good or bad, but not open to revision.
But a few things: I've never defended Mark Hammil's acting, but it was just as bad in Empire as in Jedi. "Ben...Ben..."

No one ever said Fet was the most dangerous non-force dude in the galaxy, maybe the coolest, but not the most dangerous. But yeah, his death was weak.

I think the attempt to bring Luke to the dark side made sense from every character's point of view and was emotionally satisfying. It wasn't the Emperor's idea, but Vader's - probably driven by the vestigial desire for family. And remember how greedy Palpitine was for a new, younger, more powerful apprentice? Well he's older now and become more arrogant, with the Jedi Order ended. Luke wasn't trained in the Jedi Temple like Anakin, he took a summer course in a swamp and should be easy to break, plus you have his father leading him in. So the Emperor wanted Luke but was quite content to kill him off when he wouldn't replace his father. Makes perfect sense to me.

And by comparison with the prequels there aren't any good light saber duels in the originals. Empire's duel was fun because Vader used the force to throw the whole city at him. Jedi's duel had an emotional arc, from "won't fight", to "sister" to hatred (all with a great score by Williams) to a recognition by the son of humanity in the father and finally by the father a recognition of humanity in himself. It's a great scene, again in spite of Hammil's acting.

Oh & C3PO was actually funny in the originals but a whining school-marm in the prequels.

Fair enough I may be rating it as a fan girl. But let's face it Jedi would never stand on it's own as a movie by itself. Hell only A New Hope can do that and the maybe Phantom Menace. And if it can't stand on it's own then it should be evaluated within the canonical arc and in comparison to the other movies in the saga. On that basis I think it stacks up poorly.

You're right now that I think about it. Hamill sucked from beginning to end. Who can forget, "But I wanted to go in to Toshi to pick up some power converters!" in A New Hope. (Hmm anybody else notice he whines just like his dad used to besides me) It's just that in Empire Frank Oz did a brilliant job with Yoda, Harrison Ford was very good in his role as Han, and even Carrie Fisher held up her end of the bargain as Lea. I suppose that's the problem with Jedi. Once they were done with the training scenes there was nothing left for Yoda to do but die. Once they thawed out Han and put him back together with Lea there was really nothing left for him to do either except kill him off or let him ride happily in to the sunset. Harrison Ford is on record that he thought Han should have died and I realize now that he is probably right. With Han and Lea given little to do, and Yoda dead Luke became the central protagonist of the rest of the movie and Mark Hamil simply was not good enough to carry a movie on his own. Making Lea and Luke siblings only compounded the problem because it kicked the legs out from under the romantic triangle Lucas had built in the first two movies. It's bad story telling when you get right down to it and a shitty cheapo way to end an epic trilogy.

I won't dwell on Palpatine and Luke other then to say it felt forced, rushed, and half assed. Maybe Palpatine just didn't want to be bothered with dealing with Luke anymore but I wonder what he would have thought of Mace's comment about Anakin in Revenge when he said putting the two of them together (Palpy and Anakin) was dangerous, and I especially wonder if something like that occurred to him as he was plummeting down that reactor shaft.

I also disagree about the light saber duel in Empire. From a technical stand point it was every bit the equal of any duel in the Prequels albeit not as flashy or as twirly. But then we never saw anybody with light saber skills as poor as Luke's were in the prequels except maybe the younglings. It is a thrill for me to watch Vader toy with Luke, first easily defeating his attacks one handed, then manipulating the force around him to leave him battered and bruised and finally barreling in on him like a freight train at the end. The best part to me was at the very end when Luke got a lucky strike in on Vader and Vader got so pissed off by it that he disarmed Luke and chopped his hand off in about 2 moves. Vader was a serious bad ass in Empire and I came out of that movie actually admiring him. Jedi just destroyed all of that in it's light saber duel. It was almost like he had forgotten most of what he knew about the force when he faced Luke a second time. And yes the emotional arc of the duel in Jedi was fine but the execution of the fight scene was not. Again it looked half assed and weak.

You know what, I think that is really my biggest complaint about Jedi. It was like Lucas just wanted that shit to be over with so he could move on to other things. So he cut his story arc short, slapped an idea together to tie up all the loose ends, threw some scenes together and just phoned it in. When he couldn't get Speilburg to direct he got some nobody to fill in as director and just said to Hell with it. And on top of everything else he decided to make his movie more cuddly because he had just become a father. So he threw in those dumb ass Ewoks, made sure that nobody important died but the bad guys, and showed a resolution where no major sacrifices had to be made by the good guys.

Like I said, Jedi could have been soooo good and just missed the mark on so many levels that it ended up being a huge disappointment to me.

[BluegrassCat]

Fair enough I may be rating it as a fan girl. But let's face it Jedi would never stand on it's own as a movie by itself. Hell only A New Hope can do that and the maybe Phantom Menace. And if it can't stand on it's own then it should be evaluated within the canonical arc and in comparison to the other movies in the saga. On that basis I think it stacks up poorly.

I was thinking the same thing about New Hope & Phantom being the only two stand alone pictures, and all the others, especially Jedi & Sith, had high expectations about what had to happen to resolve everything. So I would agree that the gap between the actual and potential Jedi movie is greater than the others but that's largely a function of the potential being much higher as well. Empire had the luxury of fucking shit up and then walking away, leaving us wanting more. Jedi had a bigger task and no doubt could have done it better.

But again, the Jabba's Palace segment (too long to be a called a scene, right?) was one of the most fun in the originals. The only other competitor is the time spent aboard the Deathstar in New Hope, which as you mentioned had the luxury of introducing the characters to us, rather than wrapping up their stories. I can't think of a similar segment that was as much fun in Empire, tons of great smaller scenes though. Now that I'm thinking about it, I'm revising my order to put New Hope first.

A New Hope
Empire Strikes Back
Revenge of the Sith
Return of the Jedi
Phantom Menace
Attack of the Clones

[msbhaven]

But again, the Jabba's Palace segment (too long to be a called a scene, right?) was one of the most fun in the originals. The only other competitor is the time spent aboard the Deathstar in New Hope, which as you mentioned had the luxury of introducing the characters to us, rather than wrapping up their stories. I can't think of a similar segment that was as much fun in Empire, tons of great smaller scenes though. Now that I'm thinking about it, I'm revising my order to put New Hope first.

A New Hope
Empire Strikes Back
Revenge of the Sith
Return of the Jedi
Phantom Menace
Attack of the Clones

Actually my favorite segment of Empire has always been the Asteroid Chase/Luke's training (meeting Yoda). I love the music from the Asteroid scenes and I love Yoda's theme. Come to that Empire had the best music of all of the movies as well IMO. Only Duel of the Fates from Phantom deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as the original Imperial March from Empire if you ask me.

[Ben]

The what movies haven't you seen thread got me thinking about this since a lot of people haven't seen all or some of the movies there, and a lot of other people who have were commenting on the various chapters. So if you have seen them all rank them in order for me and tell me why you put them where you did. Here's my list.

1 The Empire Strikes Back. Quite simply the high point of the series for me, it had the best story, the best script, the best acting and the best director of the series. It also had the best light saber duel of the original series and the special effects hold up quite well for something made over 30 years ago.

2. Revenge of the Sith. I know this is hearsay to a lot of people but I really liked this film. It was clearly the best of the Prequels, had the best special effects of any of the movies, the most extensive light saber dueling of any of the movies and brought the entire series full circle.

3. The Phantom Menace. I know this is also going to catch me a lot of flack but this movie has a couple of things going for it for me. First it has the best light saber duel of the entire series, second the Pod Race sequence was very entertaining to me, and third getting to see Jedi in their prime is worth a few flaws IMO. Speaking of which, while Jar Jar was annoying he was no worse then C3PO in the original movies if you ask me, and this movie isn't any slower or more ponderous IMO then A New Hope was.

4. A New Hope. The reason the original is so low for me is that the exposition and set up for this movie is painfully slow, the light saber duel sucked ass, the directing and script were really no better then anything in the prequel trilogy and the special effects look seriously dated even with the updates in the special edition. I do give props for this one starting it all and being innovative for it's time. I still enjoy it but not as much as when I was a child seeing it for the first time.

5. Attack of the Clones. Props are given for Jango Fett, props are given for getting to see Yoda light saber duel, but that's about it for this movie. There is so much to dislike about it. Christopher Lee is a bit long in the tooth to be cast as a Sith Apprentice, Hayden Christiansen is just awful, Padme's character arc makes no sense, and the Jedi have to be about as dense as a black hole to let so much shit slide by without catching it.

6.Return of the Jedi. The only reason that Clones isn't on the bottom of this list is because of this piece of crap. This movie could have been so good if the Ewoks hadn't replaced the original concept of Wookies taking on the Empire, and if the dialogue weren't so awful, and if Stephen Speilburg hadn't been blocked by the director's union from working on this, and, I could go on all day. Just fuck it! Jedi was a huge missed opportunity after the greatness that was Empire.

There's my list, have it me, trash my rankings, make your own and share your opinions.

Ashlee

I agree. Empire Strikes Back.... Of the first three [I haven't seen the others] Empire is the best. I mean, well, I enjoyed all three.

[BluegrassCat]

Actually my favorite segment of Empire has always been the Asteroid Chase/Luke's training (meeting Yoda). I love the music from the Asteroid scenes and I love Yoda's theme. Come to that Empire had the best music of all of the movies as well IMO. Only Duel of the Fates from Phantom deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as the original Imperial March from Empire if you ask me.

The asteroid chase/parking in the space-worm was what I thought of too. And Yoda's introduction still cracks me up. Never much cared for the training scenes though; probably Mark Hammil's fault.

[rydermorrison]

empire strikes back, return of the jedi, new hope, ep 3, ep2, ep 1..

[hippifried]

I imagine I'd have to watch them first. Odds aren't good for that hapening.