Ranking the Star Wars films — Page 177

Haven’t made a list in a while. First post here, perhaps it won’t be my last!

1. Empire
2. Star Wars
3. Rogue One
4. Jedi

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5. Solo
6. Force Awakens

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7. Sith
8. Phantom Menace
9. Clones
10. Rise of Whatever

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11. Last Jedi

Final Star Wars ranking after my 2023 annual Star Wars marathon

1. Empire Strikes Back - 10/10
2. Return of the Jedi - 10/10
3. A New Hope - 10/10
4. Rogue One - 9/10
5. Revenge of the Sith - 7/10
6. The Last Jedi - 7/10
7. The Force Awakens - 7/10
8. Solo - 6/10
9. Attack of the Clones - 5/10
10. The Phantom Menace - 3/10
11. The Rise of Skywalker - 2/10

Yep, I came around on TLJ. TROS will forever suffer my wrath tho

Why put The Phantom Menace so low?

SparkySywer said:

Why put The Phantom Menace so low?

Once the initial action-packed opening ended it became really boring. The movie throws away pretty much all potential it has for emotional investment, and only some individual scenes stick out (Liam Neeson hard carries). It doesn’t show any of the carnage caused by the trade federation, thus you don’t have any sympathy for Padme’s situation like you do Leia’s in ANH. Same problem with Anakin, no abuse is even hinted at. The mf literally goes “yippee” to his slave master. The only potential value that seeing Vader as a 9 year old could possibly offer is just thrown out the window. It’s just a fundamentally stupid concept making him that young, he either can’t do enough or anything he does is flat out ridiculous because, again, he’s 9. Obi-Wan has hardly anything to do. AOTC is the first prequel movie where Obi-Wan really feels like a character, in TPM he’s basically just Qui-Gon’s sidekick who bickers with him all the time. Even the relationship between the Gungans and the Naboo is squandered. Could’ve maybe actually explored why they hated each other and reconciling, as well as expounding upon whatever symbiotic relationship Obi-Wan was talking about, but nope. You can see that Lucas was trying to explore the themes of symbiotic relationships, that people need to work together in order to accomplish things, and as someone who takes a lot of interest in ecology, it’s an interesting concept, but it simply doesn’t come together.

I don’t like it for the same reason a lot of people who dislike the prequels like it the most of the 3: it’s irrelevancy to the larger story. I know many people hate AOTC more because it messes up Anakin, but not only does Obi-Wan still make it enjoyable for me, but trying and failing to tell Anakin’s story well is better then doing basically nothing at all.

It’s my personal opinion, but I don’t feel like we need to see Anakin or Padme get brutalized for me to sympathize with them. Slavery is wrong in and of itself. Even if their master treats them well, they still own them. As a slave, Anakin would never fulfill his potential or make a life of his own, he’d simply be Watto’s property.

Similarly, I don’t feel like I have to see mass murder for me to think that the Trade Federation invading and occupying a sovereign planet is wrong, either, or that Padme’s situation of having to deal with her planet taken by force isn’t dire without seeing it. There’s a couple scenes where they say the Trade Federation is trying to make the people of Naboo suffer to coerce her into making the invasion legal, and maybe it would have helped to show and not tell, but we do still see some of the effects of the occupation, so it’s not like they don’t show it at all.

I also sort of like how young they made kid Anakin. There are some scenes where I feel like it would do the movie well if he acted more mature. But I like kid Anakin’s innocence, and, I’m not sure how to articulate it, but this feeling of Anakin’s life being a blank canvas that I’m not sure would be there if his age was bumped up to being a teenager or older like a lot of people suggest, where he’s already well on his way to being a grown man. Or maybe this is all nostalgia, though. When I was a kid I loved kid Anakin.

I agree though that Obi-Wan’s kind of lame. The older drafts of the movie where Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon are combined into the same character sound really interesting, and I wish something like that was preserved. Either that, or Obi-Wan was the proactive character and Qui-Gon was another apprentice of his. It is what it is, though

My updated ranking with all the films:

1. Revenge of the Sith
2. A New Hope
3. Rogue One
4. The Empire Strikes Back
5. Attack of the Clones
6. The Phantom Menace
7. Return of the Jedi
8. The Force Awakens
9. The Clone Wars
10. Solo
11. The Last Jedi
12. The Rise of Skywalker