I think I am ready to rate the 3 newest films. So here goes.
1 - The Empire Strikes Back - Irvin Kershner and Leigh Brackett raise this one above Lucas’s original.
2 - A New Hope - The classic that started it all.
3 - Return of the Jedi - The story of redemption and the conclusion to the original trilogy lift this one and make it hard to compare to.
4 - Rogue One - An awesome war movie that is nicely self contained.
5 - The Last Jedi - It doesn’t quite come up to the originals, but it is the closest since 1983.
6 - The Phantom Menace - The Republic, Jedi, a bad ass Sith warrior, some familiar faces and just an all around epic story set in the Old Republic. It felt right when it came out and I still love it, even with its flaws.
7 - Solo - Hard to pin this one since I haven’t seen it as many times. I think here because while it captured the spirit of the character and the universe (especially the old Brian Daley novels), it failed to really expand the Star Wars universe and go beyond the character. It also had some predictable story points. It was safe and well done.
8 - Revenge of the Sith - The major flaw of this film is it was produced as the last of 6 films, not to be the third. Other than that it was awesome and probably the highest quality of the prequels.
9 - Attack of the Clones - Well, Lucas tried. The basic story is sound, but Anakin is too … many things. The film is greatly flawed and the only one of the Lucas made films that I wanted a fan edit the first time I saw it.
10 - The Force Awakens - A good film, but it is the only one that has such egregiously unrealistic scenes that it yanked me out of the film. The character scenes were great, but the overall story is the weakest of any of the films. But even as the weakest it is still an awesome movie.
Clone Wars 2008 - I don’t consider this a film. It is just a selection of episodes (5 I think) produced for the first season of the series that made a nice movie length story. Basicallly a pilot film.
Star Wars Holdiday Special - I love the Wookie scenes. With a fan edit it might just make a nice short.
The Ewok Films - I can’t rate these. Even though I own them on DVD, I haven’t watched them. They are aimed at kids to capitalize on the Ewok cuteness. Just trying to watch the first one I found it to be a bigger train wreck than the SWHS.