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STAR WARS: RANKED

So with the release of the new Star Wars film, The Mandalorian and Grogu, I thought I would finally talk a little bit about the Star Wars franchise and rank all of the theatrical films that exist inside that universe.


And yes, I know, for a lot of people this is sacred territory. This is religion. This is childhood. This is obsession. This is action figures and conventions and cosplay and sleeping bags and waiting in line for three days outside a movie theater and arguing online for 14 straight hours about whether Greedo shot first or whether a certain lightsaber duel “breaks canon” or whatever.


I know how deeply embedded Star Wars is in the culture. It is one of the most beloved and financially successful entertainment franchises in the history of the planet. It has made over ten billion dollars. It has inspired generations of filmmakers and fans. It changed merchandising forever. It changed visual effects forever. It changed blockbuster filmmaking forever. There is no denying the impact of Star Wars. None.


But I have to begin this by saying something that shocks people every single time I say it:


I am not a Star Wars person. I never have been.


Now, I’ve seen every theatrical Star Wars movie. Every single one. The nine-film Skywalker Saga, the standalone movies, the animated theatrical release, all of it. I’ve seen the TV specials. I’ve seen some of the series.


I’ve endured the Christmas special multiple times because it is one of the most hilariously terrible things ever broadcast on television. I know the universe. I know the characters. I know the lore. I know the fans. But Star Wars never captured my imagination the way it captured almost everybody else’s.


And I was absolutely the right age for it.


When the original Star Wars was released in May of 1977, I was 11 years old, about to turn 12. I was exactly in the demographic sweet spot. George Lucas could not have designed a better target audience if he tried. And all of my friends went completely insane over it.


Absolutely nuts. Like most kids in 1977, they saw Star Wars over and over and over and over again. It was one of the first movies where people actually kept count of how many times they saw it in theaters like it was some badge of honor.


“I’ve seen it 32 times!” “I’ve seen it 48 times!” “I’ve seen it 60 times!” I knew kids who practically lived in the theater watching Star Wars. It became an obsession overnight.


I saw it exactly three times. And honestly, two of those times were because other people dragged me along.


Now you have to understand what moviegoing was like back then. Completely different world. Totally different experience. Movies stayed in theaters for months, sometimes over a year. Star Wars was in theaters forever. Then it got re-released. Then it played at drive-ins. Then it became a midnight movie.


Back then there was no cable, no VHS, no streaming, no digital rentals, no YouTube clips, no endless content buffet available twenty-four hours a day. If you missed a movie in theaters, you might wait years to see it again.


And if a movie showed up on television, it was a gigantic event. The Wizard of Oz once a year. The Ten Commandments every Easter. Everybody gathered around the TV because you had one shot to watch it. One. You couldn’t pause it. You couldn’t rewind it. You couldn’t record it.


So when kids became obsessed with Star Wars, that obsession had nowhere else to go except back into the theater. Again and again and again. But for whatever reason, it just never connected with me.


I thought it was okay. The special effects were undeniably groundbreaking. The sound design was incredible. The visuals were cool. But the actual story? It felt derivative to me even at age 11.


George Lucas famously built Star Wars out of old serials, Akira Kurosawa movies, Joseph Campbell mythology, Frank Herbert's Dune, Flash Gordon adventures, war films, westerns, samurai films, Arthurian legend, comic books, and classic Hollywood storytelling. You can see all of it in there.


Lucas basically put everything he loved into a blender and created this massive mythological space opera. And obviously he struck a nerve because audiences lost their minds.


But I had already seen a lot of movies by that point. I was not just watching kiddie stuff. I was seeing R-rated horror movies, blaxploitation films, disaster movies, action thrillers, gritty ‘70s cinema.


I saw The French Connection in theaters. I saw The Exorcist in theaters. I saw Texas Chain Saw Massacre. I saw Enter the Dragon. I saw Jaws (several times).


I was seeing all kinds of movies that my friends were not seeing. So when Star Wars arrived with its clean-cut heroes and fairy-tale structure and simplistic good-versus-evil storytelling, it didn’t blow my mind. It felt tame compared to a lot of the stuff I was already watching.


And then, just a few months later in 1977, Steven Spielberg released Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Now, THAT movie captured my imagination.


That was the science fiction movie that obsessed me. While my friends were in one theater talking about Wookiees and lightsabers and droids, I was in another theater watching Close Encounters over and over again.


That movie felt mysterious and emotional and awe-inspiring to me. It had wonder. It had terror. It had ambiguity. It had humanity. I connected to that movie in a way I never connected to Star Wars.


So from the very beginning, I was kind of outside the whole phenomenon.


Now obviously the franchise exploded beyond anybody’s expectations. George Lucas changed the movie business forever. The original trilogy became a cultural institution. The Empire Strikes Back came out in 1980 and I actually think it’s pretty good. In fact, I think it’s much better than the original Star Wars, which eventually got retroactively retitled Episode IV: A New Hope.


Empire has darker material, stronger direction from Irvin Kershner, better emotional stakes, and that wonderful sense of melancholy running through it. I saw Empire a couple of times in theaters and genuinely liked it.


Then Return of the Jedi came out in 1983 and I hated it.


I hated the Ewoks. I hated what they did with Leia. Jabba the Hutt didn’t amuse me. There were too many Muppets running around. Everything felt softened and commercialized and toy-driven.


By that point I was a senior in high school, already preparing to study film seriously, becoming a full-fledged cinephile, digging into foreign films and experimental cinema and classic Hollywood and all kinds of other stuff. So Return of the Jedi really did nothing for me. In fact, I actively disliked it.


Then years pass. And in 1999 George Lucas unleashes the prequels.


Now let me tell you something: I was not one of those people breathlessly anticipating the prequels. The level of hysteria surrounding The Phantom Menace was unbelievable. People camped out for tickets.


There were endless magazine covers, TV specials, toy launches, marketing tie-ins, anticipation at a level that was honestly kind of frightening. Lucas was going to tell the story of Anakin Skywalker, the fall to the dark side, the origin of Darth Vader, all of that.


And then The Phantom Menace came out. I think it’s awful.


I mean genuinely terrible. One of the most disappointing blockbuster movies ever made. Wooden performances, flat storytelling, terrible dialogue, lifeless digital overload, and Jar Jar Binks, who somehow became the symbol for everything wrong with late-‘90s CGI excess. Liam Neeson and Ewan McGregor try their best. Natalie Portman looks stranded.


Everybody sounds like they’re reading cue cards underwater. And poor Jake Lloyd, the kid playing Anakin, got stuck in the middle of all this nonsense. The movie was just dead on arrival for me.


Then Attack of the Clones came out in 2002, and I think it’s even worse. Actually, let me be clear: I think Attack of the Clones is the worst Star Wars movie ever made.


And considering how many mediocre or outright bad Star Wars movies there are, that’s saying something. Hayden Christensen is awful in it. Natalie Portman is completely wasted. The romance is embarrassing.


The dialogue sounds like it was written by an alien trying to imitate human interaction. George Lucas has always been a brilliant ideas guy, an incredible producer, a groundbreaking technical innovator, but dialogue and actors were never his strengths, and the prequels expose that mercilessly.


Now, I will give credit where credit is due: the second half of Revenge of the Sith actually works for me.


The first half is just as dreadful as the previous two prequels. But once Anakin finally turns dark, once the movie commits to tragedy and brutality and darkness, it gets interesting. Suddenly there are actual stakes. There’s actual emotion. There’s operatic intensity. Anakin murdering children is legitimately disturbing. The lava duel is ridiculous but entertaining.


And honestly? I like the infamous “NOOOOOOO!” scene. I know people mock it, but I kind of enjoy the melodrama of it. The second half of Revenge of the Sith is by far the best material in the prequel trilogy.


Then Disney buys Lucasfilm in 2012, and now everything changes again.


Suddenly we get the sequel trilogy. J.J. Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan come in with The Force Awakens in 2015, and honestly, I didn’t hate it. It’s basically a remix of A New Hope, but it’s competently made. It moves well. It introduces likable new characters. Abrams knows how to generate energy and momentum even if he doesn’t always know how to finish stories.


Then came The Last Jedi in 2017, directed by Rian Johnson. And here’s where I completely split from a huge section of fandom. I think The Last Jedi is easily the best film in the sequel trilogy. Easily.


Because Rian Johnson actually tried to make a movie instead of just manufacturing fan service. He challenged the mythology. He questioned the legends. He introduced actual thematic material and character conflict and ambiguity.


And Star Wars fans lost their minds because how dare somebody make a good movie instead of simply handing them nostalgic comfort food.


So then J.J. Abrams comes back with The Rise of Skywalker, which was basically designed as an apology tour for angry fans. And while most people hate it, I actually don’t think it’s terrible. It’s a mess, absolutely, but at least it has energy. It’s watchable nonsense.


Now outside the Skywalker Saga, there are the standalone films.


The Clone Wars animated movie? I actually kind of enjoyed it. Nicely animated, decent action, harmless fun.


Solo: A Star Wars Story? Better than people give it credit for. Alden Ehrenreich does a really good job as Han Solo, which was basically an impossible task. Donald Glover is terrific as Lando. Ron Howard comes in after the behind-the-scenes disaster and salvages something entertaining. It’s too long, but it works.


Then there’s Rogue One.


Now we get to the important part.


Because Rogue One: A Star Wars Story from 2016 is, in my opinion, BY FAR the best Star Wars movie ever made. Not even close.


And it completely surprised me because I had zero expectations going in. None. But Gareth Edwards and Tony Gilroy created something dark, mean, intense, emotional, and genuinely exciting. It feels like a war movie. It has real stakes. It has doomed characters. It has sacrifice. It has grit.


The droid K-2SO is actually funny instead of annoying. The final battle is phenomenal. And Darth Vader? Holy hell. The last ten minutes of Rogue One contain the single most badass Darth Vader material in the entire franchise. Period. Full stop.


And here’s another reason I love it: everybody dies.


Seriously. It commits to tragedy in a way most Star Wars movies are too timid to do. It earns its darkness. It earns its emotional weight. It actually feels dangerous. It’s the one Star Wars movie that truly works for me as a piece of cinema rather than just franchise maintenance.


Now there are a million TV shows too. The Mandalorian, Andor, Ahsoka, Obi-Wan Kenobi, The Book of Boba Fett, Skeleton Crew, The Acolyte, animated series like Rebels, The Bad Batch, Tales of the Jedi, and on and on and on.


And everybody tells me I need to watch Andor because it carries over the tone and quality of Rogue One. They’re probably right. I’ll get around to it eventually.


And yes, there’s the legendary Star Wars Holiday Special, one of the greatest trainwrecks in television history. George Lucas tried to erase it from existence after it aired once in 1978, but bootlegs kept it alive forever.


It is so catastrophically awful that it circles all the way back around to being hilarious. Watching it is like having a fever dream while trapped inside a variety show hosted by Wookiees.


So ultimately, here’s the deal.


Star Wars never captured my heart. I never collected the toys. I never dressed up. I never became obsessed. I never waited in line. I never lived and died with every new installment. I think the franchise is wildly inconsistent. Some entries are entertaining. Some are awful. Most are mediocre. One or two are genuinely very good.


But the one I truly love, the one I think transcends the franchise and becomes something darker, smarter, more emotional, more cinematic, is Rogue One.


And now with the release of The Mandalorian and Grogu, which I think is one of the worst movies of the year, I figured, what the hell, let’s rank them all.


So here it is.


My ranking of all 13 theatrical Star Wars movies from favorite to least favorite. And yes, I know a lot of you are going to disagree with me.


That’s fine. The Force will survive.


THE STAR WARS MOVIES: RANKED (in order of my preference):

















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