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Ranking the Star Wars films — Page 143

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It has mostly good effects, and an alright plot. Better than I can say for the other two.

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i’m surprised by how popular TPM is here. everyone i know IRL or elsewhere thinks it’s the worst by far.

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Collipso said:

i’m surprised by how popular TPM is here. everyone i know IRL or elsewhere thinks it’s the worst by far.

Everybody hates Jar-Jar and that’s what most people remember about it.

I compartmentalize while watching, setting aside Jar-Jar, midichlorians, and the sometimes awkward dialog/acting. Out of the three, it feels the most like a Star Wars movie to me.

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TPM’s characters aren’t great, neither is the acting, and the story’s a mess, but the movie wasn’t so flawed that it singlehandedly killed the PT; two great sequels could’ve made up for its shortcomings. Neither AOTC nor ROTS have that saving grace; they introduced more and greater flaws, undermining the PT’s foundation further, spoiling any chance for course correction.

That’s my perspective, anyway.

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TPM felt like Star Wars, and we could still pretend that there was a reason for its shortcomings. Maybe Jar Jar would become a decent character in the sequels, maybe midichlorians would be explicitly a part of Jedi superstition rather than science, maybe ending slavery would be an important part of Anakin’s drive to establish a powerful galactic government, maybe the only droids capable of holding off Jedi Knights would make more of a presence…

AOTC marked the end of my canonical Star Wars, and after ROTS the entire prequel trilogy was tossed.

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DuracellEnergizer said:

TPM’s characters aren’t great, neither is the acting, and the story’s a mess, but the movie wasn’t so flawed that it singlehandedly killed the PT; two great sequels could’ve made up for its shortcomings. Neither AOTC nor ROTS have that saving grace; they introduced more and greater flaws, undermining the PT’s foundation further, spoiling any chance for course correction.

That’s my perspective, anyway.

Sure, the plot in TPM is a mess, dialogue is stiff, characters are boring and Jar-Jar is… Jar Jar. But what I love about it is the fun and intense Star Wars action set-pieces and the movie moves at such a frantic pace, that I never get bored watching it until you get to Coruscant. But hey, that’s why they invented the “skip chapter” button on the front of every DVD player ever made. After that the movie picks right back up.

It’s become a guilty pleasure of mine over the past couple years, because it’s embarrassing Star Wars porn and I love it.

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Aside from the obviously more dated CGI elements that crop up here and cover the screen there, I think TPM is a gorgeous looking movie. Not as good looking as any of the OT, but it certainly feels like a stylistic continuation of those. I hate it and love it at the same time. Nostalgia Goggles are a wonderful thing.

My nostalgia for AOTC is greatly diminished by how awful it is, so I’m less inclined to return to it, and I have no nostalgia for ROTS because I didn’t get to see it until I was about 10 years old and I was sorely disappointed, so it’s my least favorite.

Eventually I’m gonna have to binge them, just for the memes.

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fair arguments all around - i just get bored out of my mind after a couple of minutes of TPM.

i tend to have a really good time watching both AotC and RotS though.

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Collipso said:

i’m surprised by how popular TPM is here. everyone i know IRL or elsewhere thinks it’s the worst by far.

Most people only remember Jar-Jar and ignore or forget all the other flaws TPM had, and since most people loathe Jar-Jar, it’s not strange that they would consider TPM the worst PT movie, since AotC and RotS lack a similar character. They also seem to like what Lucas was trying to do in AotC and RotJ with Anakin and the Jedi, regardless of the memes that those movies spawned, and I don’t know why.

But I do think this is a flawed argument. Jar-Jar is to TPM what the Ewoks were to RotJ, K-2S0 to R1 or BB-8 to TFA. They’re very lousy, unnecesary, unfunny, pointless, forced one-dimentional characters, but they aren’t the worst elements of their respective movies. Not even close.

And if you are able to go beyond your hatred of Jar-Jar, and you start considering TPM’s flaws, the movie isn’t as bad as AotC and RotS. It shares some of the problems the latter movies had (clueless Jedi, boring, stiff dialogue, bad pacing, nonsensical, underexplained plots, bad CGI, filler, etc), but there is no forced romance or darkness and murder and younglings everywhere, or a bizarre, laudable explanation for a character going evil. Even the secondary villain, Maul, as pointless as he is, he’s not as awful as Grievous (although it is clearly not as good as Darth and the Emperor). It still feels like an adventure, kinda Star Wars-y movie, unlike the latter two, which aren’t even Star Wars-y.

The people who are saying TFA or TLJ are worse than the prequels have a very weird point of view.

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well, the prequels feel very star wars-y to me. not the same feeling the ot gives me, but a star warsy feeling nonetheless.

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Interesting. Why do you think they are Star Wars-y? Not an indirect/pasive attack, just curious.

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i don’t know. i guess some of the stuff most of you find weird don’t bother me at all - like the cgi - which makes me not dislike them, and be open to like them.

anyway, i don’t really get a star warsy feeling from tpm. i do get it from aotc though: because of how slow it is, it makes me comfortable. it’s a good feeling. i feel at home. i enjoy geonosis and the “something’s about to happen” feel. and i watched aotc a heck of a lot of times, so i associated this feeling with star wars. it’s the same feel esb gives me, but esb does everything 1000x better therefore i get an even better experience out of that one.

rots just feels like THE star wars to me. like, the open war scenes excite me. i don’t mind the cgi, so that’s fine. i enjoy palpatine taking over. it excites me. not sure how else to describe it - it just resonates well with me.

because i’m at it, i’ll go on for the rest.

rogue one gave me the same exciting feel, while adding something new to the mix. it was great, i loved the movie.

star wars gives me the best feeling overall. i feel excited and happy, i get nervous and anxious, i live all of luke’s emotions with him every single time. and the sense of mystery and discovery before we meet him - always great. never gets old.

rotj gives me the same feeling as star wars, but i don’t enjoy it as much - simple as that.

tfa feels like a very weird version of star wars. it’s still there but it’s weird.

unfortunately, tlj doesn’t feel like star wars at all. i will be getting the blu ray and rewatching it this week, and then we’ll see.

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There’s a lot more people here that think TPM is the best of the PT than anywhere else I’ve seen.

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I guess if you grew up with the PT I can see why that would “feel like Star Wars” because it was part of what initially defined Star Wars to you. I’m in a weird spot personally where I was already familiar with the OT when I saw TPM, though I was still young enough that it had that defining aspect. It’s not hard for me to look on those movies objectively now. Honestly I think while they each have elements that feel Star Warsy, they ultimately feel very much like a part of a different series than the OT. The ST too, to an extent, but far far far far less so. The spirit is a lot closer, which matters a lot.

Anyway, I get why people like TPM the most of the three, probably because ultimately it feels the most like an actual movie (albeit not a very good one).

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Collipso said:

i don’t know. i guess some of the stuff most of you find weird don’t bother me at all - like the cgi - which makes me not dislike them, and be open to like them.

anyway, i don’t really get a star warsy feeling from tpm. i do get it from aotc though: because of how slow it is, it makes me comfortable. it’s a good feeling. i feel at home. i enjoy geonosis and the “something’s about to happen” feel. and i watched aotc a heck of a lot of times, so i associated this feeling with star wars. it’s the same feel esb gives me, but esb does everything 1000x better therefore i get an even better experience out of that one.

rots just feels like THE star wars to me. like, the open war scenes excite me. i don’t mind the cgi, so that’s fine. i enjoy palpatine taking over. it excites me. not sure how else to describe it - it just resonates well with me.

because i’m at it, i’ll go on for the rest.

rogue one gave me the same exciting feel, while adding something new to the mix. it was great, i loved the movie.

star wars gives me the best feeling overall. i feel excited and happy, i get nervous and anxious, i live all of luke’s emotions with him every single time. and the sense of mystery and discovery before we meet him - always great. never gets old.

rotj gives me the same feeling as star wars, but i don’t enjoy it as much - simple as that.

tfa feels like a very weird version of star wars. it’s still there but it’s weird.

unfortunately, tlj doesn’t feel like star wars at all. i will be getting the blu ray and rewatching it this week, and then we’ll see.

I think one of the things that make the PT feel like Star Wars is that all of Lucas’ entries are quirky. The PT suffers from terrible execution in many aspects, but TPM feels like ANH to me, but with less interesting characters and much lower stakes. The ST is overall much better executed, but it does all feel very derivative, and superficial, and lacks Lucas’ imagination, IMO.

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DominicCobb said:

Anyway, I get why people like TPM the most of the three, probably because ultimately it feels the most like an actual movie (albeit not a very good one).

Exactly.

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I don’t really like the age/birth year/generation argument. As one factor, sure. But as the defining factor, not really.

My birth year is closer to 1999 than to 1977, and yet while I kinda liked TPM in theaters as a kid, I greatly disliked RotS the first time I saw it (and that was when I still appreciated RotJ). If age/generation is a huge factor here, I should probably be more inclined to enjoy the PT, or at least to be more forgiving of it, since I should be more familiar and prone to liking modern, more impressive blockbusters than older people, and yet that hasn’t been the case (and I’m sure many other people around my age are like me, so it’s not like I’m a demigod or a superior being, LOL). I was already familiar with the OT when I watched RotS, though, but I didn’t love TPM as much as the OT, or I probably disliked it by 2005 (I don’t remember when it was the first time I watched the movie since the only time I saw it in theaters).

Additional factors may be parents, friends, exposure to other movies, etc.

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well, i never got to watch any of the prequels in the theaters, so it’s not as if i’m nostalgic for any of them - i just feel/see them the same way as i do the ot.

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hahahahahaha - i don’t like the pt as much as i like the ot though 😉

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DrDre said:

Collipso said:

i don’t know. i guess some of the stuff most of you find weird don’t bother me at all - like the cgi - which makes me not dislike them, and be open to like them.

anyway, i don’t really get a star warsy feeling from tpm. i do get it from aotc though: because of how slow it is, it makes me comfortable. it’s a good feeling. i feel at home. i enjoy geonosis and the “something’s about to happen” feel. and i watched aotc a heck of a lot of times, so i associated this feeling with star wars. it’s the same feel esb gives me, but esb does everything 1000x better therefore i get an even better experience out of that one.

rots just feels like THE star wars to me. like, the open war scenes excite me. i don’t mind the cgi, so that’s fine. i enjoy palpatine taking over. it excites me. not sure how else to describe it - it just resonates well with me.

because i’m at it, i’ll go on for the rest.

rogue one gave me the same exciting feel, while adding something new to the mix. it was great, i loved the movie.

star wars gives me the best feeling overall. i feel excited and happy, i get nervous and anxious, i live all of luke’s emotions with him every single time. and the sense of mystery and discovery before we meet him - always great. never gets old.

rotj gives me the same feeling as star wars, but i don’t enjoy it as much - simple as that.

tfa feels like a very weird version of star wars. it’s still there but it’s weird.

unfortunately, tlj doesn’t feel like star wars at all. i will be getting the blu ray and rewatching it this week, and then we’ll see.

I think one of the things that make the PT feel like Star Wars is that all of Lucas’ entries are quirky. The PT suffers from terrible execution in many aspects, but TPM feels like ANH to me, but with less interesting characters and much lower stakes. The ST is overall much better executed, but it does all feel very derivative, and superficial, and lacks Lucas’ imagination, IMO.

i agree with this.

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GZK8000 said:

I don’t really like the age/birth year/generation argument. As one factor, sure. But as the defining factor, not really.

My birth year is closer to 1999 than to 1977, and yet while I kinda liked TPM in theaters as a kid, I greatly disliked RotS the first time I saw it (and that was when I still appreciated RotJ). If age/generation is a huge factor here, I should probably be more inclined to enjoy the PT, or at least to be more forgiving of it, since I should be more familiar and prone to liking modern, more impressive blockbusters than older people, and yet that hasn’t been the case (and I’m sure many other people around my age are like me, so it’s not like I’m a demigod or a superior being, LOL). I was already familiar with the OT when I watched RotS, though, but I didn’t love TPM as much as the OT, or I probably disliked it by 2005 (I don’t remember when it was the first time I watched the movie since the only time I saw it in theaters).

Additional factors may be parents, friends, exposure to other movies, etc.

Age isn’t really the causation here, it’s almost beside the point. What I basically mean is that if PT is part of your introduction to Star Wars, then you’re going to accept it as “Star Warsy.” This could be the case with an adult being introduced to the franchise as well, it’s just more common with younger people because usually people are introduced to Star Wars at a young age, and many adults now did not have the PT at a young age when they were being introduced to the series. If that makes sense.

I’m in a similar boat with you. I saw and enjoyed all the PT films when I was a kid but at the time I didn’t think either TPM or AOTC quite measured up to the OT (AOTC in particular was something of a disappointment to me at the time).

Collipso said:

well, i never got to watch any of the prequels in the theaters, so it’s not as if i’m nostalgic for any of them - i just feel/see them the same way as i do the ot.

It’s not about nostalgia, not really. When you’re a kid you might be more accepting of certain things or things might blend together more easily. It took me awhile to separate the three OT films in my mind. Even now sometimes it can be hard to watch just one and not see it in the context of the others. When I was younger it was a lot easier to accept the PT as part of the universe. But now, having seen all the films way too many times (and, most importantly, having seen a lot of other films to compare), it’s very easy to see how different they are for me. In fact, it’s getting hard for me when I watch them to go back to that younger mindset where they were all just “Star Wars.”

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DrDre said:

Collipso said:

i don’t know. i guess some of the stuff most of you find weird don’t bother me at all - like the cgi - which makes me not dislike them, and be open to like them.

anyway, i don’t really get a star warsy feeling from tpm. i do get it from aotc though: because of how slow it is, it makes me comfortable. it’s a good feeling. i feel at home. i enjoy geonosis and the “something’s about to happen” feel. and i watched aotc a heck of a lot of times, so i associated this feeling with star wars. it’s the same feel esb gives me, but esb does everything 1000x better therefore i get an even better experience out of that one.

rots just feels like THE star wars to me. like, the open war scenes excite me. i don’t mind the cgi, so that’s fine. i enjoy palpatine taking over. it excites me. not sure how else to describe it - it just resonates well with me.

because i’m at it, i’ll go on for the rest.

rogue one gave me the same exciting feel, while adding something new to the mix. it was great, i loved the movie.

star wars gives me the best feeling overall. i feel excited and happy, i get nervous and anxious, i live all of luke’s emotions with him every single time. and the sense of mystery and discovery before we meet him - always great. never gets old.

rotj gives me the same feeling as star wars, but i don’t enjoy it as much - simple as that.

tfa feels like a very weird version of star wars. it’s still there but it’s weird.

unfortunately, tlj doesn’t feel like star wars at all. i will be getting the blu ray and rewatching it this week, and then we’ll see.

I think one of the things that make the PT feel like Star Wars is that all of Lucas’ entries are quirky. The PT suffers from terrible execution in many aspects, but TPM feels like ANH to me, but with less interesting characters and much lower stakes. The ST is overall much better executed, but it does all feel very derivative, and superficial, and lacks Lucas’ imagination, IMO.

This is a very interesting opinion to me because I don’t think TPM really feels that much like ANH at all. I mean obviously they’re both the same genre and the same universe. But to me the original film has this one very specific, unique “feeling” to it. And then ESB is similar but really has its own unique “feeling.” ROTJ kinda feels like a combination of the two (leaning more on ANH) with a slight original flavor to it.

TPM is, to me, as much a departure in “feeling” as ESB, in fact actually a lot moreso, though I think it still more or less fits. AOTC then feels slightly like TPM but then again it’s more like it’s whole own thing. ROTS is like half AOTC feeling, half it’s own thing. At this point we are now, in my opinion, unfortunately far too far away from the the spirit of the original film.

To me, TFA legitimately captures the spirit of the original film possibly better than any that came after (yes, maybe even Empire, and no, not just because it’s a “rehash”), but it’s still not the same, it’s more like a modern reinvention of that spirit. TLJ feels very much like it has that DNA in it but again is its own unique thing, but not too much so that it feels like a different franchise (which is the trap that AOTC, ROTS, and to a lesser extent TPM fell into, I think).

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DominicCobb said:

I guess if you grew up with the PT I can see why that would “feel like Star Wars” because it was part of what initially defined Star Wars to you.

Basically. It’s funny, though, when I was younger, I liked the prequels fine. They weren’t my favorite SW movies, but I enjoyed watching them all the same, and I associated them with Star Wars. Last time I watched them (I think it was in advance of TFA), though, they fell completely flat. I always did release order, and the second half of the marathon was nothing like the first. They just didn’t feel like SW anymore.

Haven’t watched a prequel since. Though I’ll probably watch TPM again some day.

TV’s Frink said:

I would put this in my sig if I weren’t so lazy.