Having seen all six, Mrs. Evil Captor and I agree that AOTC trumps them all, though ESB comes in a close second. But AOTC is such a lush cinematic treat that you can’t help but like it best. RotS is just too dark. AOTC is the clear winner of the bunch, all of which are excellent, however.
Personally, I think Attack of the Clones is, by a fair margin, the worst Star Wars movie. I believe that I share the view of the majority of the fans here. But hey, whatever floats your boat.
Wow, you ARE evil!
(my vote goes to ESB)
I think Phantom Menace is the worst Star Wars movie. I can’t imagine anyone liking Attack of the Clones less than Phantom Menace. The best is probably Empire.
I’d have to rank them in the following order:
- Empire Strikes Back
- Revenge of the Sith
- Star Wars (1977, the original, aka episode 4)
- Attack of the Clones
- Return of the Jedi
- Phantom Menace
Phantom Menace had the pod race and Liam Neeson. Those two things count for a lot. Its humour, while generally dreary, was still heaps better than that of Attack of the Clones (“this is such a drag”). Also, the painful lovey-dovey bit with Anakin and Padme, what with the riding of giant ticks and all, pulls that movie down pretty far below Phantom Menace. Revenge of the Sith trumps them both, by a goodsized margin.
This is all just my opinion, of course.
I saw AotC for the first time when it aired on Fox a couple weeks ago. Maybe it was just my low expectations, but it was much better than I thought it would be. I managed to miss most of the Annakin-Padme stuff while I was fixing dinner, so maybe that helped too.
I’d still rank it lower than ESB and SW, though.
To me, the pod race was part of the problem with Episode One. Whereas AotC showed us what Yoda was capable of.
Liam was probably the best thing going in PM. He definitely gave the best performance of any actor in the film. I think the Darth Maul fight might have been the best lightsabre battle of the series too.
On the subject of the pod race, let’s not forget the 2-headed sports announcer. That piece of CGI dreck probably balanced out what was good about the pod race.
It also had Jar-jar and the rest of the Gungans, like boss Nass(?), the big toad-faced despot of the Gungan city. Phantom menace is really awful, whether it’s standing on its own merits or compared to the rest of the sextet.
I’d have to rank them:
- AOTC
- ESB
- A New Hope
- Phantom Menace
- Return of the Jedi
- Revenge of the Sith
Though I’d gleefully watch them all.
TPM is the worst for me. It’s not really JarJar that gets to me, it’s just that it seems way too distant from the others. Along with that, it really does seem too kiddy (and since when does a flatulence joke belong in a star wars movie, seriously!!). I also don’t really like seeing Anakin as a 10 year old. It’s not that he was too cute or cheery or that he should’ve been a damien-type disturbed little boy, just including him at that age in general doesn’t work for me. I know that the drama with the separation of his mother was necessary, so maybe that could’ve been done with flashbacks or something.
AOTC was much better in that we show Anakin in his prime and his close relationship with Obi-Wan (the whole point of this prequel series) but early signs that he’s destined for the dark side. The love scenes were awkward, sure, but he’s a jedi, trained to be celebate, so it’s not like he’s going to have all that much experience wooing women, so I can deal with the awkwardness.
ROTS was of course the movie the whole prequel series was set up for, and it delivered pretty well, despite some pretty terrible dialogue here and there. Ever since I can remember being a fan of the original trilogy, I’ve been wondering what a fight between the two masters of each side of the force, Yoda and the emperor, would be like, and it was everything I could’ve hoped for. It was also interesting to see Darth Vader before he was in the suit, and how he was a very nasty piece of work right from the beginning, slaughtering the room full of children.
I think ROTS is the only one that comes close to comparing to the original trilogy in entertainment value, even if it is nostalgia. It’s hard to say how much ROTS compares since it’s still pretty recent.
As for the original trilogy, I find ANH just decent, but the Battle of Yavin is definitely a highlight. ESB is of course great all-around. ROTJ drags on a lot, especially the Jabba’s palace sequence, but it makes up for it with the final showdown with the emperor (I’m not bothered too much by the ewoks).
I thought the pod race was a flaw in PM. It was just so obviously a video game bit, and was so irrelevant to the story’s progress. It felt very grafted on.
The Anakin/Padme lovey-dovey bits were a drag, I admit, but it’s easy enough to slide past them using fast forward. They’re quite pretty, though. Some of the scenes look like they came straight out of a Renaissance painting.
Hayden Christensen was gruesome in AotC. After seeing it I honestly thought they’d have to get shut of him for the next film and draft in a new actor. But then he turned out to be brilliant in RotS, IMO, so good on ol George for sticking with him. Still, can’t see how you can rate AotC so highly with the guy stinking the film out every other scene.
I know the pod race wasn’t needed, it was just done because they wanted an action sequence at that point, and it was all CGI and this and that… but damnit, it was a nice sequence.
You must think rather lowly of the other five films, if you rank a film you need to fast-forward chunks of higher than them.
You put Revenge of the Sith at the bottom, because it’s too dark, but you put Empire Strikes Back as number two?
Oh yeah, forgot about that. That scene puts Phantom Menace above Attack of the Clones all by itself. The Anakin/Obi-Wan fight was really good too, though.
Agree, that was some shit. I loved the line “I don’t care what universe you’re from, that’s gotta hurt!” though.
Hey, wait - this isn’t just because of the tied-to-a-pole scene, is it?
Ding! We have a pinpoint of the best thing about Attack of the Clones! The arena scene. Natalie Portman in ripped clothes, hordes of Jedi, the lightsaber that says Bad Motherfucker.
Except for the bit with the giant ticks. That was just goofy.
I got the DVD of Attack of the Clones as a Christmas gift a while back, and the only part I really enjoy watching is the big fight scene in the arena. The Padme/Anakin stuff was just creepy. I keep wondering what the hell Padme is supposed to be seeing in this whiny little self-obsessed stalker-wannabe. (He’s been holding a torch for her since he was nine? That’s just not healthy. You’d think the Twi’lek in the tank top would have turned his head at least.)
And am I the only one who was disappointed with Yoda’s big fight scene? I was hoping that Yoda would be at a level beyond light-saber battles, somehow…not just a big green superball.
The pod race.
The never ending pod race.
If I never see a pod race again, it’ll be too soon.
My order:
Empire
A New Hope
Jedi / Sith (Tie)
Phantom
Clones
Clones has to be one of the most poorly acted movies I’ve seen with a big budget. The lovey dovey teenage wannabe soap opera didn’t help. The other day I realized a fundamental flaw of the movie. The pacing is terrible. Clones is the only star wars movie where we are not aware of the villains plans throughout the movie. It’s played out as a mystery movie only without the mystery. We know from the Phantom Menace who the villains are and we know from the old movies what they are up to. Only at the end do we finally meet the villains. I think this decision slowed the movie down considerably. It was one of those movies where the charactors only do things because the script tells them to. (For instance: Why does Anakin and Padme fall in love? Because the script says so, they have no chemistry! The force should not be used to cut lemons! Gah!)
Sorry, that movie really let me down
Sith was awesome except for the (yet again) cheesy romance scene at the start and sadly the last word Darth Vader says. I actually laughed when he said it.
I might have laughed, but I liked the detail of Darth Vader lashing out with the force at the walls of the room as he did it. Without that added bit, it would have been cheesy.