All Star Wars movies ranked: From A New Hope to The Force Awakens
Which is your favourite Star Wars film? Which is your favourite Star Wars film?
One of the greatest film franchises in history, Star Wars is getting its eighth film in the direct series (that is, excluding standalone films like Rogue One) or as makers call them, Episode VIII, this month. The last film, The Force Awakens, went on to become the most successful film in the franchise commercially, and makers and distributors will be expecting something similar from The Last Jedi too. Star Wars films have varied quite a bit in terms of quality. While we did have an absolute humdinger of a film that was The Empire Strikes Back, we also had duds like pretty much the entire prequel trilogy.
Here is the worst to the best ranking for every one of those seven Star Wars films not including standalone stories.
Episode I: The Phantom Menace: The actors were great, we were about to know the origins of Darth Vader, everything seemed nice, what could go wrong? Almost everything, actually. Maybe the novelty factor had worn off, but there was simply no redeeming factor in The Phantom Menace. It remains the biggest blemish on the franchise.
Episode II: Attack of the Clones: If there was something interesting about Attack of the Clones, it was the fact that the prequel trilogy was finally getting on track. Attack on the Clones was still a terrible film, though. Overlong, muddled, awful effects, and a really badly done romance between Hayden Christensen’s Anakin Skywalker and Natalie Portman’s Padmé Amidala (who is, in other cases, a great actor).
Episode III: Revenge of the Sith: The first and only watchable film in the prequel trilogy. In spite of being almost as long as Episode II, The Revenge of the Sith felt taut and paid off the patience of the viewers who had been waiting to see how Anakin Skywalker actually turned to the dark side and became Darth Vader. The Revenge of the Sith had some great moments (Yoda vs Emperor Palpatine!) and made up for its not inconsiderable flaws.
Episode VI: Return of the Jedi: The weakest film in the original trilogy, Return of the Jedi concluded the story of Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker (who had been aware of a particularly troubling thing about his parentage). Return of Jedi aspires to be as epic as The Empire Strikes Back, but ends up more like Revenge of the Sith.
The Force Awakens: The most successful Star Wars film to date, commercially speaking, The Force Awakens was basically A New Hope with a few adjustments. Kylo Ren, a talented apprentice like Anakin Skywalker, was seduced to the dark side by Supreme Leader Snoke and Emperor Palpatine respectively, newbie protagonist Rey like Luke Skywalker was, and so on. While it lacked originality, it ultimately worked because it ticked all the right boxes. Doing everything right, if you please.
A New Hope (originally Star Wars): The film that started it all, that kicked off the space-opera franchise. A New Hope gave us a protagonist, Luke Skywalker, whose story still continues in the ongoing sequel trilogy. It gave us an immersive world (galaxy, to be precise) full of interesting characters, beings, exciting space battles and ruthless villains. 40 years after its release, A New Hope still remains *the* Star Wars film.
The Empire Strikes Back: Not just the best Star Wars film, The Empire Strikes Back is also one of the best films of *any* kind ever. In the film, our collective minds were blown off by what is probably the biggest twist in cinema ever. Yes, I am talking about Darth Vader’s “I am your father.” The Empire Strikes Back was an extraordinarily thought-provoking film too with gorgeous visuals that still make viewers wide-eyed with delight. This film is easily also one of the greatest sequels of all time alongside Star Trek’s The Wrath of Khan and Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight.
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