TFA and TLJ are both much better than phantom, clone, and revenge. Well revenge was okay. Phantom and clone are terrible. Nothing could be worse that phantom
Have to agree with Lumi. The Last Jedi is by far the worst Star Wars movie ever made. It was just abysmal. Much worse than any of the prequels.
I have a hard time deciding what was worse between Rogue One/The Force Awakens and the three prequels... on the one hand, the prequels were full of cheesy crap, horrendous acting, cringe-seizure-inducing dialogue, and lots of Jar Jar... but... at least they felt like real Star Wars movies on some level and didn't fundamentally betray the lore or the main characters of the original trilogy. TFA and Rogue One were cooler, sleeker, better done in many ways, not nearly as corny, and they had 100% less Jar Jar... but then again... they were just badly written, full of plot holes, weighed down by politics, and felt like so much bad fan fiction what with the Mary Sues in both movies, the wink wink nudge nudge moments that made no sense in the context of the film, and the blatant plagiarism of the story.
But The Last Jedi was far worse than any of the others. Completely, totally laid waste to any and all enthusiasm I have for Star Wars. I won't go see episode 9. And I'm not enthusiastic at all for Solo. I just don't care. Considering how much I loved Star Wars 20 years ago... this is a remarkable shift in perspective.
When I saw The Phantom Menace I was thrilled. The lightsaber duel at the end was exhilarating. The pod racing sequence was intense (some of this was that the FX were pretty ahead of their time for 1999, and also the technological improvements that Lucas in large part forced theaters to adopt, so the sound and picture quality were amazing to me). McGregor's portrayal of Obi-Wan was spot on. And like I said it FELT like a Star Wars movie.
On repeat viewings at home, yeah, the amount of Jar Jar became increasingly annoying. The kid's acting was more and more grating. And it was disappointing that they had missed an opportunity to tell what could have been a more compelling origin story for Anakin.
When I saw Attack of the Clones my cousin and I were in Times Square with a crowd of enthusiastic fans. Again, it was thrilling. The whole theater cheered loudly when Yoda showed up in the final act. My cousin and I went to see it again the next day. And again the day after that.
On repeat viewings the atrocious romantic scenes between Anakin and Padme made the film all but unwatchable. But the authentic Star Wars feelings was still strong enough to overpower the cheese on the first few viewings, especially with an enthusiastic crowd.
Compare this to The Last Jedi. The theater was silent. And bored. I was repeatedly checking my watch. And fidgeting in my seat. As the movie progressively got worse and worse and worse my boredom turned into annoyance. Annoyance gave way to disgust. Disgust built into anger. I left the theater thoroughly disappointed. After a few days of thinking about it I was just mad at how terrible it was. I never saw the movie again. It's on satellite now and I could watch it for free if I wanted to. Don't want to. It was way way way worse than any of the prequels. I haven't forgotten.
I agree with @Kalbahamut. I thought the prequels were bad (they were) but TLJ is whole new level of atrociousness. I just through out pretty much every accepted concept in SW and added in some PC nonsense and the dullest chase scene since Speed 2. There is so much wrong with that film that I don’t even know where to start. Even ignoring the changes to SW traditions (tracking in hyper space and running out of light speed fuel) it’s just a bad movie. Why don’t the empire call in a few more star destroyers, they do after all control the galaxy I assume that means they have at least a couple of ships?! That would let them box the rebels in. That ends the films and the rebels right there. Instead we get a dull as chase scene and a detour to the casino planet that serves no purpose and just drags the films out.
I agree with Kal, except for one thing - as of the vantage point of 2020, The Rise of Skywalker has usurped The Last Jedi's standing as the worst Star Wars film. But yeah, the prequels had shoddy dialogue and acting, but they had far more heart and soul than the sequels. I think Revenge of the Sith was actually pretty good, objectively speaking. The other two not so much, but they at least advanced a story that was at the heart of Star Wars and tied in closely with the original trilogy. The sequels bear all the hallmarks of movies made by committee - soulless corporate cash grabs with no overarching plot and essentially just made up as they go along. The Force Awakens was at least a competent - if inferior - remake of A New Hope, but the two that followed are better forgotten.
To be honest, between the prequels and the sequels I’m having a tough time deciding which trilogy is truly worse. On the prequels side you’ve got bad acting, cringe dialogue, lots of CGI that looks bad or out of place, and characters that are either really bland or annoying. Sometimes both. The sequels fix some of these problems but also adds some new ones like rushed character development, overloaded fan service, wasted character potential, politically correct moments (Rey gets the worst of it, Mary Sue incarnate that she is), and tons of plot holes. Both trilogies mistreated characters from the original trilogy pretty badly. To give some credit to the prequels, they’re probably the only one of the three to have a story that was fully planned, even if we already know how it ends. The sequels have better performances and special effects, and I think they are also better directed, even with both directors contradicting each other. Anyway, that’s just my opinion.
The Last Jedi is the best film because Luke as an old, embittered man is way more interesting than Luke as a young earnest do-gooder. It's one of the only interesting and unexpected story beats in a film series that is otherwise a simplistic children's story about good and evil.
Alright so you know how the first three movies in the 70’s were meant to be for children, and how children at the time enjoyed them. Yeah well in the 2000’s the NEW MOVIES WERE MEANT TO BE ENJOYED BY CHILDREN, NOT FOR MIDDLE AGED MEN. AND JAR JAR BINKS WAS FUNNY BECAUSE THE STAR WARS SAGA IS MEANT FOR CHILDREN, AND CHILDREN LIKE JAR JAR BINKS, AGAIN BECAUSE HE’S FUNNY.
Yeah. I thought that episode 1 had some cool parts, but Jar-Jar sort of brought the entire movie down. 2 was full of cringy Anakin-Padme romance, but the whole Kamino mystery was pretty nice, and I liked the whole hidden army thing. I really liked episode 3 though. It still had some bad dialogue, but it was far less than the previous 2, and it showed Anakin's fall very well. 4 was the original Star Wars, it was a great movie and it was started from scratch. 5 was great and it sort of put into perspective what the rebels were up against, plus awesome Vader moments. 6 was a fulfilling finale, and Anakin coming back to the light was a great scene.
For the sequels... what I took from them was as follows: 7, a remake of 4 but trying to make everything bigger and flashier (see: scene with Starkiller Base-Death Star comparison). I actually kinda liked this one, it was a good attempt from someone who wasn't George Lucas. We also have to talk about how a stormtrooper injured Kylo Ren in a lightsaber duel, and Kylo proceeded to get defeated by a random girl who barely knows what the force is. 8 was just confusing, it chewed up everything in the last movie and spit it out completely different, with plot holes, useless characters, and boring scenes. 9 tore up Star Wars in general. Palpatine is back? So Anakin died for no reason, and the Chosen One prophecy didn't mean anything. Force healing? Qui-Gon could have lived. And then there's Rogue One. I liked it a lot, it was nice to see a separate story without the main cast. And Solo, which I kinda liked but it was a bit boring. Though I would have liked to see more Maul apart from the shows
Episode 9 was so funny to watch, after 10 minutes me and my friends just didn't care and started joking about Adam Driver's nose out of pure boredom. We came out of the theater not knowing what happened in the movie.
Episodes 1,2,3 are bad, The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi were both amazing additions to the franchise. Haven't seen Rogue One, don't have any interest in Solo. People need to stop letting nostalgia cloud your judgment about films.
Rogue One was way better than 8. But still bad. 1, 2, and 3 were all but, but definitely superior to 8. People need to stop letting their poor taste cloud their judgment about film. 8 is a straight up horrible movie.
Have to agree with kalbahamut on this one, after watching the force awakens i thought it was alright, not the best but certainly not awful, but then i watched the last jedi and i hated pretty much all of it, couldn't give two shits about the rest of it now. Been a long time since i've watched the rest of the films so hard for me to compare them, but i'd say the force awakens was on par with the prequels, better in some aspects and worse in others.
Rogue One is the best Star Wars movie since the original trilogy by a wide margin. I also like the Last Jedi a lot more than most people did, but I am not personally invested in Star Wars, so what they did with Luke didn't really rankle me like it did most people. I mostly like how they unceremoniously killed Snoke, who was such a lazy Palpatine ripoff, and that Kylo Ren had a lot of dimension and unpredictability (plus it's nice that Adam Driver can actually act). I think fully-realized villains cover up a lot of holes in a story. They're so fun to watch. The Monte Carlo subplot was freaking brutal though. But I hated The Force Awakens a lot more. That movie didn't accomplish anything. They could have introduced the new characters in a five-minute prologue to the Last Jedi and saved us all a lot of trouble.
TFA is a crappy attempt at a shot-for-shot remake of ANH.
The other 2 sequels are even worse. No coherency, extremely convenient plot devices and atrocious character development. Disney wasted an incredible opportunity.
The sequels had terrible dialogue, but at least the story was compelling and the characters were interesting.
To be fair, all three trilogies have moments of some bad dialogue; George Lucas was never known to be quite the wordsmith. I'd argue the prequels have the worst of it.
Then again, just because it's been done in the past doesn't really excuse why it's also in the present.
The original trilogy could get away with bad dialogue because the cast was so charming and had such great chemistry that it was fun watching them on screen regardless. They pulled it off.
Surely Jabba is on screen longer than ten minutes, especially if you count reissues of A New Hope that include Jabba at Mos Eisley confronting Han Solo.
surely darth vader and Anakin skywlker should be separate as he wasn't darth vader for most of the prequels....... this was just done to get him top of the list wasn't it
also mace windu..... 10 MINUTES IN 3 FILMS????? I don't think so his battle with palpatine was about 5 minutes alone
The prequels are underrated people just like to complain. I actually didn't find the new one that great. No training and this chick is taking on a trained force user... Okay.
The difference between the prequels and the sequels is that for invested star wars fans, there is more supplementary media of the prequels. And by that I mean the Clone Wars Tv show exists. With it, Anakin's fall is realistic. The Jedi actually seem corrupt. You don't cringe every time Padme is on the screen. The clones are actually human beings, not just a plot device like in the movies. The Clone wars is possibly the best star wars, outside of the first two movies. The prequels form a coherent story. The sequels do not. There is no character growth, there are no stakes, and nothing makes sense. Every sequel is a better individual movie than in the context of star wars. The prequels are the exact opposite.
Agree with some of what you said, benf. Part of the reason that the sequels are bad is because they are supposed to be sequels... and the crap all over the films that they are supposed to be sequels to... and even crap all over each other as Rian decided to completely toss out JJ's plan, and JJ spent half of episode 9 undoing everything Rian did. If Johnson wanted to make his own space movie about the evils of horse racing and female empowerment, he should have done that. Not destroyed a franchise and ruined the story arc by making a 2nd film in a trilogy that didn't go with the 1st or 3rd.
On the other hand, I disagree that the sequels were good by themselves. 7 was derivative and full of inside jokes and references for Star Wars fans. It was badly written regardless, but if old Star Wars didn't exist it would have fallen even more flat than it did. And then 8 and 9, even if you ignore how badly they handle the lore and characters, are straight up boring movies.
I mean episode 9 was just *terrible*. The writing and plotting and even the action set pieces made *no* sense. You could tell they were trying so hard to be epic but they failed on every level. I think I had more fun watching some of the Fast & the Furious movies. I definitely had more fun watching the first Transformers and later Bumblebee. And I frickin' hate the Michael Bay Transformers movies. But it was really that bad.
Another hilarious insult to those people who think Boba Fett is a noteworthy character!
Shocked not to see Jabba the Hutt or Darth Maul on this list... that epic lightsaber battle *HAD* to have had helped contribute more than 10 minutes worth of screen time to this list?
It's not that it's an opinion. If you polled Star Wars fans about their favorite Star Wars movie, I *guarantee* you that at least 90% of those answering any of the prequel films are under 35. And if you eliminated episode 3 then it would be 99%. Star Wars fans that are 40+ are going to overwhelmingly answer with one of the films in the original trilogy; those are the films they grew up with, and they are more sensitive to and aware of the changes and deficiencies in the later films. Also the older fans are less likely to care about the dated special FX or fight choreography. When they first saw the OT the FX were amazing. But that was 40 years ago.
I'm wondering why this was featured again now, when it isn't updated for Episode VIII. These numbers are obviously wrong now, with huge increases for Luke, Leia, Rey, and Kylo Ren. Besides smaller increases for C-3PO, R2-D2, Chewbacca, and Yoda, Poe Dameron probably makes the list now, with Poe and BB-8 both overtaking Dooku. Also, your Source link is dead.
don't forget obnoxious Vietnamese girl. She had a pretty big part in The Last Jedi (movie I'm ever going to see). Pretty sure it was more than 10 minutes. Felt like 10 hours.
Or probably should have just been featured before the 8th movie came out. There's not much that can be done now since, as you pointed out, there is no source any longer. I changed the description to say "first seven movies".
Would be Interesting to see an updated version now that The Last Jedi is out, also could you maybe accept Fin with one n as well, I was very confused when It didn't show.
Aww, I was rooting for Wicket to sneak in there. That scene with Leia where they sit on a log and he eats her Snickers bar felt like at least 10 minutes when I was a kid...
With all the hate going on in these comments, I just wanna say one thing :
Each of the 10 movies released today are great pieces of the Star Wars universe. They all have their flaws in different ways of course, but they also all have something great about them.
And mostly you don't get to choose what is Star Wars and what isn't. It's a big, diverse universe (hah that's funny to say) with a constantly expanding lore and a ton of different stories to tell. Just enjoy it, or don't, but at least let others enjoy it in peace.
There was not a single thing great about The Last Jedi in terms or story or character or anything that matters. It had some nice looking visual effects. That's it.
TLJ wasn't perfect or even great, but it certainly wasn't the train wreck that you claim it to be. It had creative new ideas and I might be in the minority when I say this, but I like what they did with Luke's Character. One of the main ideas in the Prequels was that the Jedi certainly weren't perfect. When Luke finds this out by looking into the Jedi more carefully (coupled with the Kylo Ren debacle that I did not like), he abandons the force and the Jedi. It also portrays Luke as the exact opposite of what people were saying he was in TFA, just a normal man and not a god that will single handedly win the war by "swinging a laser sword," I thought it was a great change of pace for the most part. I did, however, think Canto Bight was one of the worst storylines in Star Wars... but that didn't really matter to me much because i was legitimately interested in the Kylo Ren and Rey connection that we had never seen before in a Star Wars movie.
@Barrett77 , as much as I understand he wouldn't single-handedly take down the First Order, I refuse to believe that Luke would attack Ben Solo and give up on rebuilding the Jedi Order. The Jedi in the prequels were far from perfect, becoming tools of the republic and soldiers. But the idea of the Jedi before that time was to serve the Force and keep balance (aka, no dark side). The point of the prequels was to get rid of the old Jedi to begin anew.
As for the new take and new direction, it wasn't horrible on its own, but Rian destroyed everything before him and left nothing to build on. He actually said in an interview that he didn't care about the big picture and only cared about the film he was creating. That's just not the attitude to have when creating the middle 'glue' film in a Star Wars trilogy. In a standalone film? Sure. In your own trilogy? Go for it. But it wasn't his trilogy, just his film in a trilogy of other directors and writers. Also as a note, I like the prequels.
I'm going to say something controversial. I liked the prequels, say what you want about the acting. TPM introduced us to the characters and explained Palpatine's rise to power, how Anakin became a Jedi, AotC showed us Anakin's rise to power, how Palpatine got dictator-ish powers, the clones, RofS was the best of the prequels. That showed us how Anakin turned evil, why Luke was at Tatooine and why Obi-Wan was there, why there are no Jedis, the rise of the Empire and the creation of Darth Vader. I'll agree that TLJ and TFA attempted to recreate the Star Wars hype with worse characters that didn't add anything, at least the prequels were relevant to the originals. Rogue One was good too, explained the flaws of the original of how they got the plans and why the Death Star was easy to destroy.
We all knew what the prequels were going to be about before they were made, and they ticked off most of those boxes. They just could have done a much better job doing it. Also, sometimes, offering up a weak explanation for something is worse than offering no explanation at all. If the audience is left to wonder they can come up with better explanations in their imaginations.
Anakin isn't the same person as Darth Vader. Allthough he is transformed into Vader, his identity isn't the same. Even Vader said that Anakin Skywalker was no more.
I was pre teen when Star Wars came .I thought they were OK. To watch them as an adult they were just awful.With so many wonderful movies made over the years I have to laugh at some peoples (adults) obsession with what are very average kids movies. GROW UP people.
i think the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6th episode should have remained the way they were. the others are just over the top and pointless. Idk thats just me. Poe is pretty cool though.
For all of their many faults, most of which have been outlined above, the prequels have it all over the disney travesties for several reasons:
1. Each prequel is objectively better than the one before it.
2. Each prequel features progressively less Jar-Jar than the one before it (see 1).
3. Each prequel makes sense on its own, while the same can be said for the trilogy as a whole.
4. George Lucas largely succeeded in creating a new generation of Star Wars fans by making a new trilogy just for them. He's stated that the prequels were not for the original fans, but for the kids of the 1990s. In my experience, many (but not all) of the people who were 8 - 12 when T.P.M. came out like that "their" trilogy a lot more than we do (at least when they don't have a middle aged guy shouting them down). Kudos, George.
5. In contrast, it seems that the nicest thing anyone can say about the disney "efforts" is that they are divisive.
As for Rogue 1, it's hamstrung from the start. If you'd seen A New Hope, you knew their plan had to succeed, and that every character had to die by the end.
Also, fake Leia and Tarkin took me out of the movie, Vader being humourless is a PUNdamental part of Star Wars (see what I did there?), while having a blind man beat armoured Storm Troopers to death with a stick makes them even more of a joke than they were with their lousy aim in the originals.
For those of us that grew up watching the original films (episodes 4 - 6), there was something magical about them. I don't know if it because I was a kid when I saw them for the first time, or if it was because there was nothing like them at the time, but there was a magic there that I don't think Lucas was ever able to capture in the prequels. I think I would have enjoyed the prequels much better if Jar Jar had been killed off sooner. He ruined the first movie for me.
Great quiz, but unfortunately there are five characters which aren't in Star Wars. Maybe they are from another movie franchise I don't know? I think you mixed something there.
I have a hard time deciding what was worse between Rogue One/The Force Awakens and the three prequels... on the one hand, the prequels were full of cheesy crap, horrendous acting, cringe-seizure-inducing dialogue, and lots of Jar Jar... but... at least they felt like real Star Wars movies on some level and didn't fundamentally betray the lore or the main characters of the original trilogy. TFA and Rogue One were cooler, sleeker, better done in many ways, not nearly as corny, and they had 100% less Jar Jar... but then again... they were just badly written, full of plot holes, weighed down by politics, and felt like so much bad fan fiction what with the Mary Sues in both movies, the wink wink nudge nudge moments that made no sense in the context of the film, and the blatant plagiarism of the story.
On repeat viewings at home, yeah, the amount of Jar Jar became increasingly annoying. The kid's acting was more and more grating. And it was disappointing that they had missed an opportunity to tell what could have been a more compelling origin story for Anakin.
When I saw Attack of the Clones my cousin and I were in Times Square with a crowd of enthusiastic fans. Again, it was thrilling. The whole theater cheered loudly when Yoda showed up in the final act. My cousin and I went to see it again the next day. And again the day after that.
Compare this to The Last Jedi. The theater was silent. And bored. I was repeatedly checking my watch. And fidgeting in my seat. As the movie progressively got worse and worse and worse my boredom turned into annoyance. Annoyance gave way to disgust. Disgust built into anger. I left the theater thoroughly disappointed. After a few days of thinking about it I was just mad at how terrible it was. I never saw the movie again. It's on satellite now and I could watch it for free if I wanted to. Don't want to. It was way way way worse than any of the prequels. I haven't forgotten.
The other 2 sequels are even worse. No coherency, extremely convenient plot devices and atrocious character development. Disney wasted an incredible opportunity.
The sequels had terrible dialogue, but at least the story was compelling and the characters were interesting.
Then again, just because it's been done in the past doesn't really excuse why it's also in the present.
also mace windu..... 10 MINUTES IN 3 FILMS????? I don't think so his battle with palpatine was about 5 minutes alone
On the other hand, I disagree that the sequels were good by themselves. 7 was derivative and full of inside jokes and references for Star Wars fans. It was badly written regardless, but if old Star Wars didn't exist it would have fallen even more flat than it did. And then 8 and 9, even if you ignore how badly they handle the lore and characters, are straight up boring movies.
Shocked not to see Jabba the Hutt or Darth Maul on this list... that epic lightsaber battle *HAD* to have had helped contribute more than 10 minutes worth of screen time to this list?
Each of the 10 movies released today are great pieces of the Star Wars universe. They all have their flaws in different ways of course, but they also all have something great about them.
And mostly you don't get to choose what is Star Wars and what isn't. It's a big, diverse universe (hah that's funny to say) with a constantly expanding lore and a ton of different stories to tell. Just enjoy it, or don't, but at least let others enjoy it in peace.
TLJ is abysmally bad on every level.
As for the new take and new direction, it wasn't horrible on its own, but Rian destroyed everything before him and left nothing to build on. He actually said in an interview that he didn't care about the big picture and only cared about the film he was creating. That's just not the attitude to have when creating the middle 'glue' film in a Star Wars trilogy. In a standalone film? Sure. In your own trilogy? Go for it. But it wasn't his trilogy, just his film in a trilogy of other directors and writers. Also as a note, I like the prequels.
dang it
shame.
even though boba makes more apperances than jar jar! look!
Jar Jar: episodes 1,2,3
boba fett: episodes 4,5,6, clone wars, mandalorian, original holiday special
1. Each prequel is objectively better than the one before it.
2. Each prequel features progressively less Jar-Jar than the one before it (see 1).
3. Each prequel makes sense on its own, while the same can be said for the trilogy as a whole.
4. George Lucas largely succeeded in creating a new generation of Star Wars fans by making a new trilogy just for them. He's stated that the prequels were not for the original fans, but for the kids of the 1990s. In my experience, many (but not all) of the people who were 8 - 12 when T.P.M. came out like that "their" trilogy a lot more than we do (at least when they don't have a middle aged guy shouting them down). Kudos, George.
5. In contrast, it seems that the nicest thing anyone can say about the disney "efforts" is that they are divisive.
Also, fake Leia and Tarkin took me out of the movie, Vader being humourless is a PUNdamental part of Star Wars (see what I did there?), while having a blind man beat armoured Storm Troopers to death with a stick makes them even more of a joke than they were with their lousy aim in the originals.