Well lads, I may as well offer my opinion. I can’t remember who did it earlier in this thread, but someone rated them via balls, which I liked. So here is mine:
ANH - 94 balls
ESB - 93 balls
ROJ - 87 balls
TFA - 74 balls
AOTC - 66 balls
TPM - 63 balls
ROTS - 55 balls
Explanations:
ANH and ESB are basically a toss-up. I’ll put it this way: I enjoy ANH more, but I recognize ESB is the better film.
ROJ: Man, ROJ gets way underrated here. I honestly think it rocks - on some days I can convince myself that I enjoy it the most out of the originals (again, not say is better, but enjoy more). The amount of dislike has always puzzled me a bit. It had its weak points, but not enough to justify this dislike it gets.
TFA: And on that note, man, TFA gets both… under and overrated? Like, it’s hard to be someone who takes the middle ground on it. I will start with saying that I think people who say it is as good as or better than ROJ are crazy (no offense). That comparison isn’t close to me. But it certainly didn’t suck - it was far, far too derivative (by far the most valid and biggest complaint), but at least it didn’t suck while it was being derivative. My closing thought will be this: In my mind, I consider the Thrawn Trilogy to be the true successor to the original trilogy. And honestly? That disappoints me. I expected more of the film and out of Abrams. So even though it didn’t suck, it is still on the disappointment side for me.
The Prequels:
To start with, I don’t dislike them nearly as much as people here. They were the Star Wars that I grew up with. Everyone who got to grow up with the originals, that’s awesome and I’m jealous, but being a kid and growing up with the prequels was pretty damn awesome too. That nostalgia runs DEEP (like in my blood deep), and it makes me a little sad to see all the vitriol directed at such an integral part of my childhood. Yes, they are flawed, but damn, they’re not as bad as this collective forum would lead you to believe. Blasphemous opinion coming in hot: They are more Star Wars to me than TFA is.
For specifics, yes, I like AOTC the best, sue me. I have a huge soft spot for that movie. TPM had too many of the ‘immature’ moments to be the best prequel, and ROTS… Sigh. ROTS lost me simply because I could not find Anakin’s fall to the Dark Side to be realistic. It just happened too fast for me. That really stings, because that was kind of the draw of the prequel trilogy, to see how Anakin fell.
Well, I’m sure many people will disagree, but that’s both the point and the beauty of the forum, to generate discussion. On a final note, I recently watched Hal9000’s fan edits of the prequels, and let me just say he killed it. ‘Hot take’ number whatever, but I would rate his AOTC fan edit (The Approaching Storm) as an 80 on my scale. I loved it - definitely more than TFA.