freeofgreed
Member
So over the past 2 days, I decided to marathon all 6 star wars films. I had seen episode 4 a few years ago and I've seen bits and pieces of 5 and 2 here and there, but this was pretty much my first time experiencing the whole thing. I tried to go in completely unbiased and view the films as objectively as I could without letting what i've heard about them influence me. Here are my thoughts on each films.
A New Hope Excellent film. Despite being made in 1977 this film still holds up marvelously, which goes to show how much of a timeless classic it is. The acting and dialogue can be cheesy as hell at times but that's not necessarily a bad thing and I feel that it actually adds to the movie's charm. However My biggest flaw with the film is all the CGI. From what I've read this wasn't actually in the original film and was added retroactively by Lucas. It really hurt the experience for me imo and was distracting as hell. Even though I've never seen the originals, the fact that I could very easily tell which scenes weren't in the original is a bad thing. The worst part is that it added nothing and most of it was just pointless transition scenes that really didn't need to be there. It's funny how the cgi was made to update the film but it actual dates the film far worse than the original effects (which were amazing especially for its time)
Empire Strikes Back I'd rank all of the original films pretty closely but I think I'd give ESB the slight edge as being my favorite (it helps that this seemingly was the least fucked with out of the 3). From the onset you can tell that the production values for ESB were much better than the original. The battle on Hoth was great. It introduced Yoda, and my nigga Lando. It had some of the most iconic lines in pop culture period. This film takes everything the original did well and does it even better. Again just like the original I really don't have anything bad to say about this one at all.
Return of the Jedi Of the original 3 I'd probably say ROTJ was probably the weakest (I still really enjoyed it though). It had some great set pieces (the scene where their chasing after the scout troopers for example). However I still think overall it was a slight step down from ESB. The pointless CGI makes a return. Also Luke's ridiculously conoluted plan to rescue Han was dumb as hell. Overrall the film was still really enjoyable and a fitting end to trilogy. but what the hell is this?
The Phantom Menance Oh boy where do I start with this one. Guess I'll start by saying out of all 6 films I definitely think that this is the worst one. Now let me start with the good because I actually think there's a lot of good here. I didn't have any problems with the story itself and thought it was fine. Liam Neeson as Qui Gon Jinn was fucking fantastic. Dude single handedly carried this film, and aside from Christopher Lee I think he delivered some of the best acting out of the entire franchise. Pod racing was alright. Darth Maul was pretty fucking cool too and the fight between him Qui Gon and Obi Wan is easily my favorite fight out of the whole series.
Now for the bad. Honestly I only have 3 major issues with this film. However these issues are so massive that they just brought down the entire film for me. The first is the fucking CGI. Lucas went so overboard with the cgi and it really clashes with the aesthetic of the originals. This is the fourth film to come out but it honestly felt like the oldest because of all the 90s style cgi which dated the fuck out of the film. It honestly felt like I was watching a cartoon at some points. Second is the acting. God the acting is so fucking terrible. literally every single person in this film aside from Liam Neeson was god awful. Even Natalie Portman was bad and I know she can act. It isn't her age that's the problem as she was amazing in Leon the professional and that came out 5 years before this did. This tells me that it was the directing that was fucked up. But by far the worst piece of acting came from Jake fucking Lloyd he was atrocious. That kid had 0 business being in this film. I get that he was really young but they still could've gotten someone a few years older. Natalie Portman was a few years older than her character so I don't know why they couldn't do the same for Anakin. it also would've made their budding romance a bit less creep since she was fucking 8 years older than him. The last major issue I had was with the overall tone. It's clear that Lucas was aiming at a younger demographic with this one and that gave us the stupid slapstick comedy that permeates the film. Other minor issues I had was with Jar Jar Binks (I didn't hate him as much as other people do but he was still pretty fucking bad). Also basing a lot of the aliens in this film off of ethnic stereotypes was lazy as hell.
Attack of the Clones In my opinion this was an improvement over the previous film in every way. The acting is still bad but serviceable. A lot of people hate Hayden Christensen, but I thought he was...ok (but then again it's probably because I was just happy that I didn't have to deal with Jake Lloyd). There's still alot of CGI but it's not as bad as the previous film, and a bit of it actually does look good....at times....briefly. I did enjoy this one though and I think it had some great action scenes and some great fights as well. Also there's less Jar Jar and the tone is more aligned with the original trilogy.
Revenge of the Sith just like AOTC I think this was an improvement over the previous film in every way. The CGI isn't actually half bad...for the most part (practical effects are still king). The acting seems to have evened out quite a bit...for the most part. And tonally this is probably the darkest of the 6. I think I'd put this and AOTC equal to each other just because I liked AOTC's story a little bit better. I really liked the ending to this one and I think they tied the two sagas together well nicely (ignoring all the plotholes the prequels created of course).
Final thoughts Overall I really enjoyed all of them. The original is definitely leagues above the prequels, but I still feel they accomplished what they set out to do with them (to tell Darth Vader's origin) effectively. I think the biggest reason the prequels didn't live up to the original is because it lacked it's sense of adventure. The original had a core cast of characters who traveled together throughout all three films. the prequels really lack a core cast we could follow and instead we usually ended up following several different characters who were off doing their own thing. I will give the prequels credit in that each film was definitely an improvement over the last. Also each of the prequels had an excellent villain (Darth Maul, Count Dooku, General Grievous) who unfortunately weren't given enough screen time. If I were to rank each films it'd go
ESB >= ANH >= ROTJ > ROTS = AOTC > TPM
Next I'll keep the star wars train going and watch The Clone Wars since I've heard so many good things about it.
