I guess if I had to rank them all from worse to best my list would probably be:
11. Attack Of The Clones: The end action scenes is the only good parts of the movie. Everything else is either boring or painful to watch. One of the worst love stories put to screen and this film honestly mostly feels like filler even though it isn't.
10. The Phantom Menace: It's not good at all but I find it just slightly more bearable than Attack Of The Clones. The Maul-Qui Gon-Obi-Wan fight is pretty great but you gotta sit through a whole lot of blegh just to get to it. I can understand people ranking this one last but Attack Of The Clones gets on my nerves more.
9. Solo: An average film that wasn't even necessary. I realize you could say the same with Rouge One but at least Rouge One fills in a plot hole from the original trilogy. We really didn't need to know Han's backstory. His character was great without one. But the movie itself isn't bad. Just nothing special.
8. The Last Jedi: This film has some great moments and beautiful cinematography. Even though Luke wasn't the Luke most of us wanted to see, the scenes with him, Rey and Kylo were the best scenes that carried the film. Sadly outside of their plots, the rest of the movie falls flat. Poe, Finn & Rose, Holdo and The First Order chase plot lines were not strong and dragged a lot of the film down. I also found the conclusion of the film very dull and Luke's final moment to not be a satisfying end for his character. The film will always be looked at with mixed feelings from fans.
7. The Force Awakens: Yeah it's A New Hope 2.0, but the film is honestly well made and has that essence that makes it Star Wars. The point was to make people excited to see Star Wars again after how much people hated the prequels and it did it's job.
6. Rouge One: The first half of the film can definitely feel like a bit of a drag, but I actually quite like this one. The second half of the movie is honestly some of the best that Star Wars has had to offer yet.
5. Revenge Of The Sith: This film still has some of the same issues the other prequels had, but it also has some of the best stuff Star Wars has ever produced. Seeing the fall of the Jedi and the rise of the Empire was great. Even though Hayden Christensen's line delivery is awful, his expressions and demeanor when he becomes Palpatine's apprentice was spot on. It was the only time I felt you can actually see this person as the man who becomes Darth Vader. It's the only prequel that felt necessary and added something meaningful to the overall saga.
4. Rise Of Skywalker: It's probably a bit early to rank this one so high but I really like how this one closed out the original Skywalker family line as well as the trilogy that it was apart of. A lot is going on and there isn't too much space to breathe but I felt it gave a satisfying conclusion for most of the characters. I also really like how it left things open ended to keep the possibility of these characters returning again someday. I'm actually curious to see where Star Wars ends up after this one.
3. Return Of The Jedi: Yeah yeah, Ewoks, I know. But I love this movie. I love the fight at Jabba's palace. I love the bike chase on Endor. I loved seeing Luke as a fully realized Jedi and him having to struggle with the moral dilemma of him having to possibly kill his own father. I loved the classic throne room scenes with Palpatine/Vader/Luke. It's a fun time even though the Ewoks drag it down.
2. A New Hope: The one that started it all. I do feel that there's a portion of the beginning of the film that drags on a bit (When 3PO and R2 land on Tatooine) but once Luke comes it the film picks up and is a treat to watch until the end. The iconic trench run is a film sequence that will always stick in the back of my mind.
1. Empire Strikes Back: Not much about this one that's already been said needs to be said. Every scene works. Nothing feels out of place. The battle of Hoth, Luke's training with Yoda, Lando, Leia and Han's relationship blooming, Luke's confrontation with Vader in Cloud City. Each piece is where it needs to be and the film concludes with one of the best cliffhangers in cinema history. As close to perfection as Star Wars has ever gotten on the big screen.
Swap The Force Awakens and Revenge of the Sith and that's my exact ranking. I agree heartily with your reasons for each as well.
I really enjoyed Rise, and I'd agree with most of the assessments for the smaller problems, but overall, that movie delivered, which is hard to do for an ending to a multi-generational entertainment franchise.
And I LIKED the kiss. It doesn't hurt to have even a smidgen of romance in these stories. It's just a shame it came so close to the end.
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And I LIKED the kiss. It doesn't hurt to have even a smidgen of romance in these stories. It's just a shame it came so close to the end.
They just feel like siblings or at least cousins to me, even though I know they’re not. There’s something about how their relationship was told that made it seem more familial than romantic. But I guess that’s just par for the course as far as Skywalkers are concerned.
Speaking of romance, how great was it to see dashing pilot Poe Dameron get shot down after the battle with the Final Order. I’ve tried using those exact same bedroom eyes, and the result was basically identical. If that can happen to even Oscar Isaac, then the rest of us don’t have to feel so bad about ourselves.
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movie was a big disappointment for me and I'm surprised you guys liked it so much. After thinking about it for a while, I'm actually more pissed at episode 8 ... Abrams-Johnson-Abrams was just a terrible decision and it's just incomprehensible to me that there apparently was no coherent plan in place for this trilogy. Episode 7 was pretty much a carbon copy, episode 8 was flat out terrible and episode 9 felt like it just flailed around to somehow tie everything together amongst all the bombast and absurd pacing. There's other issues too (Kylo and Rey being so ridiculously overpowered being the biggest one for me), but I just feel it all could have so much better if there had been more stringent planning for the whole trilogy instead of feeling so disjointed. And you know, it's a damn shame because I felt some of those characters were super interesting and had a lot of potential (primarily Kylo Ren).
I'm glad you guys liked it. I wish I would too
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Still dunno how I feel though about the force ghost ability to interact with the real world sticking. Happy for Luke that he finally got a second crack at the x-wing, but then you have to somehow explain away all the times that the good guys could have used help when they were getting their ass handed to them by Sidious/Vader/Snoke. Like when Obiwan says he can’t go to Bespin to help Luke, he was just being a lazy ahole.
Unless the ghosts can see the future and are pretty confident they don’t have to join the battle for things to turn out right.
My take on this is they can’t interfere directly with a battle, but only to help guide other Jedi.
Force Ghost Yoda was able to interact with the environment only when he was trying to help guide Luke in TLJ.
Force Ghost Luke was able to catch the light sabre only, and interact with the environment when he was trying to help guide Rey.
They never got involved directly in the conflict which I think is the right call.
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movie was a big disappointment for me and I'm surprised you guys liked it so much. After thinking about it for a while, I'm actually more pissed at episode 8 ... Abrams-Johnson-Abrams was just a terrible decision and it's just incomprehensible to me that there apparently was no coherent plan in place for this trilogy. Episode 7 was pretty much a carbon copy, episode 8 was flat out terrible and episode 9 felt like it just flailed around to somehow tie everything together amongst all the bombast and absurd pacing. There's other issues too (Kylo and Rey being so ridiculously overpowered being the biggest one for me), but I just feel it all could have so much better if there had been more stringent planning for the whole trilogy instead of feeling so disjointed. And you know, it's a damn shame because I felt some of those characters were super interesting and had a lot of potential (primarily Kylo Ren).
I'm glad you guys liked it. I wish I would too
I didn't like it much either man, I'm surprised at everyone here seeming to love it, but I feel like a lot of that is because it pandered hard to nostalgia, and when people have a chance to see it again at home away from the hype the general feelings could change. I don't think I've ever seen a movie where so many major things happened by coincidence and happenstance, so many big plot points were just fake outs or never addressed, so many critical events happened off screen, and no character was ever in any real danger.
movie was a big disappointment for me and I'm surprised you guys liked it so much. After thinking about it for a while, I'm actually more pissed at episode 8 ... Abrams-Johnson-Abrams was just a terrible decision and it's just incomprehensible to me that there apparently was no coherent plan in place for this trilogy. Episode 7 was pretty much a carbon copy, episode 8 was flat out terrible and episode 9 felt like it just flailed around to somehow tie everything together amongst all the bombast and absurd pacing. There's other issues too (Kylo and Rey being so ridiculously overpowered being the biggest one for me), but I just feel it all could have so much better if there had been more stringent planning for the whole trilogy instead of feeling so disjointed. And you know, it's a damn shame because I felt some of those characters were super interesting and had a lot of potential (primarily Kylo Ren).
I'm glad you guys liked it. I wish I would too
I wouldn't call it a disappointment, but a lot of that had to do with very low expectations going in.
The movie had serious flaws on a basic level. I just think there was no way to recover from the decision to allow Johnson free reign and totally change the course of the story in episode 8.
I'd be really interested to see what Johnson's plan was for episode 9. He more or less destroyed everything that was built in TLJ. Lots of awkward Skype calls with Ray and Kylo? A deep dive into Rose's character? General Hux abandoning his military career to explore his true passion, dance!
A big problem is that you can't kill the Emperor again without first explaining how he came back in the first place. He's just back, because the dark side, and stuff. Okay, fine. But then how come he is dead for real now? He fell in to a huge reactor, which then blew up in a giant explosion, and he came back. A lightning blast kills him for real this time? For real? Or are we just going to see him come back again in another ten years because of the Force or whatever.
Man, some of you guys are hard to please. Despite a few flaws, I thought this movie was loads of fun with some really terrific moments:
Chewie's anguish over Leia's death.
Ben's emotional moment with his dad.
Lando's glorious return and seeing him pilot the Falcon again with Chewie.
Luke's talk with Rey on Ahch-To.
Hearing the voices of Jedis past.
That beautiful last shot of Rey looking up at the two suns on Tatooine, and revisiting Luke's former home).
The wonderful performances from Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, and Ian McDiarmid.
Seeing Carrie Fisher on screen again one last time, and Leia getting the proper send-off she deserves.
Wedge Antilles!
Overall, I think Abrams did a good job in regards to tying up the loose ends. I agree that the pacing is a bit too frantic and they certainly could have slowed things down a bit to let us breathe more during certain scenes. But overall I think it's a pretty satisfying conclusion to the saga. Sure it's not the best SW movie, but it's wildly entertaining nonetheless, and easily the best film of the new trilogy IMO. I'm looking forward to seeing it again this week just to take in whatever I may have missed on first viewing.
As for Palpatine's return, he was obviously either cloned or raised from the dead using some kind of evil Sith necromancy:
"The dark side is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural."
Yoda even warned Luke way back in ROTJ that the Emperor was capable of doing some crazy s**t:
"Do not underestimate the powers of the Emperor."
Last edited by direwolf; 12-22-2019 at 11:16 AM.
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not going to dispute that, absolutely loved seeing Lando for example amongst other stuff. So if all that stuff is enough to be able to look past the issues, then great. Personally I can't, sadly. On the contrary, stuff like the General Hux thing were so stupid that they even felt insulting.
The Phantom Menace is better then TFA and TLJ full stop.
My Rankings:
1.EMPIRE STRIKES BACK
2.A NEW HOPE
3.RETURN OF THE JEDI
4.ROGUE ONE
5.REVENGE OF THE SITH
6.THE PHANTOM MENACE
7. RISE OF THE SKYWALKER
8.THE FORCE AWAKENS
9.ATTACK OF THE CLONES
10.SOLO : A STAR WARS STORY
11. THE LAST JEDI
That was actually the easiest ranking Ive ever had to do in my life...
I think in the future Disney should focus solely on TV shows such as "the Mandalorian". Until they find a script that blows them away. This newest trilogy was a major disappointment, more so then the prequels.
Look at DandD when they ran out of source material! Garbage. Does anyone truly believe that LOTR would have been as good without the books. Peter Jackson did a great job, but without a solid source we get rehashes like what we seen in these last three movies to finish off the Skywalker Saga.
Movie was great, will post some thoughts later, but I actually had a few tears sneak out when Chewie let out his gut wrenching cry upon finding out Leia was gone. It was like, enough is enough for this poor guy, he's been through it all and now Leia, all of them gone.
I felt that emotion, it was great.
__________________ "In brightest day, in blackest night / No evil shall escape my sight / Let those who worship evil's might / Beware my power, Green Lantern's light!"
Oh yeah the trilogy as a whole was awful. At least the prequels tried to tell an original story. These were just a mix of two directors messing around with mediocre scripts. I think why most people here like ROS is that we all went in with zero expectations. What they should have done is gone super weird with the Universe but they chose to stick to the tried and true. That's a corporation for you though.
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I have been not very interested in Star Wars lately. I have been having a hard time getting into it all. It's taken me since April to read a Star Wars book and I was only half way through. I just had no interest in putting on a Star Wars movie.
Having seen The Rise of Skywalker today I feel rejuvenated on the franchise. I picked up my book later this afternoon (Scoundrels) and now I'm going to sit down and watch The Force Awakens... Though I may have a change of heart and watch Episode 1-9 before I head back to work in the New Year.
I'm totally going to go back to see this one. I saw The Force Awakens at least 3 times in the theatre and I saw The Last Jedi only once in the theatre. I saw Rogue One and Solo twice each.
I'm pumped about Star Wars again.
Totally. I am too. I saw TFA only twice in theaters, good enough for a repeat viewing but there wasn't a lot of things to digest in that first chapter either, TLJ just once for obvious reasons. This I expect at least three viewings on the big screen and I'm itching to go a second time, maybe tonight.
If we're honest, the film is a bit of a mixed bag, the people that didn't enjoy it aren't completely off base at all, but personally I feel like the good (and some great) outweighed the bad. And where it intended to have emotional weight it succeeded, and that's probably the most important thing because that's what SW thrives on when it has been at its best, as the series has never been perfect in a lot of aspects.
And above all, JJ managed to hit the right combination of buttons in this film to re-awaken mine own and many other fans' interest in the universe again, and even generate interest on where it is going from here in this current sequel timeline and that in itself is commendable.
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Well I enjoyed it, but short of loved it. The last act was a rehash of same old approach and if this was meant to be a trilogy, at least foreshadow the big bad.
But some of the things I really enjoyed included seeing Han and how they handled Leia.
Now if Disney wants to keep expanding the universe with theme park lands etc. they need to decide if they want to start getting original. Because unfortunately the last 6 films of the trilogy just won’t be remembered that fondly as time passes.
Yeah, I'm giving that one a C+. It was watchable and not complete nonsense, and it had some good character moments for both Rey and Ren, so it was better than TLJ. But it certainly seemed like it was a rushed version of a story Abrams intended to tell across the last two films and suffered quite a lot as a result of that. I don't understand why he didn't just do all three? They wouldn't have been great, but the result of switching back and forth was to create a mess.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
You think it was a mess now, imagine what would have been if they went ahead with the original plan of handing the writing/directing baton to Trevorrow. They almost went full telephone game on a multi billion dollar entertainment franchise. How’s that for leadership?
After watching ROTS and 7 and 8 I wish Rian Johnson was in charge of lore and JJ was in charge of plot.
In 7 JJ hides Luke, has a 30 second nonsense flash sequence when Rey picks of the Saber, tells us nothing about Snoke, why Ren fell, or why Luke is on a Island. He does make a very entertaining movie that I quite enjoyed. But he didn’t do any heavy lifting. He just opened up a bunch of loose ends and left people in odd positions.
Then you have Rian who nails the Skywalker myth, handles Snoke perfectly, the Ren/Rey/Luke scenes are great. The development of this “Force Diad” we get in 9 is solely because of the heavy lifting. But when it came to making an entertaining movie he had the awful cold open, the casino planet, Hyperspace Chase, and Holdo Maneuver.
Then in 9 I think JJ took a dump on Sith Lore here. Under no circumstances should Palpatine be wanting to pass on his life to a Successor. It fundamentally breaks the rule of 2 Also having Palpatine not know that he could suck the life out of Rey and Kylo was a big misstep as well. If he was controlling Snoke who set up Forcetime he should know their connection.
I think they wasted a lot of 7 and 8 to tell the story they did on 9. Rey should have found out she was a Palpatine in 8 so when Palpatine is still alive it is less of a shock.
I enjoyed the whole Trillogy but neither director was good at both lore and movie making. One thing people criticizing LTJ after watching this movie is that Rey/Kylo was entirely built in TLJ. Without that core relationship well defined 9 would be terrible.
Last edited by GGG; 12-22-2019 at 03:20 PM.
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