Star Wars before it became a New Hope and all the sequels and prequels. For me it was a good little film with a satisfactory ending. While ESB is a better movie, it and all that followed were frankly unnecessary.
Empire also introduces The Imperial MArch, aka “Darth Vader’s Theme,” which is arguably the most iconic, and best, bit of cinema scoring ever made.
Like Equipoise, I’m a Star Wars fan but pretty casual about it. To be honest, I don’t like Return of the Jedi, which isn’t as bad as the prequels but is still not a very good movie. Quite honestly, I think the third best Star Wars movie ever made is probably the video game “Knights of the Old Republic.”
We had a thread awhile ago about how “The Phantom Menace” could be rewritten to make it a good movie; the consensus was you’d have to essentially make a completely different movie, really, so in the end it’s not much of a discussion. What would make an interesting challenge, though, would be making Return of the Jedi a better movie. ESB leads inevitably into you needing to rescue Han Solo at some point, but other than that Return of the Jedi is a mess of a movie; after Jabba gets what’s coming to him it’s actually quite similar to Phantom Menace’s third act, with a bunch of parallel battles stumbling towards blowing up the big grey spherical enemy fortress. One of the reasons Star Wars and ESB work so well as movies is they DON’T end the same way; Star Wars ends with a sensational battle to blow up the invincible battle station, while ESB is an escape movie. Return of the Jedi should have been something else.
The only things in the movie worth saving are rescuing Han - and even that is, to be honest, trimmable - and the final controntation between Luke, his Dad, and his Dad’s boss. I wonder how you could put it together better.
Like many others, The Empire Strikes Back is my favourite, though the original Star Wars is what grabbed me and never let go. (Note that the title A New Hope was added in 1981, so it’s not like it’s a recent change. However, I’m a traditionalist, and everyone called it Star Wars back in the '80s anyway.)
And before anyone says that George Lucas didn’t write the screenplay for Empire, it should be noted that Leigh Brackett’s first (and only) draft was radically different from the finished film; Lucas wrote another draft practically from scratch (uncredited) with Lawrence Kasdan writing later drafts–essentially the same writing process as on Jedi.
Another vote this way, although I didn’t vote in the poll because it only lists that shitty A New Hope movie. Fuck that. The movie is called Star Wars.
“Episode IV: A New Hope” was added to the title crawl early on, but the movie was entitled “Star Wars.” Actually retitling it did not happen until they started releasing different versions of it, beginning in 1997, IIRC.
Even the theatrical poster for the 1997 Special Edition had it simply called Star Wars, as did the 1997 VHS release.
It appears that the first use of “Episode IV: A New Hope” as a promotional title was for the 2000 VHS rerelease of the 1997 Special Edition. Not coincidentally, this is the first rerelease post-“Episode I”.
So it doesn’t really correlate with the Special Edition tweaks so much as the existence of a prequel trilogy, just as the existence of Empire necessitated the addition of the subtitle in the first place.
This is horribly pedantic, so apologies for that.
While ESB was definitely the best movie, I’m a sucker for redemption and happy endings so my favorite is actually RotJ. runs for cover
[Nick “Winters”] Ah… Star Wars! Nothing but Star Wars! Gimme those Star Wars… don’t let them end! … [/Nick “Winters”]
CMC fnord!
Empire had the better ending. I mean, Luke gets his hand cut off, finds out Vader’s his father, Han gets frozen and taken away by Boba Fett. It ends on such a down note. I mean, that’s what life is, a series of down endings. All Jedi had was a bunch of Muppets.
– Clerks
Empire is probably the “best” of the bunch, but Jedi was my favorite as a kid and most appeals to the part of me that loves Star Wars.
::Sheepishly raises hand for TPM:: Aw shucks.
Yes it is really my favorite and no I’m not just trying to be contrarian.
I was 14 years old when I first saw it, so I imagine that could have effected how I view it now. But even now with nostalgia glasses off I enjoy the unconventional plot structure, the episodic pacing, the iconic characters, the mythological vibe, the indefinable charm and beauty, and yes even the confusing intergalactic politics. TPM has to be the most varied in the whole saga and not a minute of it is boring to me.
I don’t claim it’s a masterpiece, but obviously I felt the film got a bad rap. It was inevitably going to be received that way since it was the first new entry in a franchise that had accumulated a pretty rabid fanbase who had spent 16 years making the perfect movies in their heads.
Don’t think I’m discounting the obvious flaws, I see them, some of them make me cringe still. But ever sense this Plinkett review came out the internet has its new gospel on the subject. Believe me, so much of that (admittedly funny) criticism is so off base that i don’t see how it has created a following larger and quicker than loose change.
The point of the internet is for complaining, I get that, especially in ways that make you feel smarter and in defense of how much more awesome things used to be when you were a kid. I do it too sometimes. I just wish I had to the time or interest to go through that TPM review and refute it line by line. But then writing a review of a review of a movie that’s 12 years old would make me the biggest loser in the world, so maybe I’ll come out later with just some of the larger points:)
By the way, for people who just didn’t like the movie and didn’t know that hating it was a sort of internet litmus test, please excuse my rant.It wasn’t about you. It’s ok that we like different things:D
Just skimming through this for the moment, but yea it certainly does look like my work is cut out for me. Nice find
I voted for Empire of course but I wanted to give a shout out to Revenge of the Sith. I think it’s underrated and easily the third best movie of the six (Star Wars being number 2 of course).
Another TPM fan chiming in. One thing I loved about it was how there were so many locations that were both fully realised, and important to the story.
I used to super annoyed with Binks, but when I watched it again, I realised that we are meant to be annoyed with him, all the other characters despise him. He lightens the tone when it needs lightening.
One thing I did dislike though, was how utterly lacking in onscreen brutallity the Trade Federation’s occupation was. It is easy to not sign a treaty when your people are only mildly inconvienienced
I like Star Wars the best. It’s a self-contained masterpiece of hero’s-journey storytelling, set in a fully-realized mythical universe, and told with a sense of adventure, romance, and humor.
ESB is a fully worthy successor that takes the story to a deeper, more emotional level, yet continues with the action, adventure and humor. It’s every bit as good as the original, but it doesn’t have a beginning middle and end.
I like RofJ, too. I used to watch it more than the other because it skipped right to the action (we all know what’s going on), and dammit I like the Ewoks.
All of the prequels are too long, and spend far too much time showing us parliamentary maneuvers and other political sausage-making. They contain interesting places and the action is quite good. However, it all seems like an unedited series of choreographed movements, but it’s not a dance.
Is any Star Wars line more remembered and quoted than "Luke, I am your father?
Obvious, ESB.
Probably, since the line is “No, I am your father.”
I’ll always like the original Star Wars-A New Hope best.
Actually, it’d be really easy to significantly improve Return of the Jedi, with just one small change. Replace the Ewoks with Wookies, as it was in the original plan. This would still leave it falling short of the first two (for one thing, it’d still have the recycled threat from the first one-- Another Death Star? Really?), but it’d be a huge improvement.
And while I don’t think I would say that any of the prequels are better than any of the originals, I would say that I think Revenge of the Sith was about as good as Return of the Jedi.