# Which was the best Star Wars movie outside of the original trilogy? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies\ **Created:** [December 29, 2019, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-was-the-best-star-wars-movie-outside-of-the-original-trilogy/845564 "2019-12-29T21:54:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![dorvann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df705f/32.png) [@dorvann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorvann)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2021, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-was-the-best-star-wars-movie-outside-of-the-original-trilogy/845564/81 "2021-01-03T00:39:04Z")
> [@Snarky\_Kong](#): > > Should have let Rian Johnson do the whole trilogy. Exactly. The biggest problem with the sequel trilogy is the three movies really weren’t produced as a singular trilogy; they were all written by different writing teams when all three should have been written beforehand with one coherent storyline. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2021, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-was-the-best-star-wars-movie-outside-of-the-original-trilogy/845564/82 "2021-01-03T01:00:00Z")
> [@dorvann](#): > > all three should have been written beforehand with one coherent storyline. That was their original plan, when Michael Arndt was supposed to do it. But for some reason he wasn’t able to achieve what they were looking for, so they rushed in a new draft, cribbing liberally from ANH, and it all went a bit south after that decision. This is the main reason why they are not following through with more movies annually like they had announced originally. Not because _Solo_ underperformed (an unusual case with too many variables at play), but because the lack of cohesion and limited time available to make each movie (it takes three years, go-to-whoa, but they only schedule two years between release dates) just wasn’t working out. They needed to take a step back, but luckily could fast-track TV to keep Star Wars alive in the meantime. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2021, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-was-the-best-star-wars-movie-outside-of-the-original-trilogy/845564/83 "2021-01-03T03:15:24Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > Some fans love to blame Kathleen Kennedy for _Solo_ , but it was actually George Lucas’s plan. He had the first drafts ready before he sold it to Disney. All Kennedy did, if anything was at all controversial, was fix things when they went off the rails, which is exactly what good Producers should do IMHO Do you have a cite for that? My understanding is that they didn’t use anything from Lucas’s scripts, and that he was kind of salty about it. ---
**Author:** ![smilingbandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@smilingbandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smilingbandit)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2021, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-was-the-best-star-wars-movie-outside-of-the-original-trilogy/845564/84 "2021-01-03T03:46:44Z")
Also, regarding _Solo_, I believe a great deal got changed when Disney panicked and burned the directors, such that the final product would be unrecognizable next to the original plan. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2021, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-was-the-best-star-wars-movie-outside-of-the-original-trilogy/845564/85 "2021-01-03T03:46:54Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > My understanding is that they didn’t use anything from Lucas’s scripts, and that he was kind of salty about it. They didn’t for the sequel trilogy, but _Solo_ was a different situation. I’m not sure how much of the final movie was what Lucas was planning, but [he was definitely the instigator](https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a849876/george-lucas-solo-a-star-wars-story-han-solo-movie-disney-lucasfilm/). It being developed so early, and then interrupted, and then having the directors swapped out and 80% or more of it reshot is why the official budget was so high, and the box office considered a loss, but that’s way too messy a situation to fairly assess. Disney, especially CEO Bob Iger, blames the release date being too soon after _The Last Jedi_ came out, which was his call. He takes the hit on it, not Kathleen Kennedy. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2021, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-was-the-best-star-wars-movie-outside-of-the-original-trilogy/845564/86 "2021-01-03T03:48:07Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > They didn’t for the sequel trilogy, but _Solo_ was a different situation. I’m not sure how much of the final movie was what Lucas was planning, but [he was definitely the instigator](https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a849876/george-lucas-solo-a-star-wars-story-han-solo-movie-disney-lucasfilm/). Oh, my bad - I completely glossed that you were talking about Solo and not the prequels. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2021, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-was-the-best-star-wars-movie-outside-of-the-original-trilogy/845564/87 "2021-01-03T15:25:21Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > They needed to take a step back, but luckily could fast-track TV to keep Star Wars alive in the meantime. I actually just watched “The Mandalorian.” It was ludicrously good, just fabulous. As good as Star Wars or Empire. Each episode was 45 minutes long and felt like it was ten. What amazed me about this was that I’d have told you “this universe is just completely out of ideas” and I was wrong. It has made me think about just HOW you create new stories in an existing universe, and I’ll be thinking about it for weeks. > [@smilingbandit](#): > > Also, regarding _Solo_ , I believe a great deal got changed when Disney panicked and burned the directors, such that the final product would be unrecognizable next to the original plan. Whatever the drama behind the camera, though, the movie in front of the camera is perfectly fine. It has a coherent story put into proper order that hits all the required beats, relatable characters, and good action set pieces. The fact it was a box office disappointment can’t really be explained by the quality of the film. Many Star Wars films that were WAY worse made more money. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2021, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-was-the-best-star-wars-movie-outside-of-the-original-trilogy/845564/88 "2021-01-03T17:10:05Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > I think TFA gets a bit of an unfair pass for the horribleness of the sequel trilogy, because a lot of the ideas people hated in the second two movies were established in the first one, just not resolved. Rian Johnson gets blamed for turning Luke into a bitter hermit, ignoring that the first movie is the one that established Luke failed in training Kylo and abandoned the galaxy. Or that it was TFA that set up the question of Rey’s parentage, which was a mystery that had no good answers - it’s obviously got to be someone from the original trilogy, otherwise who cares, but that requires that one of the characters from the original trilogy was such a piece of shit that they sold their daughter into slavery, which really limits who it could be, or fundamentally breaks the characterization of one of the heroic characters from the OT. I can’t actually dispute what you’re saying, but the effect was still that I left TFA _excited_ to see what was going to happen next: my interest kept building up, over the course of the movie; and it ended on a note that made me think, with enthusiasm, I Want To Buy A Ticket To See The Next Part Of The Story! The followups didn’t do that. The prequel trilogy didn’t do that; and SOLO didn’t do that, and I guess ROGUE ONE _couldn’t_ — and TFA maybe had an unfair advantage when it comes to getting there, but the thing is that it _did_ get there. ---
**Author:** ![gdave](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gdave/32/3683_2.png) [@gdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gdave)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2021, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-was-the-best-star-wars-movie-outside-of-the-original-trilogy/845564/89 "2021-01-03T17:33:23Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Whatever the drama behind the camera, though, the movie in front of the camera is perfectly fine. It has a coherent story put into proper order that hits all the required beats, relatable characters, and good action set pieces. The fact it was a box office disappointment can’t really be explained by the quality of the film. Many Star Wars films that were WAY worse made more money. I think I mentioned upthread, I personally thought that as a side story in the Star Wars universe, _Solo_ was…fine. It wasn’t great, but it was serviceable. As Han Solo’s origin story, it was just plain _bad_ (“What’s your last name?” “Last name?” “Yes, who are your people?” “I don’t have any people. I’m alone” “…I’ll just put down ‘Solo’” 🙄). Between the two, it was a mediocre, forgettable movie, released in an era in which there are at least a dozen big budget FX movies released every year. It was also a franchise movie that was a prequel side-story to the main franchise, so it was kind of a tweener. The other “A Star Wars Story”, _Rogue One_, was just a _much_ better movie on its own, and also did a much better job tying itself into the main franchise. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2021, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-was-the-best-star-wars-movie-outside-of-the-original-trilogy/845564/90 "2021-01-04T03:40:16Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > I can’t actually dispute what you’re saying, but the effect was still that I left TFA _excited_ to see what was going to happen next: my interest kept building up, over the course of the movie; and it ended on a note that made me think, with enthusiasm, I Want To Buy A Ticket To See The Next Part Of The Story! Yeah, I felt the same way when it came out. There’s a lot I still like about TFA, but it very much benefits by not resolving most of the issues it brings up - who’s Rey, where’s Luke, how did Maz get his lightsaber, what’s Snoke’s deal? Knowing that most of these questions won’t actually have a satisfactory answer - or any answer at all - robs the movie of a lot of its impact. Hell, I feel the same way about TLJ, except that it’s even worse, because it actually provides a bunch of answers, and every single one of them is undone in the next film, to the extent that it comes across as almost petty. Like it’s the result of a personal beef between Abrams and Rian Johnson, and not the result of an organic story process. ---
**Author:** ![BeepKillBeep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9e8a1a/32.png) [@BeepKillBeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeepKillBeep)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2021, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-was-the-best-star-wars-movie-outside-of-the-original-trilogy/845564/91 "2021-01-04T17:37:05Z")
Rogue One is my favourite Star Wars of all Star Wars movies. The story speaks to me on a very personal level such that it moves me to literal tears. I rewatched Rogue One over the holidays with the RiffTrax for it. The riff track was amazing; however, it was a funny experiencing laughing while tearing up. ---
**Author:** ![smilingbandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@smilingbandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smilingbandit)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2021, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-was-the-best-star-wars-movie-outside-of-the-original-trilogy/845564/92 "2021-01-05T16:47:21Z")
/Agreed. Solo isn’t _bad_ per se, but it never goes beyond “generic action-adventure-comedy”. To me, personally, it’s terrible because they took what should have been an amazing story and turned into dull filler. For example, the idea of exploring Han’s family, even a little bit, might give us some insight into his character and values, or seeing how he learned to understand whatever language the Wookies use would be a pretty cool plot beat. Instead all the meaningless things are given WEIGHT AND PORTENT (the dice, which nobody cared about) while the really important aspects are stepped over. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-was-the-best-star-wars-movie-outside-of-the-original-trilogy/845564.md?page=4)