Where Does It Rank?

[DarKush]

. And I thought the prequels-despite the flaws-just wasn't updating or repeating what came before.

No, they spent six hours showing us things that we knew were going to happen, and yet were better when left to the imagination.

Fair enough, but that's the danger of doing a prequel, it doesn't jibe with some fans have conjured in their heads. And some might be prone to continuity errors. The success rate for movie and television prequels seems iffy to me. The latest X-Men films were successful. I guess Underworld 3 was and I think Scorpion King made decent money yet turned into a straight to video franchise. But fans didn't warm enough to Enterprise or Caprica for example. Also I don't think the Alien V. Predator movies won over a legion of fans either.

I still give Lucas credit for attempting to do it, for trying to be different even if he didn't succeed.

The prequels did give us Darth Maul and opened the door to Ahsoka Tano and other characters that some across fandom are fans of (like some of the various Clone soldiers, Asajj Ventress, or Cad Bane).

 

[Trekker4747]

Thing is, he had 30 years to make those stories and that was the best he could do? Going against formula is one thing but he threw away the whole l a b and just started throwing shit together and came out boring and not making any sense.

 

[Enterprise is Great]

In the middle...better than any of the prequels and not better than the original trilogy. At least for now. I've seen the original trilogy so many times and know them so well it's hard to imagine any new Star Wars movie being better than those films. I'll need to get more comfortable with TFA in order to better juge it in relation to the OT.

 

[DarKush]

Thing is, he had 30 years to make those stories and that was the best he could do? Going against formula is one thing but he threw away the whole l a b and just started throwing shit together and came out boring and not making any sense.

I wouldn't say Lucas went against formula necessarily, more so than to try to expand the universe he built. If the original films were about their time period in a sense I think Lucas was trying to make the prequels about the early 21st century.

And I'm okay with not sticking to formula. Sometimes adherence to formula can get boring. One of the biggest knocks against TFA was that it stuck too clearly to formula. Now formulas can be great, because they have been proven to work, but at the same time telling something new, adding something more to the formula and getting that to work can make the saga more special and feel like it's moving forward and not just repeating itself. For me TFA felt like it was moving forward with its characters (particularly Rey) but not really the story itself. So hopefully the remaining films won't be retreads.

And you are right that there is some boring stuff in the prequels and stuff that doesn't make sense. Well even in TFA, which is being praised to the stratosphere right now, there's stuff that doesn't make sense or is questionable at best as you can see even among posters at this forum.

I don't think Lucas threw away anything. He flubbed a lot of what he did, but at the same time he did introduce some cool stuff. I liked the clonetroopers, I thought they were way more kickass than the Stormtroopers. I liked Maul. Dooku. Qui Gonn. Anakin (Christensen not Lloyd). Mace. Many of the other Clone War-era Jedi. I liked the Separatists, in theory at least. I liked the rise of Palpatine and how he manipulated the galaxy into a war to gain power. I liked how the prequels presented this grander, more diverse, and more glittering universe, which contrasts with the austere and grittier OT and now new saga. It shows the end of high civilization and democracy, how stark things have become since.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

TESB
ANH
ROTJ
TFA
ROTS
AOTC
TPM

Darth Maul and Qui-Gon try to elevate it, but The Phantom Menace is sunk by too much Jar Jar, Gungans in general, and Nemoidians. C-3PO and Darth SandInMyCrevices come close to being as bad in AOTC, but detective Obi-Wan chasing Jango Fett, the clash of the armies at the end, and the Imperial march sequence save the film from the bottom spot. I still enjoy TPM, like I do all of them, though, and watch them all frequently.

 

[Caligula]

1. TESB
2. TFA
3. ROTJ
4. ANH
5. ROTS
6. TPM
7. AOTC

Glad to see that it's not considered blasphemy if ANH isn't automatically placed in the top 3, because I could no longer do so after seeing TFA on Wednesday. TESB remains king of the SW film universe, but there was enough from both the plot and characterization of TFA for me to warrant vaulting it all the way to #2. I really enjoyed new characters Rey and Kylo Ren in particular, and look forward to seeing where their destinies take them in Episodes VIII and IX.

 

[TremblingBluStar]

I still give Lucas credit for attempting to do it, for trying to be different even if he didn't succeed.

I don't think he wanted to do something different, though. He wanted to recreate the excitement of the originals while pushing the boundaries of visual effects. However, he failed in thinking he could be 100% responsible for every aspect of these films because he "created Star Wars", when in fact the original was more of a collaboration, and the second two more so. Not very many directors can create three great films all on their own, and Lucas is not one of them.

Further, and take this for what it's worth because I don't know Lucas personally, but based on interviews and various conversations I've seen with the guy, he behaves like a high-functioning autistic person. If you ever watched Nightcrawler, and seen Jake Gyllenhall's character, that is what I'm talking about. He knows about human emotions and interactions, knows how to imitate them, but doesn't know why people respond the way they do. Thus the way he responds to any given situation seems a bit off.

The prequels feel like movies written by someone who knows how to write human behaviors, but can't make the pieces fit because he doesn't know how. Thus we have characters doing things wildly uncharacteristic or abnormal, such as Padme immediately forgiving Anakin for slaughtering a whole village of people, and Anakin seducing Padme by staring at her creepily.

At least that's my impression. I'll give the man credit for getting where he is, but he should have recognized his own limitations and delegated responsibilities to more talented film makers. However, like many people on the autistic spectrum, they tend to want things done in a particular way, and don't respond very well if they are not how they want.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I'd say 4th but maybe when the film has had longer to dig roots in my brain it could go to 3rd.

TFA lacked the major flaws of the prequels. No slapstick comedy, no coughing robots, no transparently toy sales oriented set pieces, no distractingly busy backgrounds, less embarrassing lines. But as others have said it's not without flaws. Too close to a reboot. I don't understand why they would make up a new planet from Tatooine but then make it identical to Tatooine. And they didn't invest us in the new threats the way they did the Death Star.

 

[Seven of Five]

I loved it. I think it's currently in my top three.

TESB
ANH
TFA
ROTS
ROTJ
TPM
AOTC

 

[DWF]

I'd say 4th but maybe when the film has had longer to dig roots in my brain it could go to 3rd.

TFA lacked the major flaws of the prequels. No slapstick comedy, no coughing robots, no transparently toy sales oriented set pieces, no distractingly busy backgrounds, less embarrassing lines. But as others have said it's not without flaws. Too close to a reboot. I don't understand why they would make up a new planet from Tatooine but then make it identical to Tatooine. And they didn't invest us in the new threats the way they did the Death Star.

Good thing there's no coughing robots in the prequels either and really the TFA toys came out before the movie did as did a large number of books.

 

[Mudd]

Rank? I dunno...it's the third Star Wars movie that I'd watch more than once.

 

[TremblingBluStar]

Good thing there's no coughing robots in the prequels either

I think he meant this guy.

 

[DWF]

Good thing there's no coughing robots in the prequels either

I think he meant this guy.

I know woh he's talking about and he's not a robot.

 

[Mr Light]

It's the new movie so it's automatically my favorite one

I'll have to see how I feel about it a year from now. But I've seen it three times and it is immensely entertaining. It's so fast moving with so many moving parts and mysteries I just can't get bored with it.

TFA > ROTS > ESB > ANH > ROTJ > AOTC > TPM

 

[TremblingBluStar]

I know woh he's talking about and he's not a robot.

Of course he isn't. He's a droid.

 

[DWF]

I know woh he's talking about and he's not a robot.

Of course he isn't. He's a droid.

No, he's a cyborg with internal organs and eyes. And if I remember right it was Mace who gave him the cough.

 

[ancient]

I have trouble ranking the SW movies because they vary quite a bit in focus.

ESB
ROTJ
ANH/ROTS
TFA/TPM
AOTC

I'm actually ok with the prequels as spectacle/world building movies, the only one I rank below "good" is AOTC.

 

[Trekker4747]

Good thing there's no coughing robots in the prequels either

I think he meant this guy.

I know woh he's talking about and he's not a robot.

For people going to see the movie without any knowledge of the EU... he's a coughing robot. Movies should stand on their own and provide the audience with all of the information they need to understand things going on. You can't just throw us a coughing robot and expect us to go, "Oh! He's totally some general who was maimed in battle badly and provided with a robot body... with extra limbs... and robotic agility and he must... have... a cold? Lung cancer? Because they could replace his severely damaged body with robotics but couldn't give him properly functioning lungs or robotic ones?"

Yeah, even accepting that he's "not a robot" the idea of him being a coughing android, cyborg, or whatever is stupid.

 

[DWF]

I think he meant this guy.

I know who he's talking about and he's not a robot.

For people going to see the movie without any knowledge of the EU... he's a coughing robot. Movies should stand on their own and provide the audience with all of the information they need to understand things going on. You can't just throw us a coughing robot and expect us to go, "Oh! He's totally some general who was maimed in battle badly and provided with a robot body... with extra limbs... and robotic agility and he must... have... a cold? Lung cancer? Because they could replace his severely damaged body with robotics but couldn't give him properly functioning lungs or robotic ones?"

Yeah, even accepting that he's "not a robot" the idea of him being a coughing android, cyborg, or whatever is stupid.

I have almost no knowledge of the EU and I could tell from the movie that he was a cyborg, even before I saw the second Clone Wars TV series. kind of hard to not to notice it after Obi-Wan opens his chest and fires a blaster into it killing him.

 

[Trekker4747]

I know who he's talking about and he's not a robot.

For people going to see the movie without any knowledge of the EU... he's a coughing robot. Movies should stand on their own and provide the audience with all of the information they need to understand things going on. You can't just throw us a coughing robot and expect us to go, "Oh! He's totally some general who was maimed in battle badly and provided with a robot body... with extra limbs... and robotic agility and he must... have... a cold? Lung cancer? Because they could replace his severely damaged body with robotics but couldn't give him properly functioning lungs or robotic ones?"

Yeah, even accepting that he's "not a robot" the idea of him being a coughing android, cyborg, or whatever is stupid.

I have almost no knowledge of the EU and I could tell from the movie that he was a cyborg, even before I saw the second Clone Wars TV series. kind of hard to not to notice it after Obi-Wan opens his chest and fires a blaster into it killing him.

Regardless, he coughs! He fucking coughs! They could seriously provide him him with a cybernetic body but not cybernetic lungs?!