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Now that you've seen TFA, rank the Star Wars Films! (AGAIN!)


Pong Messiah
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I can get having TFA, ROTJ, and ROTS interchangeable in the middle, but if you put ANH or ESB under a prequel movie... I distrust everything about your life choices.

Every time I rewatch ROTJ it gets more obvious this is where the franchise rot began. Everything you complain about the PT can find their roots here. The same creative mind was responsible for both. And by the time ROTJ rolled around Lucas had amassed enough power he was pretty much calling all the shots (the biggest problem with the PT).

 

Once you accept that ROTJ is pretty much in the same category as the PT, it's not much of a leap to rank them on entertainability.

 

And teddy bears with sticks pwning the best troops the Empire has to offer with their modern weapons just because Lucas is happy Vietnam won the war is a major wall banger. I can't even watch the movie anymore.

 

Ps. I know YOU can see ROTJ being interchangeable ... I was just elaborating for others. Just in case quoting you seemed like I was arguing.

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I didn't hate the Ewoks then and I still don't hate them now (they remind me of the Fremen in some ways), but I didn't dislike Jar Jar that much either; my issues with the prequels are more fundamental (and I think TFA is very prequel-esque in places), and I find the emphasis on Jar Jar really tiresome.

 

Although I really dislike "you can't use X in Star Wars movie A as a justification for thinking Star Wars movie A is better or worse than Star Wars movie B because Star Wars movie B contains X too" arguments (one popped up in the TFA thread regarding Snoke's name), I think every Rebel victory over the Empire in the OT is pretty implausible

 

I don't think you can avoid implausibility or absurd levels of serendipity / coincidence in these sorts of movie (although it didn't really bother me, I did think TFA was turning it up to eleven), and the strength of them (if they're made well) is either being able to make you not realize that you are suspending your disbelief (some movies are so engrossing that they manage to do that no matter how many times you see them) or be so entertaining that it doesn't matter

 

If people think the Ewoks winning on Endor is daft because things happen during that scenario that pull them out of the movie (Ewoks defeating Imperial troops in hand-to-hand combat would have done that for me), then I'm interested in what they have to say. If they just think it's daft just because it's implausible, then meh

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No you're right all their victories were implausible and that's the point in some ways. But there's implausible and then there's retarded. The Ewoks winning was retarded.

 

Example. Every good sports movie has the impossible underdog win. That's cool. But if they show the Bad News Bears (who were like 12 years old) beat the World Series Champs then nobody's gonna say "suspend your disbelief" because it's retarded.

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I can get having TFA, ROTJ, and ROTS interchangeable in the middle, but if you put ANH or ESB under a prequel movie... I distrust everything about your life choices.

There was this one time in high school where I came up behind a girl and grabbed her boobs. Looking back that wasn't a great decision. You might be into something here.
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Example. Every good sports movie has the impossible underdog win. That's cool. But if they show the Bad News Bears (who were like 12 years old) beat the World Series Champs then nobody's gonna say "suspend your disbelief" because it's retarded.

Not the best example. The Bad News Bears lost the championship game.

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1. Empire
2. Star Wars
3. The Force Awakens

4. Return of the Jedi
5. Revenge of the Sith
6. The Phantom Menace
7. Attack of the Clones

I'm tempted to say that I'd be willing to tie Force Awakens and New Hope, but I know I really need to let Force Awakens settle in before I can jump to any kind of conclusion like that. But it's absolutely right there with the original and Empire as my favorites of the series.

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Example. Every good sports movie has the impossible underdog win. That's cool. But if they show the Bad News Bears (who were like 12 years old) beat the World Series Champs then nobody's gonna say "suspend your disbelief" because it's retarded.

Not the best example. The Bad News Bears lost the championship game.

Guess it's been too long since I saw that. LOL

 

You're smart enough to get my point though

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As mentioned in the main TFA thread, the film felt very rushed--pacing and time to allow characters (aside from Rey & Finn) to really breathe--it was just nowhere to be found. It was all just a quicky, ANH-dipped summary to blow up the weapon and send Rey on her way. On that note, it does not stand up to any entry in the original trilogy, but it was more effective as a SW film than most of the prequels.

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1. Empire

2. Star Wars

3. The Force Awakens

4. Return of the Jedi

5. Revenge of the Sith

6. The Phantom Menace

7. Attack of the Clones

 

I'm tempted to say that I'd be willing to tie Force Awakens and New Hope, but I know I really need to let Force Awakens settle in before I can jump to any kind of conclusion like that. But it's absolutely right there with the original and Empire as my favorites of the series.

I'm right there with you, only exception would be tpm would be last and atoc in the 6 spot.

 

Either way, it's far and away better than anything the prequels had to offer.

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Empire

Star Wars

Tie - Jedi/Force Awakens

 

 

 

 

Phantom Menace in a distant forth because it at least tried to be visually unique and occasionally had locations that didn't look like green screens

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clones and Sith tied for an extremely distant fifth. They both blend into one giant turd in my mind.

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1. ESB - Builds on what ANH establishes by going for character rather than spectacle

2. ANH - Fantasy wrapped in lived-in, "used"-world clothing

3. ROTJ - Dips back into the superweapon well, but still succeeds in completing its character arcs

4. TFA / TPM - Both a little too derivative of ANH for my taste

5. ROTS - Wraps up the PT as best it can

6. AOTC - Just a mess of ideas

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I noticed The Phantom Menace isn't on your list, Ryn. Can we assume it's last then?

 

Technically my ranking would still be the same since I don't consider The Force Awakens canon, and therefore it would not be listed. But in conjunction with what I said in the review thread about it being a good movie as a movie alone, and not as Star Wars, I will rank the film now as films only, with the new film among them.

1. The Empire Strikes Back

2. A New Hope

3. Revenge of the Sith

4. Return of the Jedi

5. The Force Awakens

6. Attack of the Clones

7. The Phantom Menace

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1. Empire Strikes Back

2. The Force Awakens - Perhaps when the novelty wears off I won't rate it as high, but I've seen it 3 times and every time I've enjoyed it more and more. It's everything I want a Star Wars movie to be. On a visual and emotionally charged level it has the best lightsaber duel out of the Saga. How the glow of the sabers cast a tint on the snow and the characters faces. We've never seen that in any Star Wars movie before.

3. Return of the Jedi

4. A New Hope

5. The Phantom Menace - Despite what the majority of the fans say I still feel like this was the best Prequel. It was the last George Lucas movie that still felt like a Star Wars movie because it was crafted like the Original Trilogy. It was shot on 35mm film and was still using practical effects, real locations and sets. Hell, even Yoda was still a puppet. Once everything went digital and went full CGI it just turned into a 2 hour video game. Seriously, go back and watch AOTC or ROTS. The green screen work is so terrible now I can't even watch it. The CGI did not age well at all. Did the story have it flaws? Yes of course. Jake Lloyd, Jar Jar, midichlorians and all that political mumbo jumbo. But none of the faults in TPM are any or more worse than AOTC or ROTS. And to date, Duel of Fates is still the best choreographed and stylistic lightsaber duel of all time. After that duel, none of the subsequent lightsaber duels made any sense tonally. They should have increased in intensity, speed and style. It's like George didn't know how to top it.

 

I don't want to come off as pretentious but I refuse put AOTC or ROTS on the list. I despise almost everything about them.

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1. Star Wars '77

2. Empire Strikes Back (some drop-off in quality between the original and the sequel, we don't really notice because we're just glad to see these guys having fun and/or getting tortured and that ending is such a punch to the gut [in a good way] that it makes up for any unnoticed deficiencies in what came before)

3. Return of the Jedi (the rot really really sets in here, this is like three movies stacked together, the Rescue of Han Solo, Jungle Adventure Among The Cannibal Teddy Bears, and Superb Dramatic Finale, and the last two don't really gell together for me anymore)

4. The Force Awakens (gets a lot of credit for me for that first piece, everything up until Old Han Solo walks in the door instead of some stormtroopers is really aces, great stuff, exactly what I would want from a Star Wars sequel, and then I never quite recovered from that point forward but who knows maybe I'll change my mind on this if I see it again, it certainly has a longer uninterrupted streak of enjoyment for me than any of the next three)

5. The Phantom Menace (probably the best of the bad ones if you accept them on their own terms, even halfway succeeds at some of what it's trying to do assuming you're in the exact bullseye target audience of eight-year old boys but everyone outside of that particular piece of mental real estate doesn't have much of an excuse in my book, then again, how scary was Darth Maul oooohhh so scary)

6. Attack of the Clones (just really bad, there's no blood going to it at all, Christopher Lee can't save it, Samuel L. Jackson can't save it, Ewan McGregor can't save it, Yoda and R2 can't save it)

7. Revenge of the Sith (Yoda climbing on Chewie's shoulders, that's it, that's all you get, have fun with the remaining two hours nineteen minutes and thirty-nine seconds, just really soak in all the children dying and the wife crying and choking and the wheezing cricketman with the ten arms, just everything bad about the Prequels with next to none of its few and far between saving graces)

 

Back to the Future > Ghostbusters

Broadcast News > Network

Many Of The Videogame Cutscenes From Rebel Assault II > Much Of The Force Awakens

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