Ranking the Star Wars Movies:
Over the past three days I've watched all six Star Wars movies in order starting with Episode I and ending with Episode VI. I'm going to be quite blunt about the movies in this blog because there are some I REALLY liked and others that I thought were pretty bad. For those of you who follow my Twitter account I'm sure you picked up on all the sarcastic comments about the movies on there.
6. Star Wars, Episode I: The Phantom Menace -
Where do I begin with this nightmare of a film. The hell starts when Jar Jar Binks appears and after two minutes of him I wanted to see him destroyed by someone. What a horrible character. Soon Boss Nass appears and he looks EXACTLY like the guy who plays Yuri Karpov in the movie 2012. Then they reach Tatooine and it's like the outskirts of Las Vegas. I think that Mos Espa in this movie looks like some of the slummier areas in North Las Vegas, especially the area over by the Silver Nugget. Next comes the scene where they meet Watto and little Anakin Skywalker. Watto talks and acts like a guy who would be running an adult video store in downtown Vegas. Then comes a bunch of blah scenes before an excellent pod racing scene. It was geared toward kids but the action made up for it. Good stuff there. I guess Padme Amidala is the Woody Allen of the Star Wars universe going by what I've seen in this movie. She's in high school and flirting with a third grader. Why is it that the only characters in this movie who have any sort of personality aren't humans? The human characters are boring. The dialogue in this movie sucks. Add to it the combination of annoying little kid Anakin and Jar Jar Binks and this is a disaster already. Every time Darth Sidious appears in this movie I think of Baron Von Raschke. The Naboo space battle, plains battle, and lightsaber duel sequence (minus anytime Anakin or Jar Jar speak) is the best part of this movie. What a bad movie. Palpatine fooling all of these idiots makes me like him even more because his takeover will mean the end of the prequels.
Rating: 1 1/2 out of 4 stars
5. Star Wars, Episode II: The Attack of the Clones -
The movie starts of with a bang of an assassination attempt on Padme Amidala. Palpatine is a such a manipulative liar. He'd be a great wrestling villain. Then comes a pretty cool flying car chase scene. Why is it that Coruscant is basically New York City from The Fifth Element? At this point Anakin Skywalker is given protection duty for Padme. Obi-Wan Kenobi goes to find out information about a bounty hunter and ends up in a sixties style diner. This diner looks like the same one in Back to the Future, Part 2 where Marty McFly has to impersonate his son. Padme Amidala is back in cougar mode seducing Anakin yet again. Now they're in a full blown romance with her now. Anakin goes back to Tatooine to find his mother. In this movie Watto looks like a guy who'd be hanging out in the Stardust sportsbook circa the year 2000. Anakin's killing rampage is by far the most interesting thing in this movie so far. I like how Anakin is remorseless about commiting genocide and he showed no mercy to the Tusken Raiders. He's a hero kids can be proud of. Palpatine's manipulations in this movie are great. Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Padme all end up on Geonosis and get captured. So the alien bee army captures them and then takes them to the Roman Colisseum to be sacrificed to some mutated animal creatures. To top it off the three captives are winning and the 500,000 or so flying creatures are doing nothing. This whole scene makes no sense. The Jedis come to the rescue. Why is it that Yoda is the only Jedi in this entire movie that has any brains whatsoever? The Yoda vs. Count Dooku lightsaber duel is the best part of this movie BY FAR. I find it hilarious that Yoda immediately knows that Anakin and Padme are lovers yet has no clue about Palpatine being a Sith Lord. Overall better than the last movie.
Rating: 2 stars out of 4
4. Star Wars, Episode VI: Return of the Jedi -
Shocked it's not Episode III? Yeah I am too. Starts off with Darth Vader getting on his general for the slow completion of the new Death Star. "The Emperor is not as forgiving as I am." After seeing how Vader has been in the first two movies the Emperor must be really heartless. Going by the prequels, he's an uber-villain. C-3PO and R2-D2 are on Tatooine and are at Jabba's Palace. Jabba's Palace is so cool. It looks like a scummy cantina somewhere in the Vegas slums. Jabba the Hut is like one of these Vegas high roller scumbags who has a girlfriend that's forty years younger than he is. Leia tries to rescue Han but gets captured by Jabba and his goons. Luke arrives and Jabba sicks the Rancor on him. The Rancor is probably the coolest creature in the Star Wars universe. It looks like something that you'd see in a horror movie. Princess Leia's Jabba love slave outfit still is probably the hottest nerd sci-fi costume in history. Liked the Pit of Sarlacc battle and escape scene. Luke goes back to Dagobah to meet with Yoda while everyone else goes to meet up with the Rebel Fleet. Yoda died. Now that was an emotional scene especially with the revelation of Luke having a sibling. Luke figures out that Leia is his sister on the first try. This is why he remains good as opposed to Anakin who turned heel. He had common sense and could control his emotions whereas his father could not. Han and the Rebels start planning their attack on the second Death Star. Seeing Admiral Ackbar makes me want to go eat out at Red Lobster for some reason. Luke arrives and joins Han and his crew on the Endor mission. Cool Endor Speeder chase scene. Oh no...it's Wicket the Ewok. Now all of that cool stuff that just happened is going to replaced by a live action version of Disney's Gummy Bears television series. Luke, Han, Chewbacca, and the rest of the crew go looking for Leia who's missing. Now they've been captured by more Ewoks. I'm waiting for Jar Jar to make a cameo with little Anni so they can pander to kids like John Cena. Luke uses the Force on C-3PO, who the Ewoks think is a God, in order to gain their release after they are captured. Now Leia knows that she's Luke's sister and now Luke has let himself get captured by Vader to try and turn him good. His plan backfires and Vader takes him to see the Emperor which he didn't think would happen. The Emperor taunting Luke is great as is his set-up of the Rebel Attack Fleet. On Endor the Rebels get caught by the Stormtroopers however it's the Ewoks to the rescue. Space and land battles going on at the same time. How are little Ewok bear creatures armed with sticks and stones able to take on elite Imperial Stormtroopers armed with laser blasters? I'm starting to think that they were trained by the Tahrir Square protesters at this point. This verbal taunting and mind games in the Luke vs. Vader lightsaber fight makes this whole scene work. Tactics being used, psyche-outs being used. It don't get no better than this. Death Star shields down so now the Rebel ships go in for the kill. Vader finally turns face again. This is like in 2002 when Hogan left the nWo and became the Hulkster again. And naturally the whole Star Wars saga ends with a happy ending. Not bad overall. However I liked the battle scenes in Episode III more as well as the darker tone which is why I ranked it above this one. Not better by much but still slightly better.
Rating: 2 1/2 out of 4 stars
3. Star Wars, Episode III: Revenge of the Sith -
Yeah, I know. Shocking that this ended up being ranked above Jedi. However the happy ending scenario and the Ewoks kind of ruined it for me. Also the Palpatine character and action scenes in this one were great. The movie starts off with an awesome massive space battle scene above the planet Coruscant. This space battle opening sequence is already better than anything in the first two prequel movies combined. R2-D2 just deep fried to robot soldiers using fire and gasoline...yeah, that was pretty awesome. Palpatine manipulating Anakin to kill Dooku was great. So far everything up to the crash landing scene has been really good. Hopefully it stays like this throughout. And here comes the shitty dialogue to ruin the thirty minutes of awesome that started the movie. These Anakin and Padme romantic scenes are horrible. Palpatine is EASILY my favorite character in this movie. I find myself rooting for him over the boring Jedis. Yet another great manipulation scene involving him and Anakin. Obi-Wan's fight scene with General Grievous was pretty good. Palpatine tells Anakin that he's a Sith three times before Anakin figures out that Palpatine is the Sith Lord. That amused me. Anakin tells the Mace Windu that Palpatine is the Sith Lord. Windu takes three other Jedis to confront him as Anakin and Padme have the Rumination scene which is their best scene in the entire series. Why? Simple. No talking and the music makes it work. The Mace Windu vs. Palpatine lightsaber duel was great. Palpatine acts like he's weak and can't defend himself thus manipulating Anakin to cut off Windu's hand and allow Palpatine the opening to shock him with Force Lightning! AWESOME! What a great scene. This Anakin Skywalker heel turn into Darth Vader is probably the best non-action scene I've seen in the crappy prequel movies. Palpatine set all of this up perfectly. He eliminated all of his enemies so no one can challenge him. Vader is now his personal assassin. Anakin shows no mercy in the Jedi Temple takeover scene. He even kills the kids. This guy is ruthless. The lighstaber duels at the end of this movie were excellently done. Both the Yoda vs. Palpatine and Obi-Wan vs. Anakin/Vader lightsaber duels are very well done, probably the two best fight scenes in the Star Wars movies. Why does it seem like Darth Vader is Frankenstein and Palpatine is Count Dracula at the end of this movie? Liked the ending to this. Set up the original trilogy as well as having a non-happy ending with the Sith ruling the galaxy.
Rating: 3 out of 4 stars
2. Star Wars, Episode IV: A New Hope -
Liked this movie a lot. Starts off with Vader capturing the ship of Princess Leia looking for the stolen Death Star plans. Leia hides the plans as well as a message in R2-D2 and he escapes down to planet Tatooine along with C-3PO. The Jawas look like guys who would be hanging out the Vegas slums trying to sell you cheaply made knock off goods for ten bucks. It's sad that after only 15 minutes into this movie R2D2 and C3PO are already more interesting than every Prequel character sans Palpatine. The Jawas then sell the two robots to Luke Skywalker's Uncle Owen and he finds the message Leia put in R2-D2. However R2-D2 escapes to go find Ben Kenobi to give him the message and they have to go find him the next morning. The Sand People are so cool. In fact, they are so cool that they pissed off Anakin to the point where he helped form the Galactic Empire. Ben "Obi-Wan" Kenobi saves them and takes them to his place where he tells Luke about his Jedi origins. Stormtroopers kill Luke's family so he goes with Obi-Wan to Mos Eisley. Mos Eisley looks like downtown Vegas. Now my favorite scene, the Star Wars Cantina Scene. The Mos Eisley Cantina looks like this metal bar I go to called the Cheyenne Saloon. It's even got the same scummy clientelle. The Han Solo vs. Greedo scene was awesome. I love how after Han shoots Greedo he flips the bartender a coin and says "Sorry about the mess." Good stuff. I like how Han Solo is a good guy with a heelish mentality at times. That's why I like him so much. The Death Star destroys Alderaan and then the Millenium Falcon arrives only to be caught in the Death Star's tractor beam. So Darth Vader can sense Obi-Wan Kenobi but not his own children? That doesn't make sense. Funny garbage disposal scene. All Han Solo cares about is money. Cool battle scene and space battle escape sequence. Darth Vader dominates the entire Rebel fighter fleet by himself but Han Solo gives the assist to Luke Skywalker who scores the winning shot. Death Star destroyed but Vader escapes.
Rating: 3 1/2 out of 4 stars
1. Star Wars, Episode V: Empire Strikes Back -
By far the best of the series. Not a bad thing to say about this movie and probably one of the best movies of all time. Here's the synopsis of the movie. Starts off on the ice world of Hoth where Luke is captured by a Wampa. The Wampa is so cool looking. It's like an evil intergalactic Yeti or something. I love how Han is already instigating things with Princess Leia. He's an instigating trouble maker anti-hero which is what makes him great. Luke chopped off the Wampa's arm with the lightsaber...AWESOME. Now if only someone did that to Jar Jar's head in the Phantom Menace...Wishful thinking. Darth Vader kills his general for screwing up. Yeah, this is getting good already. The tone of this is noticeably darker already and it's only just twenty minutes in. The Hoth battle scenes are great but the part when Han Solo and the gang get inside the Millenium Falcon is pretty funny. Liked the asteroid escape scene too. This has been the best Star Wars yet as far as the first half of the movie goes. Han and Leia finally kiss while Luke is looking for Yoda on Dagobah and Vader has his ships searching for the Millenium Falcon. LOVE THAT GIANT WORM TRYING TO EAT THE MILLENIUM FALCON SCENE! That was cool to see. The bounty hunters Darth Vader hired to find the Millenium Falcon look awesome as hell. Luke is now being trained by Yoda. These training scenes are pretty good. Yoda's the best coach since Vince Lombardi. Han and friends are now hiding out in his buddy Lando Calrissian's Cloud City. Chewbacca is now fighting the Munchkins from the Wizard of Oz over C-3PO. Lando with the epic betrayal on Han and Leia. Good stuff. The Han Solo Carbonite Freezing scene is one of the best Star Wars scenes ever. Lando turns face and now is helping them escape. This is getting good. The Darth Vader vs. Luke Skywalker lightsaber duel is GREAT. The "I am your father" speech by Vader after he cut off Luke's hand made it perfect. Best scene in the movie. Luke is saved by Leia, Chewbacca, and Lando. GREAT MOVIE.
Rating: 4 stars out of 4 stars
Rating: 1 1/2 out of 4 stars
5. Star Wars, Episode II: The Attack of the Clones -
The movie starts of with a bang of an assassination attempt on Padme Amidala. Palpatine is a such a manipulative liar. He'd be a great wrestling villain. Then comes a pretty cool flying car chase scene. Why is it that Coruscant is basically New York City from The Fifth Element? At this point Anakin Skywalker is given protection duty for Padme. Obi-Wan Kenobi goes to find out information about a bounty hunter and ends up in a sixties style diner. This diner looks like the same one in Back to the Future, Part 2 where Marty McFly has to impersonate his son. Padme Amidala is back in cougar mode seducing Anakin yet again. Now they're in a full blown romance with her now. Anakin goes back to Tatooine to find his mother. In this movie Watto looks like a guy who'd be hanging out in the Stardust sportsbook circa the year 2000. Anakin's killing rampage is by far the most interesting thing in this movie so far. I like how Anakin is remorseless about commiting genocide and he showed no mercy to the Tusken Raiders. He's a hero kids can be proud of. Palpatine's manipulations in this movie are great. Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Padme all end up on Geonosis and get captured. So the alien bee army captures them and then takes them to the Roman Colisseum to be sacrificed to some mutated animal creatures. To top it off the three captives are winning and the 500,000 or so flying creatures are doing nothing. This whole scene makes no sense. The Jedis come to the rescue. Why is it that Yoda is the only Jedi in this entire movie that has any brains whatsoever? The Yoda vs. Count Dooku lightsaber duel is the best part of this movie BY FAR. I find it hilarious that Yoda immediately knows that Anakin and Padme are lovers yet has no clue about Palpatine being a Sith Lord. Overall better than the last movie.
Rating: 2 stars out of 4
4. Star Wars, Episode VI: Return of the Jedi -
Shocked it's not Episode III? Yeah I am too. Starts off with Darth Vader getting on his general for the slow completion of the new Death Star. "The Emperor is not as forgiving as I am." After seeing how Vader has been in the first two movies the Emperor must be really heartless. Going by the prequels, he's an uber-villain. C-3PO and R2-D2 are on Tatooine and are at Jabba's Palace. Jabba's Palace is so cool. It looks like a scummy cantina somewhere in the Vegas slums. Jabba the Hut is like one of these Vegas high roller scumbags who has a girlfriend that's forty years younger than he is. Leia tries to rescue Han but gets captured by Jabba and his goons. Luke arrives and Jabba sicks the Rancor on him. The Rancor is probably the coolest creature in the Star Wars universe. It looks like something that you'd see in a horror movie. Princess Leia's Jabba love slave outfit still is probably the hottest nerd sci-fi costume in history. Liked the Pit of Sarlacc battle and escape scene. Luke goes back to Dagobah to meet with Yoda while everyone else goes to meet up with the Rebel Fleet. Yoda died. Now that was an emotional scene especially with the revelation of Luke having a sibling. Luke figures out that Leia is his sister on the first try. This is why he remains good as opposed to Anakin who turned heel. He had common sense and could control his emotions whereas his father could not. Han and the Rebels start planning their attack on the second Death Star. Seeing Admiral Ackbar makes me want to go eat out at Red Lobster for some reason. Luke arrives and joins Han and his crew on the Endor mission. Cool Endor Speeder chase scene. Oh no...it's Wicket the Ewok. Now all of that cool stuff that just happened is going to replaced by a live action version of Disney's Gummy Bears television series. Luke, Han, Chewbacca, and the rest of the crew go looking for Leia who's missing. Now they've been captured by more Ewoks. I'm waiting for Jar Jar to make a cameo with little Anni so they can pander to kids like John Cena. Luke uses the Force on C-3PO, who the Ewoks think is a God, in order to gain their release after they are captured. Now Leia knows that she's Luke's sister and now Luke has let himself get captured by Vader to try and turn him good. His plan backfires and Vader takes him to see the Emperor which he didn't think would happen. The Emperor taunting Luke is great as is his set-up of the Rebel Attack Fleet. On Endor the Rebels get caught by the Stormtroopers however it's the Ewoks to the rescue. Space and land battles going on at the same time. How are little Ewok bear creatures armed with sticks and stones able to take on elite Imperial Stormtroopers armed with laser blasters? I'm starting to think that they were trained by the Tahrir Square protesters at this point. This verbal taunting and mind games in the Luke vs. Vader lightsaber fight makes this whole scene work. Tactics being used, psyche-outs being used. It don't get no better than this. Death Star shields down so now the Rebel ships go in for the kill. Vader finally turns face again. This is like in 2002 when Hogan left the nWo and became the Hulkster again. And naturally the whole Star Wars saga ends with a happy ending. Not bad overall. However I liked the battle scenes in Episode III more as well as the darker tone which is why I ranked it above this one. Not better by much but still slightly better.
Rating: 2 1/2 out of 4 stars
3. Star Wars, Episode III: Revenge of the Sith -
Yeah, I know. Shocking that this ended up being ranked above Jedi. However the happy ending scenario and the Ewoks kind of ruined it for me. Also the Palpatine character and action scenes in this one were great. The movie starts off with an awesome massive space battle scene above the planet Coruscant. This space battle opening sequence is already better than anything in the first two prequel movies combined. R2-D2 just deep fried to robot soldiers using fire and gasoline...yeah, that was pretty awesome. Palpatine manipulating Anakin to kill Dooku was great. So far everything up to the crash landing scene has been really good. Hopefully it stays like this throughout. And here comes the shitty dialogue to ruin the thirty minutes of awesome that started the movie. These Anakin and Padme romantic scenes are horrible. Palpatine is EASILY my favorite character in this movie. I find myself rooting for him over the boring Jedis. Yet another great manipulation scene involving him and Anakin. Obi-Wan's fight scene with General Grievous was pretty good. Palpatine tells Anakin that he's a Sith three times before Anakin figures out that Palpatine is the Sith Lord. That amused me. Anakin tells the Mace Windu that Palpatine is the Sith Lord. Windu takes three other Jedis to confront him as Anakin and Padme have the Rumination scene which is their best scene in the entire series. Why? Simple. No talking and the music makes it work. The Mace Windu vs. Palpatine lightsaber duel was great. Palpatine acts like he's weak and can't defend himself thus manipulating Anakin to cut off Windu's hand and allow Palpatine the opening to shock him with Force Lightning! AWESOME! What a great scene. This Anakin Skywalker heel turn into Darth Vader is probably the best non-action scene I've seen in the crappy prequel movies. Palpatine set all of this up perfectly. He eliminated all of his enemies so no one can challenge him. Vader is now his personal assassin. Anakin shows no mercy in the Jedi Temple takeover scene. He even kills the kids. This guy is ruthless. The lighstaber duels at the end of this movie were excellently done. Both the Yoda vs. Palpatine and Obi-Wan vs. Anakin/Vader lightsaber duels are very well done, probably the two best fight scenes in the Star Wars movies. Why does it seem like Darth Vader is Frankenstein and Palpatine is Count Dracula at the end of this movie? Liked the ending to this. Set up the original trilogy as well as having a non-happy ending with the Sith ruling the galaxy.
Rating: 3 out of 4 stars
2. Star Wars, Episode IV: A New Hope -
Liked this movie a lot. Starts off with Vader capturing the ship of Princess Leia looking for the stolen Death Star plans. Leia hides the plans as well as a message in R2-D2 and he escapes down to planet Tatooine along with C-3PO. The Jawas look like guys who would be hanging out the Vegas slums trying to sell you cheaply made knock off goods for ten bucks. It's sad that after only 15 minutes into this movie R2D2 and C3PO are already more interesting than every Prequel character sans Palpatine. The Jawas then sell the two robots to Luke Skywalker's Uncle Owen and he finds the message Leia put in R2-D2. However R2-D2 escapes to go find Ben Kenobi to give him the message and they have to go find him the next morning. The Sand People are so cool. In fact, they are so cool that they pissed off Anakin to the point where he helped form the Galactic Empire. Ben "Obi-Wan" Kenobi saves them and takes them to his place where he tells Luke about his Jedi origins. Stormtroopers kill Luke's family so he goes with Obi-Wan to Mos Eisley. Mos Eisley looks like downtown Vegas. Now my favorite scene, the Star Wars Cantina Scene. The Mos Eisley Cantina looks like this metal bar I go to called the Cheyenne Saloon. It's even got the same scummy clientelle. The Han Solo vs. Greedo scene was awesome. I love how after Han shoots Greedo he flips the bartender a coin and says "Sorry about the mess." Good stuff. I like how Han Solo is a good guy with a heelish mentality at times. That's why I like him so much. The Death Star destroys Alderaan and then the Millenium Falcon arrives only to be caught in the Death Star's tractor beam. So Darth Vader can sense Obi-Wan Kenobi but not his own children? That doesn't make sense. Funny garbage disposal scene. All Han Solo cares about is money. Cool battle scene and space battle escape sequence. Darth Vader dominates the entire Rebel fighter fleet by himself but Han Solo gives the assist to Luke Skywalker who scores the winning shot. Death Star destroyed but Vader escapes.
Rating: 3 1/2 out of 4 stars
1. Star Wars, Episode V: Empire Strikes Back -
By far the best of the series. Not a bad thing to say about this movie and probably one of the best movies of all time. Here's the synopsis of the movie. Starts off on the ice world of Hoth where Luke is captured by a Wampa. The Wampa is so cool looking. It's like an evil intergalactic Yeti or something. I love how Han is already instigating things with Princess Leia. He's an instigating trouble maker anti-hero which is what makes him great. Luke chopped off the Wampa's arm with the lightsaber...AWESOME. Now if only someone did that to Jar Jar's head in the Phantom Menace...Wishful thinking. Darth Vader kills his general for screwing up. Yeah, this is getting good already. The tone of this is noticeably darker already and it's only just twenty minutes in. The Hoth battle scenes are great but the part when Han Solo and the gang get inside the Millenium Falcon is pretty funny. Liked the asteroid escape scene too. This has been the best Star Wars yet as far as the first half of the movie goes. Han and Leia finally kiss while Luke is looking for Yoda on Dagobah and Vader has his ships searching for the Millenium Falcon. LOVE THAT GIANT WORM TRYING TO EAT THE MILLENIUM FALCON SCENE! That was cool to see. The bounty hunters Darth Vader hired to find the Millenium Falcon look awesome as hell. Luke is now being trained by Yoda. These training scenes are pretty good. Yoda's the best coach since Vince Lombardi. Han and friends are now hiding out in his buddy Lando Calrissian's Cloud City. Chewbacca is now fighting the Munchkins from the Wizard of Oz over C-3PO. Lando with the epic betrayal on Han and Leia. Good stuff. The Han Solo Carbonite Freezing scene is one of the best Star Wars scenes ever. Lando turns face and now is helping them escape. This is getting good. The Darth Vader vs. Luke Skywalker lightsaber duel is GREAT. The "I am your father" speech by Vader after he cut off Luke's hand made it perfect. Best scene in the movie. Luke is saved by Leia, Chewbacca, and Lando. GREAT MOVIE.
Rating: 4 stars out of 4 stars
No, no, no. Episode III should be behind Jedi every time. I totally agree with your point about pandering to the kids by using the tedy bears and this is always where Star Wars falls short. Episode III, however, is way over the top. The dual in the under world is absurd. The action scenes are too long which leads to the almost bizzare last 25 minutes in which all of the loose story line must be crammed into a much too small time frame. Pace makes a good movie and this episode has none. Also, the story is already fractured and thus cannot be saved- even by all of the special effects.
ReplyDeleteYour biggest flaw is the fact that you put 1 behind 2. Episode 2 had a whiny teenager Anakin that almost made you happy when he got burned in episode 3. In Episode 1, Anakin is still a small kid that you can at least feel with. Also, Episode 1 has the 2ND GREATEST LIGHTSABER DUEL EVER!
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