Ayyyy, Happy Star Wars Day guys! Because apparently, this is a legit thing now: to celebrate and watch Star Wars on this, the fourteenth of May. Yeah, bit of an arbitrary date if you ask me, I haven't quite worked out the significance yet, but I'm sure that-
What's that?
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What do you mean I've got the wrong day? It's May the fourteenth, isn't it?
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It's May the-? Oh. Ohhhh! I see. Well, shit. And how's the time machine coming along?
...
That bad, huh?
...
No, I'm not going to backdate it, that's cheating. We'll just, *ahem*, we'll just keep going.
BOY, wasn't that a fun Star Wars day we had last week? I've gotta say, I had a great time, watching all the Star Wars films back-to-back on the day itself like the good little fanboy I am. So what if it took over twenty hours, this is a sacred ritual we fanboys must undertake in order to appease The Great Mouse, Mickey be thy name. He is a fair but vengeful god, and you know he'll cancel season two of The Mandalorian if he doesn't think we're worshipping him hard enough.
So I hope you were all watching along, clad in your Darth Vader pyjamas, sipping Rebel Alliance coffee from your Luke Skywalker mug, and lovingly caressing your Yoda wank doll through every crucial scene in the series. Unfortunately, with the number of Star Wars films to get through in one day, I didn't have time to perform the ritual sacrifice of my firstborn child to the Knights of Ren, and just as well too, because I realised I'd left my good Ponda Baba ritual dagger in my other limited edition Wuher messenger bag at a fellow cultist's house, and what with the lockdown and all, I could hardly ride my TK-421-branded scooter over to his, could I?
*sigh*
What am I saying? There's eight different Star Wars related posters, paintings and artworks on my bedroom walls, there's a Lego Millenium Falcon on the shelf beneath my television, and there's a collector's model of Boba Fett's helmet on one of my DVD shelves. Everyone's got a bit of Star Wars memorabilia lying around somewhere.
And you know what, despite the horrific over-merchandising, the toxicity of the fanbase, the constant tampering and revisionism of the original trilogy, and every dodgy decision made by Lucas and Disney on almost every film that followed, I'm still a massive Star Wars fan.
And it's hard not to be. Star Wars is probably one of the most popular and influential franchises in media history. It represented a distillation of every story and idea that came before it into one seemingly perfect space opera, and has inspired basically every filmmaker since who grew up with these films, me included.
My earliest memory is sitting with my dad on the sofa at about three years old, watching the OT and Phantom Menace, taped off the TV. I remember seeing that shot of the AT-ATs coming over the ridge on the Battle of Hoth and being struck with awe. Of course, back then my understanding of special effects was limited and I thought they'd actually built these machines for the film, but even when I cam back to these films as a preteen, that scene still had a power to it, and that was when I realised that film was what I wanted to do with my life. And I wouldn't be here to this day, writing this blog with a degree in Film and Television if it weren't for Star Wars.
So yeah, I'll always be inextricably invested in Star Wars as a universe and a franchise, but that doesn't change the fact that Star Wars as a film canon is, umm, a little rough shall we say.
While I don't think any of them are truly bad films and are all enjoyable in some kinda way, they certainly aren't all peaches, and even the OT, praised by many (including me back in the day) as being some of the best films ever made, certainly are far from flawless. And while I loved the prequels as a teen, I'm a lot older and wiser now, and a lot more well versed in film criticism, so why don't we see how the Star Wars franchise holds up, and more importantly, how they stack against each other?
So here we go, a ranked retrospective of all the Star Wars films. Except Rogue One. And Solo. Oh and we're not doing The Clone Wars movie either. No, we're not doing Caravan of Courage, what is wrong with you? Or The Battle for Endor! The Holiday Special? WHY would I include the-
Right, fine. Here is my ranked retrospective of The Skywalker Saga. Are we happy now? Oh and there's gonna be no restraint on spoilers, so if you somehow don't know what happens in the Star Wars films by this point, might want to fix that before you venture forward.
Oh and don't worry, Disney. I definitely rewatched these on your frustratingly-well-timed streaming platform Disney+, and not on the seven seas or the old pre-Disney DVD copies I've been hoarding for years. See kids, this is why you get a DVD collection: so that when all the fragmenting streaming networks take your favourite films hostage you can still watch them without having to give a toss about paying the monthly ransom for their fingers.
#9) The Phantom Menace
"I am immeasurably shocked and surprised that The Phantom Menace is on the bottom of a ranked Star Wars list," said absolutely no-one ever. Yeah, ok obviously this one wasn't going to appear super high, and to be honest, until the sequel trilogy came about the Star Wars ranking was a pretty open and shut case. And regardless of whether you hate this or Attack of the Clones more, they're both usually occupying these bottom slots, and with pretty fair reason. That being said, come on guys, it's not that bad. Ok, it's not great, but even the worst Star Wars films are still decent enough entertainment. And for what it's worth, Phantom does some things well. Some of the digital effects have actually aged half decently, a rarity with Lucas, and....umm...uhhhh...Darth Maul's pretty cool. Well, he'd be a lot cooler if he had any kind of character building at all. Ok fine, maybe there isn't that much to like when you start to dissect it but it was hardly an unpleasant experience. To criticise Phantom doesn't feel so much like beating a dead horse as it does beating a dried red stain on the concrete old enough to drink in America, but I am a critic, so for the record if nothing else, here we go.
The plot's a mess, and with the political side as well it genuinely gets incomprehensible at points. Also, I can't think of a more boring opening line (well, second line) to a Star Wars text crawl than "The taxation of trade routes to outlying star systems is in dispute." It sounds like its own Simpsons parody. A lot is made about the performances in all of the prequels, but clearly, a lot of these actors have done plenty of other, much better things, and especially when the acting's this stilted across the board, it's probably way more likely that George Lucas just can't direct his way out of a paper bag. Consequently, I feel quite bad for Jake Lloyd, who abandoned acting after being bullied about his portrayal of Anakin, but honestly, he's nowhere near as bad as people make him out to be, and in fact he's actually better (or at least more convincing) than a lot of other cast members. Such as Natalie Portman, who I'd say takes first prize for most wooden, but Ewan McGregor isn't far behind: both delivering lines like human emotion is a concept they've vaguely heard of but haven't really grasped.
Speaking of Portman, the Amidala decoy plot point still makes as little sense as it ever did. Oh, and the whole thing about Anakin being a virgin birth? I just... George, please, you're not a great writer but you're surely better than that.
Finally, of course, there's Jar Jar. He's... well... he's Jar Jar. What more could I possibly say? The character has taken quite the proverbial beating in the Star Wars community ever since he was introduced and to be quite honest, it's mostly justified. He is obnoxious and feels weirdly out of place, both tonally and alongside the rest of the cast. But something I don't hear being brought up very often is how hard it is to understand what he's saying. I genuinely struggle to make out half of his lines because the way in which he speaks, specifically something that happens with the consonants, just makes him borderline unintelligible. And I can't decide whether that makes him easier or harder to endure.
In summary, I struggle to really muster any strong feelings about this film one way or another. It's certainly not a great film but it's really not too bad: it just kinda hangs out in the middle and evaporates shortly after watching it. For the most part, it feels like we're waiting for stuff to happen, and not in like an "I'm bored, get to the action" kind-of-way, more that everything in the film just feels so irrelevant to the overarching story. Besides discovering Anakin and having him bestowed to Obi-Wan, everything that happens feels like it just isn't going to go anywhere in the long term and doesn't really matter (which a lot of it doesn't), and I get an intergalactic war has to start somewhere, but a blockade of one planet that no-one else seems to care about feels a little small scale, and it feels like maybe we went a little too far back.
I guess the best way to describe it is if the Star Wars series was a student film, then The Phantom Menace would be the shot of an alarm clock going off, followed by the protagonist turning it off and getting out of bed. If that makes any sense at all.
#8) The Rise of Skywalker
Hooooo, boy. What in the ever-loving fuck happened here. It's Damage Control: The Movie. Now, the sequels have been pretty divisive among the Star Wars community, with The Last Jedi seemingly at the centre of it all. But while the wars still rage on as to whether The Last Jedi was a flaming heap of garbage that personally killed all of your family pets and gave your sweet old granny chlamydia, or whether it was the boldest and most artistically driven Star Wars film that dared to go against the grain we had grown weary of and try something adventurous and brilliant, both sides agree that Rise of Skywalker was the pits.
This is what happens when you attempt to make a sequel trilogy to one of the most loved franchises of all time with no plan whatsoever: something that I still cannot believe Disney went along with. So Force Awakens comes out: like most of J J Abrams' films, it's safe but ultimately enjoyable and it gets a favourable response from fans and critics alike. Satisfied, Disney hands Last Jedi to Rian Johnson and says "do what you like." So he does, leaping off from Force Awakens in a daring new direction/completely and utterly ruining the franchise beyond all repair (delete as to your level of butthurt). The critics love it. The fans love it until someone told them they shouldn't and they all decide they hate it now. Disney goes "shit, what are we going to do now? The fanboys are angry at us. JJ! Save us from the fanboys!"
And so we get a trilogy which reads like it was written by two recent exes in the wake of a traumatic breakup. The second instalment unpicks threads from the first one that it doesn't like, and the third instalment unpicks everything the second instalment did, seemingly out of spite, while simultaneously trying to pretend it never happened. But there aren't enough films to maintain this fight between Abrams and Johnson, and we're already at the end of the trilogy and need to somehow wrap this story up at the same time as JJ is trying to cover up an entire third of it.
So for one thing, Rise of Skywalker feels like it wants to be two films, or at least maybe one four-or-five-hour epic, but has had to squeeze into a skimpy 140-minute dress, and as a result, the story blasts through at breakneck pace. And not in a good, tight action thriller kind of way, in an "if we let up for even a second, everyone will realise how none of this makes any goddamn sense" kinda way. The characters move from one world to another on a convoluted MacGuffin hunt with scarcely room to breathe or develop character or do anything but move from setpiece to setpiece in the manner of an ADD-ridden squirrel, lest anyone go "hang on, why does this ancient Sith artefact that's existed for thousands of years perfectly line up with the jagged outline of the ruins of the Death Star that would have crashed randomly to the ground and, wait hang on, the Death Star was blown into oblivion, not just into chunks and WAIT, WHAT DO YOU MEAN PALPATINE'S RETURNED?"
Yes, the infamous line: "somehow, Palpatine's returned", barely spoken with a straight face and with a look of confusion matching the audience's, and again Star Wars is sounding like its own Simpsons parody. I mean really, there's no better line to perfectly and succinctly sum up the film and its refusal to explain or even give a shit about the hows or whys of its story as long as it thinks the fanboys are happy. I am convinced that a large part of the planning process for this film was done by looking at the Star Wars meme subreddits and going "ohh, so that's what the fans like", which is why Palpatine's back. It doesn't make sense, there's essentially no attempt to explain it outside of some half-arsed mention of cloning, but it doesn't matter, because the fans love Palpatine and therefore they'll love this film because he's in it. Oh and look, we gave Chewy a medal out of fucking nowhere. Do you love us yet? It's all the hip memes you ever wanted, what more could you ask for. This film is probably the perfect embodiment of the argument that fans don't know what they want, and if you try only to appease the fans you will end up with a desperate mess. No-one knows what they want until they've got it, so they'll only ever demand the things they've seen before and your series will stagnate, that's why it's so essential to do your own thing and do something brave and interesting and different. Even those who hate The Last Jedi surely would agree they'd prefer it to this film: a film that tries something new and different and fails spectacularly is a thousand times more interesting than a film that shits itself in tired iconography and pathetically humps your leg as it begs you to love it.
There are loads more things that annoy me about Rise of Skywalker: the blatancy of its merchandising with the introduction of D0, a useless character that gratifyingly didn't take off as the latest cute droid mascot (plus of course the infamous "tHeY fLy NoW", after which I could practically hear "each sold separately"), the devaluing of the Death Star threat even further than it had already been in Force Awakens (more on that later) with the attachment of a Death Star laser to every star destroyer like a massive dangling cock that of course if shot directly blows up the entire star destroyer because at this point no-one's even trying, the almost complete refusal to do anything with Rose Tico other than shift her to the background in shame and cut all of her presumed lines, the fact that not only is every character besides Rey and Kylo completely ignored and basically get no resolution whatsoever, but the subplot introduced where Finn desperately has to tell Rey something is completely dropped after being established way too hard (and no, I don't care whether it's that he's force sensitive or in love with Rey, it doesn't matter what it is, you can't just make a big deal of establishing it then never speak about it again). But one thing that I think quite poetically sums up this film's revisionist attitude and disregard for its predecessor and by extension the reason it irks me so much is the Chewy fake-out.
There's a moment where Rey and Kylo are force-fighting over a ship containing an imprisoned Chewy, and in her anger Rey's force lightning destroys the transport. It's a shocking and powerful moment, and great character development for Rey since she's now being made out to be a Palpatine. It's the kind of risky and dark twist that I'd appreciate in such a final instalment, and there's this great almost Akira-esque notion of Rey's powers growing far beyond her control to the point that she can't stop them from harming the ones she loves. Nah, don't worry boys and girls, he's alright. There's all of maybe two minutes of grieving before "no look, he's fine. Chewy was on the other transport ship this whole time. He's not dead. We'd never kill Chewy, he's far too marketable and we don't want anything dark and challenging in this series about constant inevitable warfare that's becoming dangerously stagnant. Nope, Chewy's alive. Don't worry Rey, you just viciously murdered a bunch of First Order soldiers who probably had families but who cares. You don't need to feel sad for them, they're not as marketable as good ol' Chewy. Here, let's give him a FUCKING MEDAL".
*ahem*
I am putting it ahead of Phantom though, and for one key reason. Sitting watching this film in the cinema, as with every Star Wars film I've been fortunate enough to see in a cinema, was still very entertaining. At least stuff happens, even if it is a complete and total mess. Phantom on the other hand... well it wasn't boring but as I've said it felt like a lot less happened in it. And there we go. That's maybe Rise of Skywalker's only saving grace: for about ten minutes after leaving the cinema, you feel pretty good about it. Then you start thinking about literally any of it, and it falls apart. I guess that is ticking a box of some kind and I hesitate to give it a negative score because I was at least entertained but, god I don't know. The more I write about this film the more I begin to despise it.
#7) Attack of the Clones
Oh wow, this one really hasn't aged well since I last saw it. When it comes to deciding which is the worst of the prequel trilogy, I think it comes down to what people personally prefer in a film. The bad dialogue and delivery is a lot more egregious in Clones than it is in Phantom, but Phantom's plot is less interesting, harder to follow and less relevant to the overall story than Clones, and while both actually have half-decent setpieces for their climaxes, I do think Clones' is better. I'm reminded of back in the day when the Star Wars Machete Order was a thing, and the suggestion was made that Phantom can be skipped entirely as it offers very little to the overarching story that isn't reestablished anyway in Clones, and I've gotta say, that's pretty much right on the money. Not only is Phantom non-essential for understanding the rest of the series, the fact that it happens ten years before Clones, the longest gap between two entries of any of the trilogies, actually raises more questions, a lot of which boil down to what the hell has been happening politically in that time?! The situation only seems like it's a year or two tops on from where we last left it with the Trade Federation and the droid army, what have they been doing this whole time? I guess politicians really do get nothing done. But also just being able to assume the droid armies were being built by one of the Separatists would work better than knowing that the Trade Federation (which I guess is the Star Wars answer to the East India Company or something?) has just had this army for a decade already and have already invaded Naboo and revealed the existence of said army to the galaxy, and only now, ten years on, has anyone decided this was a problem? Whatever, this is Phantom's boo-boo, not Clones', and in fact, I feel Clones makes at least some effort to make up for the mistakes of Phantom, by streamlining the politics a bit more and reducing Jar Jar's screen time. But I'm sorry, Senator Binks? Senator fucking Binks? Lucas, I get that Jar Jar was supposed to be an important character and you still want him to have some involvement with the plot, I honestly do, but no-one in their right mind would put Jar Jar fucking Binks in a position of political power. He is a proven half-wit that constantly gets into trouble and can barely think for himself, how is anyone supposed to believe that he'd - oh. Ohhh. I get it, now. God, Lucas was a genius, we just never saw it.
Not as a writer though. Christ. I get Anakin is supposed to be angsty and hate-filled, but Jesus the stuff Lucas makes him say makes Todd Phillips' Joker look like Cassanova. Genuinely, I am going to show you a quote from Anakin when he's trying to confess his love for Padmé, and I want you to look me in the eyes (somehow) and tell me this doesn't sound like something a neckbeard would write.
"From the moment I met you, all those years ago, not a day has gone by when I haven't thought of you. And now that I'm with you again... I'm in agony. The closer I get to you, the worse it gets. The thought of not being with you- I can't breathe. I'm haunted by the kiss that you should never have given me. My heart is beating... hoping that kiss will not become a scar. You are in my very soul, tormenting me... what can I do?- I will do anything you ask."
And that's probably the biggest problem with the film: Anakin and Padmé. Their 'blossoming romance' seems to be the focus of the film, but again, Lucas's direction and writing is so astoundingly poor that I just don't believe a word of it. There's no chemistry, they barely speak like real humans, plus Anakin is not just whiny but already disturbingly unhinged and creepy and it just doesn't feel plausible that Padmé would fall for him, especially after the whole Tusken Raider outburst, after which any sane person would probably back away slowly and make a note to sever contact.
Once you get past all that though, the climax on the whole is pretty exciting. The arena fight, the entrance of the Clone army, our first glimpse at the scale of the Clone Wars, and the fight with Anakin and Obi-Wan against Count Dooku, all together is probably one of the highlights of the prequel trilogy. However, there is still one thing in here that really pissed me off and that's the fight between Yoda and Dooku.
Watching the OT, Yoda has always been about the Force, and specifically how it should be used "for knowledge and defence, never for attack." This is kinda like the defining point of Yoda's character, he's never on the offence and seems almost pacifist in nature, and also doesn't seem massively keen on lightsabres. So why on earth in this film does he not only have a lightsaber, but fucking launches himself at Dooku with a battle cry and start flipping and flying off of all the walls. I'm sure you thought it was awesome to see Yoda kicking arse as a kid, but come on now, you've got to admit this is out of character to say the least. A Yoda fight is definitely possible and would be interesting to see (and we get one in Revenge of the Sith that's more along these lines), but I would expect it to be Yoda trying to outwit his enemy, using the force to expertly deflect attacks and find creative solutions to stun or restrain his opponent. But no, crazy flips and lightsabers it is. Although to its credit we do see Yoda blocking and absorbing Dooku's force lightning, which is pretty badass, so there's like a glimmer of that in there.
Again, not a terrible film, and it's above the other two primarily for its last thirty minutes or so, i.e. the point where the prequels finally start doing what we were kinda hoping for from the beginning. But if it weren't for that, this would probably slip further down. At its worst, it's probably more painful than Phantom, but again, so much more happens and it feels like it actually matters too, so it gives it the edge it needs to come out on top. In my mind anyway. I completely understand if people put this below Phantom.
Also, I know he built it in the first place, but did Anakin just steal C-3PO?
Stay tuned next week for Part 2 of Star Wars: A Ranked Retrospective!
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