Does the Star Wars series have only one good movie?

[Mage]

Let me get one thing straight first off........

I really, really like Star Wars. Not as much as Trek or B5, but still.

Anyway, after reading someone ranting on about how he hates the prequels on some website, I realized that there is really only one Star Wars movies I never hear any negative comments about, and that's Empire.

The prequels have some great moments, and are certainly not as bad as some purists would like us to believe. But yeah, there is some very, very bad stuff in there (Anakin, JarJar, dialogue, plot....).

A New Hope, even though it's classic, suffers from a lot of things that the prequels suffer from as well. Bad pacing, bad directing, some very bad dialogue and to much focus and long spaceshots.

Jedi was troubled by some Ewoks, the weird notion that not only did look have a long lost father, he also happened to be great friends for a few years already with a girl who just happened to be his sister. Luckely, it has enough redeeming points, including a fantastic duel between Vader and Luke.

But then, Empire.... I can't find anything about this movie I don't like really. I will not go so far as to say it's perfect, nothing is. But, it does seem to be the one that, despite some little problems, does not have anything that truly annoys anyone, like the other five.

Is that really just me who feels this way?


And please, this is in NO WAY ment to be flaming of Star Wars fans. Like I said, I really, really love it myself.

 

[StevenR]

Yes, it is an objective, mathematically proven, truth that only Star Wars and Empire are any good, getting testicle cancer is preferable to watching Jedi and the prequals, and just to reenforce my opinion I'm going to watch them all again and then bitch on the internet about how my life was ruined in 1999 by the Phantom Menace and that the 13 years between then and now haven't been enough time to rid the memory of that stinky cinematic suppository from my mind, that my childhood rape at the hands of my priest was less traumatic than sitting through Attack of the Clones the dozen or so times I suffered at the theater in the summer of 2002, and that I seriously considered suicide after Lucas forcing me to sit through Revenge of the Sith in 2005 double digit times, when I would rather have been sent to Auschwitz.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

It has two good movies. Three, if you count ROTJ and ROTS as half each.

Anyway, after reading someone ranting on about how he hates the prequels on some website, I realized that there is really only one Star Wars movies I never hear any negative comments about, and that's Empire.

I'm sure someone, somewhere, has torn it to shreds. Internets, don't let us down!

 

[cooleddie74]

How I rank them from best to worst. And mind you, this is scientific and the official list. So no "oh, we all have our own tastes and opinions" bullshit.

1. Empire
2. Hope
3. Sith
4. Jedi
5. Phantom
6. Clones
7. The Clone Wars(animated feature)

Darth Eddie has spoken. I have altered the thread. Pray I don't alter it any further.

 

[Harvey]

The Empire Strikes Back is probably the best of the three, but I find nothing particularly objectionable about Star Wars or Return of the Jedi. Sure, the dialogue in the first film can be pretty hokey, and the Ewoks in the third film are nothing but a merchandising grab for the kids, but those are really minor irritants.

And, to voice and unpopular opinion, my favorite film of the series is probably Return of the Jedi. The Vader/Luke/Emperor confrontation is my favorite scene of the series (which only makes the changes made to the Blu-Rays even more annoying; glad I didn't spend any money on them).

 

[cooleddie74]

The Ewoks vs. Jar Jar is a debate that's been raging since 1999. To me, one is just as annoying and cheesy as the other. Each has his or their own strengths and weaknesses. Mostly weaknesses. Both were given more screen time than they really deserved. As a SW action figure collector they make for great toys and collectibles, but as movie characters they can be about as tolerable as getting a toothache.

If I had to pick which one is worse, I guess it'd have to be Jar Jar. His antics got to be way too slapsticky and tiresome and he made his entire species look like a collection of shuffling, stumbling and mumbling retards with the social skills of a stack of pancakes. Ewoks could be too sugary cute sometimes but those furballs did help whoop some of the Emperor's finest troops with some bows and arrows, clubs and booby traps. And who doesn't like Wicket?

 

[Admiral James Kirk]

I would have to say that Star Wars has one classic movie (Star Wars or A New Hope).

Two excellent movies (Empire and Revenge of the Sith).

One really good movie (The Phantom Menace).

Two really watchable movies (Jedi and Attack of the Clones).

And one okay movie (The Clone Wars).

Of course these are all my personal opinion not even backed by my reasons for ranking them this way. I find that in a world where people say "Teh prequels are de suq!" and "Lucas raped my childhood" it's entirely fair to just make entirely empty statements without a scintilla of reasoning for why I'm making them.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Careful - there are tons of perfectly valid and objective reasons why the prequels suck which have been expounded upon at great length here and elsewhere, and people might be tempted to start listing them once again.

But personally, I'm sick of this game. Just watch The Clone Wars, folks. It's the prequels done right.

 

[StevenR]

I enjoy all six films. I get them. There are a few things I would do differently, like really tone down Jar Jar, but I enjoy the films.

I think the novels and the Clone Wars TV show are utter pap and the world would be better off had they never happened. I left my copy of the Thrawn Trilogy at a bus station after reading them and hoping they would get better. Some bum probably read them and threw himself in front of a train to end it all. I wish I would have had that kind of commitment to get the Thrawn Trilogy out of my head. All I could do was start drinking heavily.

 

[Admiral James Kirk]

At least you never put yourself through Zahn's gawdawful Hand of Thrawn Dualogy. It's like a Star Wars version of The Undiscovered Country written by a fanfic writer with an awfully high opinion of himself. Thrawn, what a Mary Sue! Luke, Han and Leia spend the entire dualogy trembling at his mere mention. These guys survived Vader, two Death Stars and the Emperor but the very thought of facing Thrawn again and they shit their pants. Whatever! Zahn raped my adulthood with thsoe books! He raped my wallet! The only thing he didn't rape is my ass and I'm sure he's planning it the next time I visit the Oregon coast!

 

[cooleddie74]

Thrawn was an okay enough villain, but he wasn't THAT badass. One reason I tend to dismiss or outright ignore so much of the post-ROTJ Lucas timeline is because so many of the characters and species are so contrived and lame, or at the very least don't deliver what they should. The best novel set during the time of the Original Trilogy is SHADOWS OF THE EMPIRE. Prince Xizor is a much better bad guy than Admiral Thrawn, and the story bridges the one-year gap between EMPIRE and JEDI remarkably well without screwing up any continuity or the characters themselves. Luke, Leia, Lando, et. al. are basically the same people in that novel that they are in the films. There's no Clone Emperor, New Jedi Order, Jacen and Jaina Solo, Yuuzhan Vong, etc. to muck things up, kill off some of our favorite characters and generally annoy or bore us. Or both.

 

[Kalontas]

Reading people ranting about things on the Internet is never a good way to judge something. Chance is, someone somewhere didn't like X (no matter what X is) and gave it a truly scathing review. The Internet for being what it is, a global network of people getting pissed off together, picks up any negative emotions and feeds on it like that one Star Trek alien.*

In my opinion, none of the movies were as bad as some "fans" would have you believe. While some of the racist overtones in the prequels are rather bad when you think about them, when I watched Menace first, I was rather young and living in a fairly uniform country of almost 99% white catholics - thus I had virtually no exposure to minorities, and didn't know Jar Jar is supposed to look like a caricature of a black man - so I enjoyed him for what he was, a funny, goofy looking alien. Same thing with Watto's Jewishness.

In short, I enjoyed all of the Star Wars movies, because it is after all good cinema - if it wasn't, it wouldn't have gained such popularity. I was never a particularly huge fan of them, but I just about liked to watch it.

* I have never actually seen any episode with an alien feeding off negative emotions, but given the number of episodes I did not watch, there's a fairly good chance there was one.

 

[Skywalker]

It doesn't even have one good movie.

 

[cooleddie74]

The way some people talk about THE PHANTOM MENACE you'd think George Lucas raped them at gunpoint. Sure, it's one of the weakest of the films but it has some strong aspects going in its favor and the movie feels more like the original film(Episode IV)than the other prequels do. Darth Maul doesn't have many lines but he is the most interesting and coolest Sith apprentice next to Darth Vader, and Jake Lloyd's kid Anakin Skywalker manages to be less annoying and whiny than his older self as played by Hayden Christensen. The final lightsaber duel between the Jedi and Darth Maul ranks as one of the best fights in the entire saga, and the movie's soundtrack is nothing short of epic from start to finish.

My favorite selection from the Episode I soundtrack:

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_rzI7Y_NUs[/yt]

Put simply, one of John Williams' masterpieces.

 

[Set Harth]

A New Hope, even though it's classic, suffers from a lot of things that the prequels suffer from as well. Bad pacing, bad directing, some very bad dialogue and to much focus and long spaceshots.

None of this is accurate IMO. This is a film nominated for Best Picture we're talking about.

It doesn't even have one good movie.

That is insane.

The only thing he didn't rape is my ass and I'm sure he's planning it the next time I visit the Oregon coast!

If you hear a rustling sound coming from a bush, that's probably him. These days he mostly alternates between raping asses and working on a manuscript for Clone of Thrawn is Gonna Getcha.

 

[Harvey]

Oh, John Williams' contribution to the prequel saga is nothing short of brilliant.

That doesn't stop the films themselves from being utter dogs, though.

 

[Harvey]

A New Hope, even though it's classic, suffers from a lot of things that the prequels suffer from as well. Bad pacing, bad directing, some very bad dialogue and to much focus and long spaceshots.

None of this is true. This is a film nominated for Best Picture we're talking about.

Oh, come now. "Best Picture" isn't a synonym for "perfect movie." Even the actors at the time, particularly (but not limited to) Harrison Ford, have been noted for criticizing how awkward and/or silly much of Lucas' dialogue was.

 

[Terran_Empire]

I am not a big Star Wars fan, mainly because the entire setting has zero believability to me. When some of the video games are deeper than all 6 movies combined(KOTOR), you know that there are serious problems with the universe. If I wanted a coming of age story or one about revenge I can find those in a most familiar setting, with much better pacing and writing. So that leaves the fantasic SW universe that draws most people in....I find the whole thing disorganized, the pacing confusing/childish, and the various conflicts(the wars, the politics, the themes) juvenile and obvious.

So that really leaves me admiring the good ideas that were implemented in a messy way. The Jedi/Sith, Empire/rebels, Death Star, all great ideas but they were not realized the way I would enjoy them.

That being said I have to say that Empire Strikes Back and Revenge of the Sith are in my opinion the two best films. A New Hope, Return of the Jedi and Phantom Menace being decent and Attack of the Clones being the weakest.

 

[Shazam!]

the pacing confusing/childish, and the various conflicts(the wars, the politics, the themes) juvenile

Yeah, it's almost as if young people were the target audience.

 

[cooleddie74]

A NEW HOPE is an epic movie I've adored since my childhood, but even the most honest and diehard fan has to admit some of the dialogue is clunkier than a Flash Gordon robot. Actually, one or two of the best scenes were left on the cutting room floor and never put back in, even in the DVD and BluRay releases of the movie.

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eg1s9VDvSJ4[/yt]

A bit clunky and dialogue-heavy, but these scenes help develop the characters of Luke and Biggs more effectively, and it's a real shame they were left on the editors' floor. They've gone so far as to release action figures from these scenes and I own a couple of them. Biggs was a much more interesting character than the final cut of the film let on.