Make sure to download the X Millennial Man podcast tomorrow (January 29th) to hear Ty and RD talk about the Star Wars movies.
I know I already wrote about "Star Wars" earlier this week, but I'm going to write about it again. This time though, I'm going to rank the movies from worst to best, in my personal opinion. Now, for everyone out there, I've just recently, within the past two months, seen every single "Star Wars" movie of importance. I did not watch the Christmas special and I have not seen any of the cartoons or TV shows that exist in the Star Wars universe. I have only seen the seven movies that were made. That's the basic information any reader needs going into my rankings. This is all very subjective as well. I'm, by my own admittance, a movie snob. I prefer comedies to any other genre of movie, but I also really like science fiction, noir and drama. But, I also recognize that a pop culture writer should see movies like the "Star Wars" movies because they are very influential and are involved with any big time pop culture. "Star Wars" is quoted and referenced in almost every pop culture thing that I've ever seen. And, with the nudging, I call it harassment, coming from my wife, cousins, friends and most importantly, our editor, RD, I caved and decided to watch every single movie. Before I get into my countdown, I watched them in a specific order. I watched episodes 4, 5 and 6 within two weeks of each other, then I watched episodes 1, 2 and 3 about a month later. Just last week I took my four year old and we saw episode 7 in the theaters. So, I have officially seen all seven movies, which in my mind makes me qualified to give my rankings. As I said at the top, I'll be going from what I think in the worst "Star Wars" movie to the best. On with the countdown.
Coming in at number 7, I have "Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith". This movie is pure, unadulterated garbage. Nothing about this movie is good. I didn't care about anyone or anything in this movie with the lone exception being the death of Mace Windu(Samuel L. Jackson). That was the only bummer to me. This movie is bad. Hayden Christensen is a terrible actor. He shows zero emotion and I don't buy his and Padme's(Natalie Portman) love story at all. Those two have no chemistry at all. The rest of the movie feels very scattered and poorly made. I HATED this movie.
Coming in at number 6 I have "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace". This was supposed to be the movie that brought "Star Wars" into the 21st century, or so I was told. This movie is boring. Too many federation meetings and stupid back stories about Anakin Skywalker. Also, could Anakin be more of a whiner? All he did was complain about everything. The pod racing scene, which I heard was cool, also felt very boring to me. I didn't care about it at all and by the end, I kind of wanted Sebulba to win. The only "cool" scene in "Phantom Menace" was the light saber battle between Qui Gon Gin, Obi Won Kenobi and Darth Maul. It was neat, but it also was pretty uneventful for something that's supposed to be a big deal in the Star Wars world. I wasn't shocked, nor upset when Qui Gon Gin got stabbed and even less surprised when Darth Maul got his. The double edged light saber was cool, but not nearly enough to save this piece of trash. Oh and the racist accents, that also sucked.
Number 5 is the only prequel that has some cool stuff in it. The movie is still bad, but there are three pretty cool battle scenes. That movie is "Star Wars: Attack of the Clones". First, let's get the bad stuff out of the way. The scene between Anakin and Padme where they ride a mammoth type beast and frolic in the grass is dumb as hell. This scene should have been the first thing cut, but it made it into the movie. This was a terrible scene. Once again, Christensen and Portman have no chemistry and there are way too many federation meeting scenes. Now, there is the three battle scenes I mentioned. The first is the fight between Obi Wan and Jango Fett. That was a cool fight scene. There was the big battle at the end where we finally get to see Windu's purple light saber. That was cool. But, the best battle scene was between Count Dukuu and Yoda. When Yoda whips out his green light saber and begins his magic on Dukuu, I was legit excited. If they just had these three scenes in this movie, it might have been good, but they did all that other useless crap. Saying that "Attack of the Clones" is a good part of Star Wars is like saying that "Godfather 3" is better than "Speed 2: Cruise Control", it's still not a good movie.
Now, let's get to some better movies.
Number 4 is "Return of the Jedi". This one fell kind of flat for me, but it is still a million times better than the prequels. "Return of the Jedi" didn't need Ewoks and why on Earth was Han Solo all of the sudden a pushover, but the light saber battle between Darth Vader, Emperor Palpatine and Luke is awesome. I wasn't crazy about the side characters like Jabba The Hut or Bib Fortuna, but it was some cool make up to see. And Luke using the force to rescue Leia and Han Solo was cool too. "Return of the Jedi" is good, but not as good as the movies I'm about to mention.
Coming in at number 3 I have "Star Wars: The New Hope". This movie is as influential to science fiction as "Citizen Kane" is to all movies. Without a "New Hope", we wouldn't have all the great science fiction movies we now have. This movie is incredibly influential. It's also a good movie. We meet the main characters in this one. Sure, Yoda doesn't show up until the second one, but we meet Luke, Leia, Han, Darth Vader and, my personal favorite, Chewbacca. This is a really cool movie and I thoroughly enjoyed my watching experience. It was exciting and adventurous and instead of saying, "I guess I have to watch these", my sentiment became, "I can't wait to watch all of them". That's a sign of a good movie.
Number 2 on my list is "Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back". This movie is non stop, kick ass action for 2 plus hours. I loved everything about this movie. The opening scene in Hoth, when Luke gets captured and Han has to save him is awesome. We finally meet Yoda and he is as awesome as RD told me my entire life. The scenes when he is teaching Luke about the force is excellent writing and directing. Han Solo has one of the coolest lines ever spoken when he's about to be dipped in carbonite and Leia says, "I love you", Han replies, cool as shit I might add, "I know". That's awesome. And the light saber fight between Luke and Vader, where Vader tells him he's Luke's father and then cuts off his hand is incredible. "Empire Strikes Back" 100 percent lived up to its hype. It's an awesome, super enjoyable movie.
Which brings me to my number one, "Star Wars: The Force Awakens". I wrote a mini review earlier this week and I still stand by how much I love this movie. I could've seen it without seeing the others and I would have loved it. It's a great action movie that also has drama, comedy and heart breaking moments. The acting, writing and directing were top notch. "The Force Awakens" is such a well made movie that completely restores a franchise that looked lost after the prequels. There is nothing wrong at all with this movie. Now, hard core "Star Wars" fans may find problems with it, but me, just being a lover of movies, I thought it was perfection.
So, that's my personal rankings of the "Star Wars" movies. Take it or leave it, but this is how I feel about a pretty decent franchise of movies. If I had to give any advice to first time viewers, I'd say watch episodes 4 and 5 and then 7. You could probably skip the rest and still be satisfied. I will say though, "Star Wars" has gained a new fan.
I'm excited for episode 8.
Ty
Ty is the Pop Culture Editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He thought the prequels could have been better if there was some more Kit Fisto. Everything needs more Kit Fisto. Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.
