Ryan-SWI said:
4. A New Hope
5. Rogue One
6. The Empire Strikes Back
7. Return of the Jedi
8. The Force AwakensAlright, I’ll humor you. How did you get to this order?
If I were going by technical and objective qualities of the films themselves my list would look very different. I’m not interested in disclosing what I do in real life here as it’s not relevant, but suffice to say I spend enough time looking at those qualities to want something different and personal when I’m watching one of my favourite franchises. My list isn’t what I think is a Best To Worst of the Star Wars films, just what my personal preference is on an enjoyment level.
ANH/ESB/R1 all change frequently as they all have narrative elements and themes I enjoy on various levels.
ROTJ is where it is because half the film feels redundant and the other half is bogged down by the silly decision to make another Death Star, but it still has many redeeming qualities, like the Luke/Vader scenes.
TFA then takes all the worst parts of ROTJ and amplifys it by valuing cheap throwbacks and visuals over any actual storytelling or expansion of the Star Wars saga as a whole. The only big change it makes is that now Han Solo is dead. Other plot holes like Luke’s lightsaber just aren’t explained because JJ is afraid of any exposition at all. The whole film feels like a Marvel film, which is never what Star Wars was.
Say what you will about any other film from I - VI, but each film added something significantly new in one way or another, and all of them stood on their own narratively without having to wait for the next movie in the series to explain all the nonsense it created.
But again, that was a personal preference list.
If we’re talking objective filmmaking the list would probably (for the most part) look like a lot of the other lists on here, but what’s the point of posting the same list over and over again.