Ranking the Star Wars films

Putting things in order is one of the most predictable habits of the common garden nerd, and one of which I'm not actually that fond, but I thought it would be amusing for me to "rate" the Star Wars films that currently exist in order, much as I "rated" the Doctors from Doctor Who some years ago, in terms of my personal preference. This should be noted: I am not by any means trying to rank these films in any kind of "objective" order based on a close and detailed study of filmmaking, because I'm not well informed about filmmaking. This order, rather, is from the film I like the least to the one I like the most. Like my list of Doctors, I'll also do it in "tiers", so you can imagine that groups of films are ordered as well. My reason for this is that I think that films made in the same era are more comparable than those made well apart, and because I think the Star Wars franchise currently lacks any substantial outliers which would make this not work.

Tier 3 (Bottom Tier): The Prequels

10. Episode III – Revenge of the Sith

You can read my thoughts here for why I think Revenge of the Sith is the worst Star Wars film. The main reasons, put simply, are because I think it looks horrible, it's poorly conceived and structured, and it features weak performances. I can't abide the overly-crisp, clean CGI look of everything, such as the opening battle and the clone troopers. I abhor the character of General Grievous, who is an unnecessary and stupid villain, and am consistently frustrated by how much time the film wastes on him and how absurd it is to kill off Christopher Lee's Dooku in the opening scene. Ewan McGregor is completely phoning it in as Obi Wan and Ian McDiarmid's extraordinarily hammy performance as Palpatine is cringeworthy. I really don't like this film at all.

9. Episode II – Attack of the Clones

This film is boring. That's the first and most vital thing that needs to be said about it. It's slow and dull. I'm not just talking about the ineptly-written romance scenes. I'm also talking about, for instance, the weightless and unbelievable CGI chase sequences and battle sequences, especially at the end. As is always said, Anakin is annoying and unsympathetic, with cringeworthy dialogue, while Christopher Lee brings presence but cannot redeem the weak and unbelievable script. Like Revenge of the Sith this also suffers from looking completely fake. Perhaps the only thing that elevates this above Episode III is that McDiarmid's performance is more restrained and it has Christopher Lee and not General Grievous, although there still isn't enough of Lee. The soundtrack also has at least one memorable new tune, "Across the Stars". Returning to negatives, however, I also dislike the depiction of the Clone Wars as clones versus droids, and this film establishes a trend continued in Episode III and the animated series of depicting a universe that I simply can't believe is the same one that is featured in the originals because of how it looks and feels.

8. Episode I – The Phantom Menace

This film is also very boring, being extremely poorly paced with weak direction that derives very unengaging performances from much of its main cast, but I've always been marginally more forgiving of Episode I than the other two. I still don't like the Trade Federation, including both the annoying Nemoidians and the lame battle droids, or the extremely tiresome podrace, but this is one in which I somewhat appreciate the depiction of a world we didn't get to see in the Originals. Naboo shows us a more "civilised" part of the galaxy without being too busy; I can almost see it fitting into the same universe. Of course the problem of an overly busy setting instantly occurs when we go to Coruscant, which always annoys me because I think "Why did we never see Coruscant in the Originals?" Jar Jar is annoying, but I've never found him that annoying; young Anakin is annoying too, but I find him to be less cringeworthy than teenage Anakin. I kind of like Ewan McGregor in this as Obi Wan before he's turned into more and more of a buffoon in the subsequent films, although like all the others his performance suffers from uninspiring direction. Also, while I think that the character of Qui Gon didn't need to exist, Neeson and McGregor make for more watchable leads than McGregor and Christensen in the subsequent films. Even though he's a complete waste, Darth Maul is kind of visually interesting. One of the biggest problems with this is how unnecessary it is, but the biggest problem is the poor pacing. The podrace is far too long, and is completely uninteresting, and too much time is spent with characters tiresomely planning things and discussing them rather than actually doing them, which doesn't work when the stakes are so low and the characters are uninteresting.

Tier 2 (Mid Tier): The Disney Films (so far)

7. Rogue One

In my "Initial Impressions" post I pointed out that I think Rogue One, in contrast to all the praise it's getting, is quite a dull film. My main problem with it when I saw it, and a problem I still feel now, is that the main protagonists are not very interesting and engaging, and I didn't care about them. That's my immediate reaction. There's some decent enough action, and some of the fan service is successful while some isn't. CGI Grand Moff Tarkin looks weird, but I like the inclusion of the character. Vader looks and sounds off, but again I like the inclusion of the character. Jyn Erso and her gang I simply didn't find interesting enough; we're offered a few scraps like Cassian's remark about his life in the rebellion and Bodhi's character development, but I found it insufficient. I mostly kind of enjoyed K-2SO and Chirrut because their pronounced traits gave me something to latch onto, but they were just supporting characters. Jyn and Cassian needed more. All that being said, I can't rate Rogue One lower than any of the Prequels because, even though it suffers from one problem they also have, being boring, this has far less cringe and overall it's more competently made.

6. Solo

Solo is a mediocre film which suffers clearly and obviously from extensive reshoots and rewriting, creating an inconsistent-feeling product, but it's better than Rogue One by virtue of being simply more fun and entertaining and taking itself less seriously. While Rogue One is an empty, hollow film pretending to be profound, Solo is just a romp with no pretensions to the contrary. While it is hindered by a meandering plot (the train job could be excised with no impact on the story) and having too many characters (Val, Rio and L3 serve little purpose), the performances are largely watchable even though the lighting at times is dark and muddy. Ehrenreich and Glover stand out as Han and Lando. While I can't really see this as Han Solo's actual backstory, and while in many respects it actually fails as an exploration of who the character might have been before his development in the original Star Wars, it's diverting enough.

5. Episode VII – The Force Awakens

The Force Awakens has a lot of problems, largely being the laziness of the plotting and some unnecessary CGI. If this film had replaced Maz Kanata with something else, had Snoke as an actor in makeup rather than a fake-looking CGI character, scrapped the rathtar sequence and replaced Starkiller Base with a plot point that wasn't just another Death Star, it'd be a much better film. It also suffers from having a somewhat weak soundtrack lacking in memorable new tunes. All that being said, what elevates this substantially above Rogue One in my opinion is that I personally found the characters to be far more likeable and interesting, particularly Rey, but also Finn and Poe. Finn is probably the weakest of the new characters as he's used too much for comic relief, but overall I find the characters sufficiently entertaining to watch. I also think that the film is visually fairly pleasing in terms of its cinematography, colouring and the like. It's a somewhat decent piece of action sci-fi cinema let down by a number of annoying elements.

4. Episode VIII – The Last Jedi

Despite the frenzied, over-the-top online backlash, The Last Jedi is at least half of an interesting film, albeit grafted to, in my opinion, a rather boring film. Almost everything that happens with Luke Skywalker, Rey and Kylo Ren in this film functions as a fairly interesting character study, exploration of the themes of the franchise as a whole, and effort to take things in a new direction. Unfortunately, this is lumbered by the distracting plots involving Poe, Finn and Rose. While I think, arguably, these plots serve the same thematic interest of the film as a whole, they're so clumsily-presented, and so awkwardly intercut-with and so much less interesting than the other half of the film that they become doubly frustrating to watch in comparison to the rest. That's what I think The Last Jedi's biggest problem is: in its desperation for absolute thematic consistency at every level it over-intellectualises itself to the point at which its ideas become obscured and inscrutable. That being said, everything involving Luke, Rey and Kylo is so stylishly-presented and so much more interesting than anything in The Force Awakens that for me it has to take the top spot of the Disney-era films thus far.

Tier 1 (Top Tier): The Original Trilogy

3. Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back

The received wisdom is that this is the best of the Star Wars films, but it's not my favourite of the original trilogy. I still like it a lot and think from a technical standpoint it's probably the strongest. It also has a number of classic sequences. Things like Han being frozen in Carbonite, Vader force-choking Admiral Ozzel, the AT-AT assault and of course the final duel are all extremely well realised. Yoda is a particular highlight, benefiting from a superb performance both vocally and in terms of puppetry by Frank Oz. The reason this one isn't my favourite is because at times I feel like it's just a little bit too slow, particularly the opening sequence up until Luke's rescue and some of the scenes when the Millennium Falcon is hiding in the asteroid belt. I also think that the development of the characters and progression of the story is just a touch more understated than is effective, because to me the "failure" of the characters in this one could be a touch more prominent in its representation. I'm sure there are plenty of arguments for why the "craft" of this film is the best; my personal reaction to the film is simply not quite as high as many people's is. That being said, it also has a terrific soundtrack and the all-time great moment of Vader revealing that he's Luke's father. This is the film that made Star Wars what it is today.

2. Episode VI – Return of the Jedi

In some respects, Return of the Jedi is my "favourite" Star Wars film because I greatly enjoy Luke's character development in this one, as he becomes a more confident character with greater wisdom. The scenes with Luke, Vader and the Emperor are classic, as is Luke's initial confrontation with Vader on Endor. I also rather enjoy all the puppetry used in the opening act of the film at Jabba's Palace, which is convincing and amusing, although I'm not the biggest fan of the rancor fight. The film's biggest weaknesses, obviously, are the Ewoks and the fact that Han and Leia have nothing to do as characters. I don't hate the Ewoks. I just think they go a little too far, and the earlier idea of setting that part of the film on Kashyyyk with the Wookiees would have been much better. The Battle of Endor, however, is my favourite space battle sequence of the films. Overall, I think this one could have been better in some respects, but is elevated by some extremely strong aspects, the most important of which being that it gives a satisfying ending to Luke's story.

1. Star Wars (or Episode IV – A New Hope)

Star Wars (or A New Hope if you prefer) isn't strictly my favourite but at the same time I think it's the most consistently enjoyable of the Original Trilogy. It has good music, good effects and engaging, likeable characters. The opening sequence is exciting, Luke's journey as a hero is a classic tale, the stuff aboard the Death Star is very fun and the final battle, featuring superb model shots and Vader himself manning a TIE Fighter to take the combat to the Rebels is all extremely entertaining. What I think elevates this film above the others in the Original Trilogy is that in addition to our consistent cast of Luke, Leia, Han and Vader (plus R2-D2, C-3PO and Chewie), this one also features Peter Cushing as Governor Tarkin and the largest role in the trilogy for Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan. These two bring an extremely watchable level of old-school class to the film that you don't get anymore and just elevates it slightly above the other two in my view.

One thing that has greatly improved my experience and enjoyment of the Original Trilogy is the release of the "Despecialized Editions" of the films, and I would highly recommend watching them if possible. I personally think that these are the best way to view the original films and appreciate their achievements and best qualities without the distraction of elements changed or added later.

"Who?"

Why "Revenge of the Sith" is the Worst Star Wars Prequel and Film

The picture that sums up the film.

On the internet, one reads a lot of dumb opinions. Among these are the arguments that "Revenge of the Sith isn't that bad", that "Revenge of the Sith is the best of the Star Wars prequel films" and, above all, that "Revenge of the Sith is better than Return of the Jedi." Good grief. Needless to say, I heartily disagree. In my opinion, not only is Revenge of the Sith the worst Prequel and the worst Star Wars movie overall, it's probably one of the worst films of its type ever made, full of empty, meaningless spectacle and flat, clumsy writing. Maybe it's harsh on George Lucas to say that, but he's rich and important, so he'll live.

Fire turns you into a middle-aged Englishman with bushy eyebrows.

When I was in my mid teens back in 2005 I remember being pretty psyched for Revenge of the Sith, although I believe increasing frustration with the prequels had led to the film not garnering the attention and exposure that the previous ones had. I remember being intrigued by the trailer: we were going to see Palpatine revealed as a user of the Dark Side of the Force, there'd be an awesome battle with Count Dooku and there'd be doom and gloom galore as the world of the Prequels fell apart. Furthermore, I'm fairly sure I guessed the title in advance: it's the logical choice to parallel Return of the Jedi. Imagine my reaction then, when I went to see the film, having at least taken some good away from The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, and being flabbergasted by how awful Revenge of the Sith was.

Why is Revenge of the Sith so bad?

Got some ham stuck in his teeth.

Most of what I could say to criticise Revenge of the Sith has more or less been expressed before, but it's worth summing up. The most common criticism of the film is the dialogue. None of the characters talk like real people, and their mouths are full of nothing but unsubtle, in-your-face efforts to express simplistic emotions or pointless exposition about war and politics that means little and goes nowhere. Tied to this is the characterisation, with Anakin Skywalker in this film coming across as a naïve idiot who swallows every single obvious lie that Palpatine feeds to him. Nowhere do you see the grim cynicism of Vader emerging; he's simply duped into agreeing with Palpatine's feeble and paper-thin suggestions that the Jedi are trying to take over the Republic and are a force for ill rather than good. You could potentially argue that there is a political subtext here about politicians and how useful gullible conspiracy theorists are to their cause, but it doesn't work in this film because as I've said it reflects none of Vader's cynicism of the Original Trilogy - which is not to say that Vader isn't also at times a rather sinister idealist, but he's a complex character in those films.

"Now if you'll excuse me, to wrap up recording
I have to make a quick collect call to Skywalker Ranch."

A lot has been made of the weakness of Christensen's performance as Anakin here, although that's obviously tied to the clumsy dialogue. Given that Lucas has admitted that dialogue was a weakness of his, I don't understand why he didn't seek collaborators on these films. In any event, the performances aren't memorable from anyone. Ewan McGregor is obviously phoning it in as Obi-Wan, and he could scarcely come across as more uninterested in the motions of CGI action and exposition-laden dialogue that he goes through, although that's completely understandable. Ian McDiarmid completely hams it up as Palpatine, but again a large amount of this is due to the flawed dialogue. Palpatine goes from being a reasonably believable manipulator in the other two Prequels to being someone completely, obviously evil in this who makes no attempt whatsoever to disguise his malevolence from those around him, making his subjugation of Anakin very difficult to believe and dependent on Anakin being a complete moron. What this film needed to do, I would argue, is not make Anakin into such an overtly furious character who is drawn to the Dark Side through what largely amounts to anxiety, but rather to realise him as an embittered, power-hungry cynic who sees service to Palpatine as a vehicle for his own ambition. This only emerges as a single piece of throwaway dialogue in the film when he suggests to Padmé, as he does to Luke, that the Emperor may be overthrown. The transformation is unsatisfying and at no point do we see Anakin metamorphose from a fundamentally good Jedi and friend of Obi-Wan to becoming the character we see in Star Wars of 1977.

OH GOD MY EYES

Those are more or less common complaints. I have two others, however. The first of these is the relentlessness of the CGI. Revenge of the Sith is an entirely fake-looking assault on the senses from the opening battle above Coruscant to the final duel on Mustafar. The film is so visually noisy, full of overly crisp-looking computer generated ships, environs, soldiers and creatures that it looks more like a sequence of mid-2000s video game cutscenes strung together than a film, and visually would probably have worked more effectively as pure animation rather than what I believe was an almost entirely green screen based production with almost no sets whatsoever. The action, which primarily involves incoherent laser blasting battles and shots of Jedi bashing away endlessly at each other's lightsabers, is so excessive and fake that it is not remotely exciting or suspenseful; rather it is boring and weightless with no sense of reality. This is particularly bad in this film compared to the other Prequels, where almost every surface and texture in the film is a bright, hyper-realistically crisp computer generated polygon that simply does not look real. As such it's unconvincing and mind-numbing: at no point can I believe, even compared to the other Prequels, that these are things that are meant on some level to be actually happening, and they make the chasm between the Prequels and the Originals even more pronounced. Simply put, almost nothing in the film looks real, and this is a serious problem. Some people have more of a tolerance or less of an eye for CGI, but I can certainly detect it here and it really affects the experience for me.

"Another crappy landing!"

My second complaint is the character of General Grievous. This awful secondary antagonist, who is pulled out of nowhere, obviously exists only to sell action figures as the "cool cyborg with four lightsabers". Not only does Obi-Wan spend ages chasing him on a big lizard that goes "whoop whoop" but there's simply nothing to him as a villain. He's just some guy. As has been stated countless times before, Darth Maul should obviously have been the secondary antagonist for all three films, or failing that Dooku should have fulfilled the role in this one. Instead of the class of Christopher Lee, in this film we get a CGI cyborg who only exists as a crude foreshadowing of Vader with his robotic limbs and raspy cough. Otherwise he serves no purpose beyond getting Obi-Wan away from Anakin for a bit. Furthermore, think about how stupid his role in the opening sequence is. If you consider the situation, with the captured Chancellor on board, you have all three leaders of the Separatist movement in the heart of battle where they're incredibly vulnerable rather than coordinating things behind the lines: you have Grievous, the military leader, Dooku, the political leader, and Sidious, the true leader behind the scenes, all in the one place. If anything goes wrong, the entire plan goes up in smoke immediately. The Separatist Council are just a bunch of businessmen and trade unionists; they can hardly be expected to lead the war if the others are captured or killed.

Is that Tarkin, or Odo from Deep Space Nine?

There are other things as well that are more on the "don't really seem to follow from the Originals" front but are worth dwelling on. For instance, I really don't think Palpatine needed to fight anyone with a lightsaber. Note that in Return of the Jedi he refers to Luke's lightsaber as "your Jedi weapon" as if such things mean little to him. Within the context of the Originals, it's perfectly easy to explain that the reason Vader wields a lightsaber is because he's a former Jedi and not because all Force users, light or dark, wield such weapons. Palpatine also doesn't need to get his face all messed up. Couldn't it have just been explained as old age and the wear and tear of the corruptive Dark Side? As has been said elsewhere, Order 66 makes the Jedi, who previously have been shown in the Prequels as amazingly resilient, look hopelessly incompetent. Beyond the straightforward massacre at the Temple, there's no sense of what Obi-Wan describes in Star Wars as Vader hunting down the Jedi, although I guess you could argue that that happened afterwards.

This is how I felt.

I should also point out that it has the worst opening crawl in the franchise's history, at least as far as the first paragraph is concerned: "War! The Republic is crumbling under attacks by the ruthless Sith Lord, Count Dooku. There are heroes on both sides. Evil is everywhere." If you can't see the sheer awfulness of the opening exclamation and those two unbelievably juvenile closing sentences then I don't know what to tell you.

How is it Not Better than Return of the Jedi?

By piloting Anakin's ship, is R2-D2
somewhat complicit in his crimes?

I shouldn't have to even dignify this with a response because of what an utterly absurd proposition it is to argue that Revenge is better than Return. By any standard, Return of the Jedi is a better film. The acting is better. See the confrontation between Luke, Vader and the Emperor on the second Death Star for an example of character drama done reasonably well, by Hollywood sci fi action standards. The action is better: the lightsaber duel and the Battle of Endor are both composed in a way that is coherent, rather than just a nonsensical mess. Return of the Jedi also succeeds by actually having a plot, which Revenge of the Sith doesn't, even if it's derivative of Star Wars (1977). In Revenge of the Sith a bunch of shit just happens in order to get the pieces in place for the Original Trilogy. Return of the Jedi ends on a meaningful note with the image of Anakin's redemption, unlike the utterly meaningless shot of the unambitious Uncle Owen posing like Luke at the end of Revenge of the Sith, even though Owen is completely unimportant - it could have at least been Obi-Wan. The effects are also better. Observe the creature feature of Jabba's palace for enjoyable, practical effects, compared to the mind-rotting CGI of Revenge at every turn, especially Obi-Wan's lizard thing and the inhabitants of that planet. A shortcoming of both films is that many characters have nothing to do, like Leia and Han in Return and Padmé and arguably Obi-Wan in Revenge (these characters no longer develop in any significant way except for Obi-Wan realising, in the context of the Prequels, what an abysmal failure he's been as Anakin's master) but I can't mark Return of the Jedi down for any greater reason than I would mark down Revenge. Return of the Jedi is also criticised for the use of the Ewoks, and while the Ewoks are overused and implausible, at least the sequences involving them utilise actors in locations doing real stunts, not just CGI nonsense like the battle on Kashyyyk with a token effort to have Peter Mayhew in the background as Chewie. In any event, I would argue that Return of the Jedi is a stratospherically better film than Revenge of the Sith, and I would struggle to understand the mind that could position Revenge of the Sith's categorical awfulness over the many good qualities of Return.

"Strong relations with the Wookiees have I.
...but not that strong."

How is it Worse than the other Prequels?

Firstly, the obsessive use of CGI is a big one, but I've hammered that home more than enough. I think in some respects the acting and writing gets worse in this one, largely because of McDiarmid hamming it up and McGregor phoning it in in Revenge to a greater extent compared to the others. Revenge of the Sith also has the worst secondary antagonist of all three, as General Grievous is a stupid character with neither the presence and mystique of Darth Maul or the Christopher Lee-derived class of Count Dooku. I would argue that the action in this one is more incoherent and unbelievable. Furthermore, the score for Revenge does not include a single memorable new track that I can recall. The Phantom Menace at least had Duel of the Fates and Attack of the Clones had Across the Stars. While Jar Jar is annoying in The Phantom Menace he never really bothered me that much, and I find that his qualities are drastically outweighed by the utterly leaden dialogue and delivery of much of Revenge, especially in the case of Anakin. Padmé has less to do, pregnant or not, and even R2-D2 and C-3PO deliver less in this one, especially due to R2's investiture with even more absurd gadgets that never appeared in the Original Trilogy. All in all, though, it comes back to that "assault on the senses" factor. To a greater extent than the other two, Revenge of the Sith is a hollow, empty piece of bombast with no drama or interest. It's crap, and I want to propose its rightful place as the utter nadir of the Star Wars film franchise. Even while I'm a bit iffy about The Force Awakens in some respects, it's a far better film than this, and as a deeply flawed film which lacks a lot of the charm of the Originals, that's saying something.

"Strike me down, and you will become more
powerful than I can possibly imagine...?"

So there you have it: Revenge of the Sith sucks balls, and it's the worst Star Wars film. Everything about it is bad; I can't really think of anything from it that I like except maybe that it's cool to see Vader and hear James Earl Jones again, even if the dialogue he has to deliver is eye-rollingly inept. Oh, and Grievous' droid bodyguards are kind of memorable. Other than that, I would argue that this is one of those "so bad it's bad" films with virtually zero serious redeeming qualities, and even by the abysmal standards of what passed for "good" sci fi action cinema in the 2000s this is a miserable experience. More like Revenge of the Shit, amirite?