There is one simple fact that many people can't seem to get around. We can't help mocking Star Wars fans ( at least the stereotype of a Star Wars fan) and yet we ourselves are Star Wars fans. So as I watch the conclusion Of Attack of The Clones on Spike allow me to put on the nerd glasses and pocket protector...
The Best Star Wars Film:
The Empire Strikes Back: Is this even debatable? I mean really? I love all 6 movies but this is head and shoulders above the rest. And for once the best character in the series wins out.
The Worst Star Wars Film:
The Phantom Menace: The films biggest flaw is one that it has no control over. The kids who were 10 when they fell in love with Star Wars were now 32 when the Phantom Menace came out. And for better or for worse the films are meant for 10 year olds or the 10 year olds in all of us. I admit a love for this film mainly because it get's bashed so much but it's still clearly the worst of the series.
The Most Overrated Star Wars Film:
Star Wars A New Hope. : Ok it's the first film and that alone should gets it lots of love but it's the dullest film of the series...yes even duller than the Phantom Menace.
The Most Underrated Star Wars Film:
Attack Of The Clones: Yeah Yeah Yeah I know what you're thinking but I love it and I think it's unquestionably in the top half of the series. Every time I see it I wonder what are they bitching about? The dialogue? The acting? There are a lot of reasons to love the original trilogy acting and dialogue were not two of them.
My Rankings Of The Star Wars Films
1. Empire Strikes Back
2. Revenge Of The Sith
3. Attack Of The Clones
4. Return Of The Jedi
5. Star Wars A New Hope
6. The Phantom Menace.
4 comments:
Nerd here, Count! With strong if completely pointless-in-the-grand-scheme-of-things opinions about this.
Full disclosure: I actually won a SW trivia contest AT a Science Fiction Convention back in the 80s. (I got half-credit for answering the question "What does Boba Fett have hanging from his left shoulder?" with a snarky "His left arm?") And I've been to Skywalker Ranch twice, entirely on business, trying to keep my cool on the outside but break-dancing on the inside. I've had a THX demo on George Lucas' old sofa (orange velour stuff, rather tacky if the truth be told), seen footage run in the Stag Theatre, personally know people who are screen-credited in the original trilogy and prequels, and wanted desperately to hide out in the Main House Library with its gorgeous stained-glass dome for, or, fifteen or twenty years...
Best: ESB. YES. Without question or doubt. Every character's story arc has some meaningful revelation and purpose in it. I believe the rubber puppet Yoda way more than I ever believed the CGI version that was eventually to come. It's so good that I can even forgive the cliffhanger from hell that it represented...remembering that for me it was a real-time three-year-wait to learn what happened next, not just another rental trip to Blockbuster.
Worst: Phantom Menace. Again, must agree with you, Count. Jar-Jar Binks? Come the hell on! He would have added embarrassment to the fiasco that was "Howard The Duck," let alone to this. It had its moments but on the whole I found it contrived and stilted, and I don't think it would have had any kind of shelf life based on its own merits. Gotta love the costumes, though.
Most Overrated: Revenge of the Sith. Have to split from you here, Count. ANH is, at least, a contained story that could be told in its two hours, with archetypal characters whose paths you understand without knowing the whole backstory and a plotline that sends you out cheering. In RotS I don't think you can get much if any of it without having the other five under your belt. And I completely don't buy Padme's death. No mother dies of grief when she has two newborn children to live for. That's just B.S. Also, it's kind of telling that although I'm kind of a SW "lifer" I've only seen this one once and don't even own the DVD. I would have to fess up as to how many times I've seen the original trilogy and the other prequels (in-theatre and not) to really point up what a startling turn-up this is...but I'm not going to do it, on the grounds that it WILL incriminate me.
Most Underrated: I actually put AOTC and ROTJ on a par, here. "Clones" felt more like it was getting back to the roots of the series in terms of the banter, the action, the tone. And Ewan McGregor was at his best: always a plus, IMO. ROTJ had a lot to wrap up - it's widely faulted for cutesy Ewoks and Ford's mugging-heavy performance, but when you recognize that it's a Luke-Vader-Emperor story and that everything else is peripheral, that stuff all becomes so much forgivable set-dressing. I remember being in the opening night audience, at the moment in those last scenes when the whole audience - diehards like me who got all the in-jokes - suddenly started rooting for Vader, and it was electric.
So I'd probably say...
1. ESB
2. ANH
3. ROTJ
4. AOTC
5. ROTS
6. TPM
Yes, I'm original-trilogy heavy in that judgment. But it's what I loved when I was - ahem! (not 10) - 18, and going back a couple of decades later my expectations were rather higher than the prequels managed to meet.
I'll e-mail you a separate link to something later on, Count. :-)
May the Force be with you.
OK, I'll share the photo I sent to the Count. Early 80s. Originally a Polaroid, so forgive the quality.
Count me as a Nerd too Count
Watching Empire Strikes Back right now.
Made the huge mistake of trying to be funny with kids right after Darth says But you are not a Jeddi yet
I interjected in a crybaby voice
"I am a jeddi stop teasing me'
Damn kids won't stop repeating me and laughing their butts off.
Its getting kind of annoying. :D
If you need to leave the room, roach, tell them you're going to Tosche Station to pick up some power converters.
Gods, I am such a geek.
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