CONTEST And the Jar Jar for Worst Movie goes to

Star Wars 10/10
The Empire Strikes Back 10/10
Return of the Jedi 7.6/10
The Phantom Menace 3.5/10
Revenge of the Sith 2.5/10
Attack of the Clones 0.1/10

There you have it, the correct answer. This cannot be negotiated, not even aggressively.
If Padmé had kicked as much ass in the political arena as she did the Geonosis arena, maybe we would have had some aggressive negotiations to liven up the scenes on Coruscanzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

 

My list:

1. ROTS
2. AOTC
3. TESB
4. TPM
5. ROTJ
6. ANH

 

Not sure if joking or being serious...


My list:

1. TESB
2. ANH
3. ROTJ
4. TPM
5. ROTS
6. AOTC

 

Quite serious

 

The amount of intolerance and prequel hate in this thread is getting annoying...

 

Good choice, that is my list too, only that I switch sometimes ANH with ESB, it depends on my mood.

--- Double Post Merged, Nov 16, 2015, Original Post Date: Nov 16, 2015 ---

Sorry I had too.
The joke aside, you're right, but it would be a pity to close it, it's a interesting read so far and I even like the moderate personal insults.
Where wood is chopped, splinters must fall.

 

The Fore Awakens will wash us clean of the PT/OT tension and unite us in a warm glow of the ST that we all love equally. I love all you nerds so much. See you at the movies.

 

Okay I'm in the vast majority because I thought AoTC was miserable. I'm going to risk the negative rep and give my thoughts.

My favorite is ANH, possibly for sentimental reasons but it really is a great movie that was groundbreaking and created the amazing galaxy that all of us love.

Jedi gets a bad rep from fans, especially the Ewoks, but honestly I think they work, even as a grown man. It's as entertaining as any of the movies. ESB and RoTJ both come in tied for 2nd place for me, just a nose behind ANH.

The prequels... Phantom Menace was the best of the prequels by far but is still a bad movie by any measurable standard. AoTC is just laughable, it's so bad as a film. Lightsabers and explosions can't make it better. And RoTS just fell so short of my expectations. This movie should have been like shooting fish in barrel. I would have thought it would be impossible to mess up the epic final battle between Obi Wan and Anakin, yet somehow it was ridiculous and boring.

I am very hopeful for The Force Awakens. George is a genius and an incredible world builder, but somewhere along the line he forgot how to make a movie.

 

Ouchtime! I just noticed that only one voter (next to myself) feels RotS is the worst while four voters feel that the mother, ANH, is the worst (I'd like to believe this exclusively applies to the Special Edition of ANH).

But I think it does reveal that it is - indeed - a generation thing which probably has to do a lot with what kind of Star Wars we grew up with.

In general, I for one one would prefer a poll where we assign each film points, i.e. six for the best and one for the worst.

And we had to be clear for what we'd be assigning points, story or visual presentation. And, of course, the outcome would only be representative for those participating here. And as an old fossile I believe that there are lesser members of my, i.e. the first generation, actively participating in this forum.

 

I think it also has a lot to do with editing and pacing. Recently rewatched The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (extended version), noticed for the first time it's an interesting morality tale (i.e. you always meet twice in life, think of what you do to the other guy...) but noticed myself the long scenes where essentially nothing happened.

I still like this old fashioned way of film making because it "requires" the audience to get immersed in the scenery and into the story, in contrast most films today deprive us of that opportunity. Still remember early audience reactions to the Endor space battle in ROJ? "Too fast, too hectic".

By today that has become a standard, thus ANH and inevitably looks somewhat dated to some. The sad thing (IMHO) is that the new generation somewhat deprives itself voluntarily from the "immersive" experience of older films. Just my 0.02 $. YMMV.

P.S. CONTINUITY FLAW IN PREQUEL TRILOGY OR INGENIOUS RATIONALIZATION

I just found something rather noteworthy, IMHO, to illustrate - from an in-universe point of view - how poorly executed and hard-to-believe Anakin's turn to the Dark Side actually is.

Now, the big premise in RotS is, that Anakin has dream visions of Padme dying and will literally do anything tp prevent this from happening, that's what drives him eventually to the Dark Side of the Force.
While we, as the audience, learn that the dream turns out to be true, the really BIG question remains how he could possibly be certain that it will happen.

As a matter of fact, his own experience (from TPM) must tell him that he can not rely on his dreams:

ANAKIN. I had a dream I was a Jedi. I came back here and freed all the slaves...

The first part of his dream became true, the other one did not.

Based on his personal experience he must have acknowledged that he couldn't rely entirely on his visions of Padme's death.

Worse, considering that part of his first dream was wishful thinking / dreaming, he should have considered that maybe getting rid of Padme on an unconscious level, might have been an explanation for him seeing her death...

P.S. Maybe I have accidentally found a theory that could make Anakin's transition to the Dark Side somewhat palatable if we all stop assuming that he was ever a nice guy...

 

It's quite interesting really - is the original trilogy not as good as we grognards claim it to be? Could the prequel trilogy be good?

There are a number of articles on this very topic written by prequel defenders on the Internet - some quite elaborate, others short and to the point. But when the prequels are being defended, I never see a solid argument, not even in that 4949 page long treatise written by that übernerd. It all feels suspiciously like religious apologetics, and he clue is in the word that looks like "apology".

Whenever the prequels are defended, we're not getting arguments, but rather apologies. "Ep I" will improve when you see "Ep II" (how did that one turn out?) is a classic example from the early days - same thing is going on right now (and possibly forever) between fans of the first three and the last two novels in George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series.

Another apology is, "Sequels are usually liked less." That doesn't really tell us anything about the prequel trilogy except for on a very superficial level.

When comparisons are made with the OT - as in, "Here's a list of things the OT did poorly, so see? It's bad", I try best to take off those "rose-tinted glasses" they always claim I'm wearing (although I have never liked roses, nor had bad eyesight...well not until now, anyway) and read the argument but...

In a recent such article, one of the points was that "ESB doesn't have an ending". Really? Is that an argument for the lack of quality in the original trilogy? Despite ESB being the most popular film and perhaps precisely because it dared to be different? It did end, by the way, I remember vividly seeing the end credits...perhaps a thousand times... Other points I've seen is "Threepio is as annoying as Jar Jar Binks", and that is of course why the web is brimming with anti-Threepio memes and rants.

The difficulty in arguing anything in this first-world-problem-case is of course that the experience of watching a film is entirely subjective, entirely up to each viewer's opinion. Yet still I feel that there are certain things one could say about the two trilogies that fall pretty close to some form of objectivity (but really, it's not, to be honest, it's all subjective).

I can't play the argument from numbers either, because even if 90% of all who saw the prequels thought it was garbage, it doesn't mean it is garbage. And yet the prequels do so many things wrong, and while Lucas as an artist can do whatever he wants, I have to say he did end up with some astounding flaws in the prequel trilogy that cannot be undone, and in some cases even prequel defenders agree it could have been better. An hour of watching a cactus struggle to shed a needle would be better than Hayden and Padme frolicking in the hills that are alive wth the sound of music, but dammit that's subjective right?

Am I really to believe that in this universe, it is possible to like stuff like that?

There was nothing Star Wars about that plotline and I can't argue about it because it's subjective! Arf.

Means there really is only one thing to do, and that is live and let live. But the "let live" part...well, I'd say the prequels live but they are on life support, in a bacta tank with the lock welded shut.

Thank you come again

 

Hmmm...one of the things I love about forums is that sometimes I get an epiphany when arguments brought forward direct me to a different point of perspective from where to look at things.

Anakin's dream report from TPM and the one from RotS really got me thinking. Maybe we got it all wrong and some time between TPM and AotC Anakin actually transformed into a despicable, selfish character, yet still pretended to be Mr. "Nice Guy". Maybe he just needed to meet the right guy to have his coming out, his true nature to be revealed and Palpatine was that person.

Perhaps just a smokescreen with Anakin pretending to have feelings of "love" while it's actually "lust". Maybe he just used and abused Padme. I think the Anakin character needs a thorough re-evaluation. I shall sleep a night over this.

 

It may be a generational thing but I think there is more to it in some cases. I think there are some Star Wars fans that will like anything just because it's Star Wars. Which is fine; but some will try and pigeon-hole the rest of us by saying "you are not a Star Wars fan if you don't like all the movies". As if there is no chance a Star Wars movie could be bad. I have no tolerance for those kinds of fans. I remember arguing with a prequel fan when the lord of the rings trilogy came out about whether that trilogy was superior to the prequel trilogy. I argued for the rings films and then came the ad hominem "you are not a Star Wars fan". As though just the fact that the prequels were released could preclude you from being a Star Wars fan.

I love Star Wars but, for me, it has to be good cinema first. I realize that everyone has their own criteria for what good cinema is; but I just can't have good, honest discourse with a criteria that's "if it's Star Wars then I love it no matter what". That is a kind of absolutist take that I just can't engage with.

 

Hmmm...I just got a funny for my latest post. That's not what I intended (like any devoted Star Wars fan I'm constantly looking for good rationalizations, especially when the PT is involved)

- George Lucas said that the ST would take another 10 years from his life and he wasn't ready to sacrifice these
- Here I'd say if the PT were that good we shouldn't feel compelled to conjur up so many post-post-production rationalizations on behalf of it
- Sorry, Lucas said in the Rolling Stone interview from 1977 that Vader fell into a volcanic pit of some kind during his duel with Ben Kenobi
- Because Clone Wars was bridging the gap between PT and OT rather well and to much acclaim

I don't consider Kenobi's exile on Tatooine a huge plot gap. Possible he blamed himself for the failure of training Vader and felt he had to remove himself from the "big picture" for that (from a strictly OT point of view). Or he needed to meditate what went wrong before he ever trained another Jedi (like Luke).
What I find remarkable is how much information Ben Kenobi collected during his exile, apparently for a purpose.

--- Double Post Merged, Nov 17, 2015, Original Post Date: Nov 17, 2015 ---

I'm definitely a Star Wars fan (since 1978) and I reluctantly - very reluctantly - feel that the LotR Trilogy was...very good and would have wished for the PT to achieve the same level of quality and coherence. (But still, let's not forget all the endless seeming walking of the protagonists as pointed out by Kevin Smith in Clerks II).

 

The difference is that Threepio is actually funny...