Rank the Star Wars films

I know this has been addressed many times before probably, but wherever the thread went, it is long gone now. So I will start a new one and I want to make this a little more comprehensive ranking than what most people have done.

I will rank the movies on six major areas of filmmaking and then average them all out to get the overall ranking.

For cinematography I’m addressing editing, camera work, sets and lighting. Not the more esthetics stuff like CGI work, models, costumes, and stuff added in postproduction like laser blasters, space ships and models. I address that with the special effects category.

I’m also ranking the movies without the budget and time period they were made in mind. I just try to judge the categories for how good I think they are in general and not give the OT more credit for being made on a lower budget and more limited special effects capabilities at the time.

With acting and dialogue, just give a balanced, overall weighted feeling about how good it was. 10 being perfect, 9 being almost perfect, 8 being great but with a few bad lines here and there, 7 being good, 6 slightly above average, ect.

And I’m only addressing the OOT of course.

The rest I think is self-explanatory.


Star Wars (1977)

Cinematography: 10/10 – The editing and the camera work is some of the most iconic ever
Plot: 10/10 - Classic story perfectly done IMO
Acting: 8/10 - I thought they were great most of the time except for a few places
Dialogue: 7/10 - Could’ve used a little more work in some places
Special Effects: 8/10 – Still holds up today a lot better than the CGI in the prequels if you ask me.
Score: 10/10 – John William’s best work, perhaps the finest score ever?  

Overall Ranking: 8.8/10


Empire Strikes Back (1980)

Cinematography: 10/10 – Especially amazing in this one, it’s hard to imagine Hoth wasn’t real.
Plot: 9/10 – Great, but the fact that it doesn’t have a clear beginning or ending doesn’t make it feel as whole of a movie.
Acting: 9/10 – An improvement over ANH
Dialogue: 9/10- Also an improvement
Special Effects: 9/10 – Battle of Hoth and Yoda are amazing, but cloud city detracts a point
Score: 10/10 – John Williams continues a genius score, a lot of originality while continuing the Star Wars feel

Overall Ranking: 9.3/10


Return of the Jedi (1983)

Cinematography: 9/10 – You can tell Richard Marquand was not as innovative as Irvin or George with ANH, but it is still great.
Plot: 8/10 – Recycling the plot from ANH detracts some points, but I thought they still did a good job at keeping it original.
Acting: 8/10 – On par with ANH
Dialogue: 8/10 – While Ian McDiarmid had great lines, not much new here
Special Effects: 9/10 – If it weren’t for the Rancor the super star destroyer blowing up and a few other things, I would give it a 10
Score: 10/10 – Mixes a lot of the previous two scores and adds some new work, I thought it was perfect   

Overall Ranking: 8.6/10


The Phantom Menace (1999)

Cinematography: 8/10 – Camera work was good, now the CGI that’s a different story
Plot: 6/10 – Interesting in some ways, confusing and ridiculous in others, at least it was unique
Acting: 5/10 - Average
Dialogue: 6/10 – Also Average
Special Effects: 6/10 – Now I thought the CGI in this one was not so distracting and used well in some places. It was still really awful in other areas with the Gungans, Pod racing, and Jar Jar
Score: 8/10 – I thought John Williams continued the Star Wars quality here.

Overall Ranking: 6.5/10 – I didn’t think this one was that bad. I thought it still felt like a Star Wars movie and George stirred up some good ideas to build on. If Episodes 2 and 3 were actually good, I wouldn’t mind this one that much.


Attack of the Clones (2002)

Cinematography: 5/10 - Average
Plot: 3/10 – Awful, contrived, cheesy and poorly done, insults our intelligence
Acting: 3/10 – I don’t think I need to explain this
Dialogue: 2/10 – Likewise
Special Effects: 3/10 - I thought the CGI in this was absolutely terrible. While George used mostly CGI in TPM, he still mixed it up with REAL stuff and used film, in this it looks like almost all CGI and the digital cameras make everything look all artificial.
Score: 7/10 – It’s good but it is too romantic and over dramatic for the crappy love story

Overall Ranking: 3.8/10


Revenge of the Sith (2005)

Cinematography: 6/10 – Again only average, there was some good work, but for the most part it was condescending and boring with all the close up shots of Anakin and crap
Plot: 4/10 – The mechanism for turning Anakin to the Darkside has to be the laziest, most cliché ever.
Acting: 4/10 – Only slightly better than AOTC
Dialogue: 3/10 – I thought there was a big decline in quality after TPM
Special Effects: 4/10 – George continues to use video game CGI for his entire movie
Score: 7/10 – Nothing original here, just a recycle of the last 5 films combined. Cheesy and over dramatic for what was seen on screen.

Overall Ranking: 4.6/10

without explanations as to how you arrived at certain scores it's hard [for me] to see this as much more than prequel bashing, which is fine i guess, if that is where your opinions lay, but without any reasoning it's all just random numbers.

You felt the plot of a new hope worthy of 10/10? really? the mish mash of borrowed and stolen themes, the ambling dessert scenes, the convoluted ending showdown? - I love the film but i hardly consider it a 10, especially when comparing to other films.

I mean you give the special effects of ANH ann 8, the special effects of ROTS a 4 - visually the effects of rots are far superior - If you are factoring in things like innovation then i'd like to hear that sort of thing.after countless revisions there are still matte lines in ANH...

I do agree on some points but i think a more in depth look would be more useful, and indeed interesting.

I added more to my OP, yes I do agree that the ending showdown was a little convoluted, but that was due to the time restraints and budgeting issues. I'm sure if they had more time they would've done better. I prefer Adywan's revisited but I think the theatrical version is just as good too. I don't think the scenes on the desert dragged on too long. I thought the story was done just right.

The mechanism for turning Anakin to the Darkside has to be the laziest, most cliché ever.

Too much screen time lost in AOTC = a rushed ROTS. Even Lucas said that he had a lots of characters screaming "what about me?!" when he did episode 3 script.

I like Star Wars the best, and I don't have a strong preference between ESB and ROTJ; and I like both of them nearly as much as Star Wars.

Then in order of preference: TPM, ROTS, and AOTC. 

I rate movies based on how much I enjoy them; not on technical merits; which are irrelevant in my opinion.

skyjedi2005 said:

to me star wars ranked is:

1. Empire Strikes Back 1980

2. Star Wars 1977

3. Return of the Jedi 1983

 

To me the special editions and prequels are not real star wars.  Are you guys still drinking the Lucas kool aid?  Lol   Ever since 1997 and 1999 Lucas stopped being a genius or good moviemaker in my opinion.

I will always  give endless respect for the originals and continue to wonder where he lost his way.

The only good film he made after his divorce was The Last Crusade and that is more because of Spielberg than Lucas.  Willow was decent, i liked it a lot as a kid despite being a bad knockoff of star wars and tolkien.

 

I rank Indiana Jones:

1. Raiders of the Lost Ark

2.  The Last Crusade

3. The Temple of Doom

4. Kingdom of the Crystal Numbskulls

like the prequels i put seperate from the real star wars.

1.Revenge of the Shit

2. The Phantom Plot movie

3. Attack of the Wooden Romance

I agree with you skyjedi that the prequels are not real star wars movies. They're more like the type of movies Disney would make if they bought the rights to make the prequels.

But I still want to see you guys rank all six of them the way I did with the six catagories and feel free to add more if you'd like. I want to see your guys' opinions of all catagories.

Johnny Ringo said:

without explanations as to how you arrived at certain scores it's hard [for me] to see this as much more than prequel bashing,  

The more prequel bashing the better. The prequels need to be bashed, particularly ROTS.

skyjedi2005 said:

To me the special editions and prequels are not real star wars. 

I agree with that view.

I'd rate Empire Strikes Back number one, but Return of the Jedi has some of the best stuff in the films. I'd put Star Wars third, because while it's a great film I feel it's a bit weaker than ESB and ROTJ. That's one, two and three. All those three are great films, a joy to watch.

Phantom Menace is a huge drop from the OT but it's next. It's closest to being Star Wars out of the prequels. It's got the most humanity and depth out of the prequels, even if it's shallow by the standards of the OT. The cgi characters don't fit with Star Wars at all, but Neeson and Portman are good and Jake Lloyd is at least better than Hayden Christensen. The film doesn't have the unnatural emptiness of the later two prequels.

Attack of the Clones is a biiig drop from Phantom Menace. After I saw this film I wasn't interested in seeing the next one. This film was mostly crap. Even apart from the dreadful fake romance. And that battle at the end with the Jedi was so bland and feelingless, and Yoda fighting with a lightsaber has to be one of the lamest sights ever.

Revenge of the Shit is as big a drop from AOTC as AOTC is from TPM. Horrendous. One of the very worst films I've ever seen. Absolute shite. Absolutely zero depth of feeling or humanity. Flat crap. I can't belive how bad this film is. So much bad acting. Crap cgi. Feelingless uninvolving battle scenes, from the useless opening battle down to the awfulness of the overdone painful lava fight and the pathetic Yoda vs Palpatine. The film has a seriously off message (love is bad, don't love, love turns you bad, passion is bad) and it seems to follow this message in not having any depth of feeling. We're supposed to be sad when the Jedi are "tragically" killed, but they're such a bunch of insufferable jerks that it doesn't work at all. Anakin turning to the dark side is written so poorly it's laughable. And Hayden Christensen's performance was worthy of twenty razzies. Let's also note the the awful bland visual look of the film. You have to work hard to make a film this bad. It really takes effort. Supreme awfulness. A totally shallow empty film.

Vaderisnothayden said:

Johnny Ringo said:

without explanations as to how you arrived at certain scores it's hard [for me] to see this as much more than prequel bashing,  

The more prequel bashing the better. The prequels need to be bashed, particularly ROTS.

 

skyjedi2005 said:

To me the special editions and prequels are not real star wars. 

I agree with that view.

 

 

I'd rate Empire Strikes Back number one, but Return of the Jedi has some of the best stuff in the films. I'd put Star Wars third, because while it's a great film I feel it's a bit weaker than ESB and ROTJ. That's one, two and three. All those three are great films, a joy to watch.

Phantom Menace is a huge drop from the OT but it's next. It's closest to being Star Wars out of the prequels. It's got the most humanity and depth out of the prequels, even if it's shallow by the standards of the OT. The cgi characters don't fit with Star Wars at all, but Neeson and Portman are good and Jake Lloyd is at least better than Hayden Christensen. The film doesn't have the unnatural emptiness of the later two prequels.

Attack of the Clones is a biiig drop from Phantom Menace. After I saw this film I wasn't interested in seeing the next one. This film was mostly crap. Even apart from the dreadful fake romance. And that battle at the end with the Jedi was so bland and feelingless, and Yoda fighting with a lightsaber has to be one of the lamest sights ever.

Revenge of the Shit is as big a drop from AOTC as AOTC is from TPM. Horrendous. One of the very worst films I've ever seen. Absolute shite. Absolutely zero depth of feeling or humanity. Flat crap. I can't belive how bad this film is. So much bad acting. Crap cgi. Feelingless uninvolving battle scenes, from the useless opening battle down to the awfulness of the overdone painful lava fight and the pathetic Yoda vs Palpatine. The film has a seriously off message (love is bad, don't love, love turns you bad, passion is bad) and it seems to follow this message in not having any depth of feeling. We're supposed to be sad when the Jedi are "tragically" killed, but they're such a bunch of insufferable jerks that it doesn't work at all. Anakin turning to the dark side is written so poorly it's laughable. And Hayden Christensen's performance was worthy of twenty razzies. Let's also note the the awful bland visual look of the film. You have to work hard to make a film this bad. It really takes effort. Supreme awfulness. A totally shallow empty film.

You guys continue to not answer my post the way I want you to. I want you to rate the movies on the 6 categories I gave on a 1 to 10 scale. Feel free to add more categories if you'd like.

HotRod said:

Janskeet said:

You guys continue to not answer my post the way I want you to. I want you to rate the movies on the 6 categories I gave on a 1 to 10 scale. Feel free to add more categories if you'd like.

 

 

That takes to long...We have a life!! ;)

 

 

1) Revenge of the Sith - 10 /10  -  Great story, great fx, great Acting

2) The Phantom Menace - 9.5 /10  -  Great story, great fx, great Acting

3) Attack of the Clones -  8.5 / 10 - As above, just let down by a few corny lines

4) Return of the Jedi 7.5 / 10 - Best of the OT by far

5) A New hope 6 /10 - Ok but looking dated now

6) The Empire Strikes Back 4 /10 - A little boring in places. And Yoda does look shit compared to the CGI of Episodes 2 & 3

 

;)

YOU'RE JOKING, RIGHT?

It took me less than an hour to make that post. I'm not the busiest person in the world but I'm sure you all can spare 15-30 minuets to answer this correctly.

C'mon 'rod, You're not even trying anymore..

HotRod said:

What do you mean???

If it's my list order....well...yeah!!!

If it's the lack of details, noone else bothered, so why should I!!

Ha!!

 

And I was only joking about my list...I rank AOTC Aove TPM

 

 

 So does that mean you rank AOTC as #1? Boy you really are joking.

I'm surprised how few have agreed with my rankings. I think they're very agreeable. While technically ESB is ranked higher than ANH, I prefer to watch ANH more often because I think the story is more enjoyable than ESB. IMO ESB is technically better done than ANH but ANH is the better story.

 Star Wars, Empire get 10s across the board. Jedi gets deductions each for blah visuals and makeup (I consider the ewoks merely a poor creature effect) and some bad line readings (or just bad looping). 10, 10, 8 for the trilogy.

Phantom Menace, Clones, Sith get all 5s and 6s. except for Ewan /Obi-Wan who is awesome. I have no idea how to score that...