To each his own, of course. Hard to argue with any list where episode IV, V, VI are at the top, but my list now looks like this: 1) Empire 1A) Rogue One 2) A New Hope 3) The Force Awakens 4) Return of the Jedi That's all of 'em, right? They have only made 5 movies, correct? I had this terrible dream that during the late 90's/early aughts, they released three unwatchable Star Wars movies that reduced Jedi-ness to some sort of blood disorder all while completing two tasks I thought would be impossible: 1) Making "The Clone Wars" visually uninteresting. 2) Making me dislike Natalie Portman. That was a nightmare, right? Never happened? OTOH... I hate sand.
My almost 11 year old son has never seen the prequels, and I have no intention to change that anytime soon.
The third prequel was really good though and one of my favourites, feel like many people only dismiss it because of how terrible I & II were.
I get it... honestly, that was how I felt when I left the theater after seeing episode III. When I bought the full digital saga set and watched all 6 again a couple of years ago... yikes man. For me at least, the prequels (even III) are so, so bad. The acting feels completely wooden, there is so much CGI, the fight scenes and dog-fighting scenes are cut so rapidly that I have no idea what's going on (aka Transformers syndrome), and even watching Anakin get manipulated into turning to the dark side was totally rushed and mishandled (IMO). I would've loved to see a good, troubled young man descend into madness and evil over three films. What I saw instead was a bratty little punk throw a temper tantrum in the last 3rd of film #3 and then fight his only friend in a CGI volcano. Long story short (loo late!)... I think Episode III is just as bad as Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones... okay, maybe 5 - 7% better.
This is all right on. Especially the part about how long it took Anakin to turn to Vader. It should have happened in II, then III should have been Darth Vader flying around the galaxy kicking Jedi ass. The one thing that saved the prequels for me was the performance of Ian McDiarmid. Watching him turn into the Emperor was 10 times more compelling to me than watching Anakin turn into Vader.
Oh hell yeah... Spoiler: ROUGE ONE SPOILER Basically, you're saying you want to see the Vadar from the end of Rogue One f*** up hallways and corridors from Jedha to Jakku in an obsessive attempt to rid the galaxy of the Jedi. I think we can all agree that we want that. As for McDiarmid, I'll admit he was very good. I liked Ewan McGregor's Alec Guiness impression also... he just had to ride too many CGI dinosaurs and... not to go off on another tangent... why are there so many scenes of droids shooting blasters at Jedis while they almost lazily deflect all the blasts? And the droids... ugh, just the worst droids. And really... young Darth Vader invented C-3PO? Why are so many of the non-humans weirdly racist stereotypes... I haven't even brought up he who shall not be named... Spoiler: DON'T CLICK THIS! jar jar
I'm from the Star Wars generation, but really don't care for the movies one way or the other. I did like The Force Awakens though, and watched the previous 6 movies previous to watching it just so I wouldn't be completely lost. My knowledge of the SW universe and lore is crap, so some of what I type might be inaccurate. With that said... The wife and I decided to check out Rogue One. Some of the visuals/shots are nice, but overall, we both didn't think much of the movie. The wife, especially didn't like it, and found it very boring (she also liked TFA). If you haven't seen any of the movies, I would say skip this one. My understanding is it fills the big plot hole of how/why they were able to get the plans to destroy the first death star.
The Force Awakens at number 3? Ewwwwww. For me that one is easily the second worst. I'll take Phantom and Revenge because atleast they tried. Certainly Jedi is better. Otherwise I like your list!
No they really, really didn't. The movies would have been infinitely better if George Lucas had sold the rights before nearly destroying the brand with those 3 awful prequel movies. Just about anyone would have done a better job than he did.
I watched the first prequel at the theater and hated it so much I've never watched two or three - I've seen parts of them over the years and they're just terrible. Return of the Jedi was pretty bad as well - damned Ewoks.
I know, I know... The Force Awakens is a cheesy remake of A New Hope, but I loved it... flaws and all... First time I saw it in the theater, I was a kid again. Just loved it. By the 4th home viewing, it started to annoy me. By the 7th, I was back on board!
It wouldn't have been worse. If ANYONE walking this earth today has sold his soul to the devil, it's George Lucas. The man has NO talent as either a writer or as a director. None. The ONLY 'saving grace' (if you want to call it that) of RotJ and the three 'prequels' is that he had a LOT of money to throw at them, so they were 'big budget' movies. And they had an enormous built-in fan base who proved time and again they are willing to watch ANYTHING having to do with their universe. That said, if any of the things Lucas has done after Empire had been without A) a ton of money thrown at it or B) being in the Star Wars universe, the movie-watching public would avoid them like the plague. Oh wait. Any of you remember Red Tails? How about Strange Magic? (I'll admit, I actually enjoyed Radioland Murders, but I don't know how much Lucas was REALLY involved in that one). The fact is, George Lucas is a no-talent hack who also happens to be the luckiest sumbitch walking the earth. Heck even Raiders was magic because of Spielberg - the Indiana Jones movies which came after the first one all sucked ass, because Lucas had more and more involvement.
I wouldn't go that far. THX 1138 and American Graffiti were written and directed by Lucas. THX was his baby in film school all the way up to theatrical release.
