Favorite Star Wars movie - and why

Star Wars - A New Hope (the original). The special effects were fully and totally stunning. Yeah, many others were fun, but none of them left me pew-pew'ing other cars from the back of the station wagon while riding home!

The only one I didn't like was Phantom Menace. Even Attack of the Clones is fine now, as I can fast forward whenever Anny and What's'er'name are alone together.
@Couchpotato;, Happy Life Day!
(Ow… jeez, I shouldn't have said that. Now I need to go throw up.)

With the exception of the dual lightsaber battle at the beginning of Phantom Menace I thought the whole prequel trilogy was painfully awful. Trash really. Terrible casting. Horrifying dialog (not in the "so bad its good" like ANH). CGI off the rails. Yoda lightsaber battle should have been with Jar Jar.

Oddly enough I don’t have a favorite because I really don’t have any interest in Star Wars. I’ve seen most of the first 3. I remember falling asleep during return of the Jedi.

Even more odd is I think I may be the only person on the planet to have no interest in Star Wars, Star Trek or lord of the rings. Not saying there bad but I just never could get into any of them.

Zloth said:

@Couchpotato, Happy Life Day!
(Ow… jeez, I shouldn't have said that. Now I need to go throw up.)

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Happy Life Day! To you as well.

sakichop said:

Oddly enough I don’t have a favorite because I really don’t have any interest in Star Wars. I’ve seen most of the first 3. I remember falling asleep during return of the Jedi.

Even more odd is I think I may be the only person on the planet to have no interest in Star Wars, Star Trek or lord of the rings. Not saying there bad but I just never could get into any of them.

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Whoa, that is unusual. While I have grown to hate the Star Wars franchise, I adore Lord of the Rings and many of the Star Trek tv shows (though not all of them)

I think it's time I ruined everything by naming Last Jedi as my favorite

That said, I think Empire and Return of the Jedi are tied for best movie, after that.

RotJ would win if Ewoks had been Wookies, as it should have been.

The reason I'm so fond of RotJ is that I absolutely adore the Luke/Vader/Emperor thing. It's everything I love about Star Wars - and it's executed so well. I also think the action sequences in general are better in RotJ.

Empire is the best written movie, though. There's no denying it's the one Star Wars movie you can take seriously more or less all the way.

But I don't think Star Wars was meant to be taken seriously on that level - and I think all the other movies demonstrate that, and I think there's a certain campy charm that's deliberate about them. At least, I hope it's deliberate.

So, while I do appreciate the darker and more serious tone of Empire - I don't necessarily think it's ideal for Star Wars.

In that same way, I vastly prefer the original KotOR to the sequel. I'm just a really big fan of the romantic space opera thing.

It's how SW should be

Arkadia7 said:

Whoa, that is unusual. While I have grown to hate the Star Wars franchise, I adore Lord of the Rings and many of the Star Trek tv shows (though not all of them)

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I have to say, these recent daily Dart threads are a good way of finding out who the extremists are around here, lol. Often in very surprising ways. While there's nothing surprising about any specific personal taste, to be on an RPG specialist forum & then have someone declare zero interest in all of those three series is remarkably odd.

To answer the thread question, it has to be the first one (which was later relabelled episode 4). The main problem with Star Wars is that it doesn't actually have a universe to expand into, each movie is just a retread of the war between the Alliance versus the Empire, which would be ok if the Empire weren't technically defeated at the end of the first movie. At least as far as they ever needed to be.

So instead of each episode providing a new angle of the universe to look at, it instead tries to be a Bond movie and just repeats itself with different gadets with different environmental backdrops (Desert, water, jungle, space station, snow etc). While this works for Bond, who's job never chages and is self-titled about an individual doing a specific job, it doesn't work for Star Wars because there's only so many times you can see the empire and/or it's leaders get destroyed/killed. To have thewhole universe to play with (like Star Trek) and then to do pretty much nothing with it just makes the descriptor for the series be "Myopic".

This is made even worse by the cock and bull way the characterisation is handled throughout, whereby each series and even episode can have a completely different cast-list and motivations, so there's no one person to really root for throughout. Ironically, the most prominent characters have been the bad guys, with Darth Vader's character getting six films and The Emperor getting four films, both of whom have a greater screen presence and in depth characterisation far in superior to the good guys with the same screen time, such as Obi Wan, Solo or Luke. Who exactly is Star Wars about?

Etc.

ANH , I think.
Things were still fresh and in development, then. The design had not finalized yet and the galaxy hadn't, either.

Couchpotato said:

Hard to say as all three are tied together to tell the whole story. If I had to pick as you want it would have to be the second movie where Luke finds out Vader is his father.

Just imagine finding out your whole life was a lie and the man who killed your relatives & mentor is your father. How would you react as he cut off your hand at the same time?

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Why am I the only one who will go on record and say that was stupid. I was 11 years old and I knew that was stupid. And for sending a telepathic message to Leia. That was dumb too. But not as dumb.

The original line was, "No, Obi Wan Kenobi killed your father." That was the line first spoken in bad English accent on the first take. That would have been far more compelling.

Also

Revenge of the Sith > Return of the Jedi. RotJ was never the worst but it was a sign of bad things to come. Its unfortunately that RotS took two movies to get to a real good one.

My brother and I saw the first 4 movies together. We both walked out of Phantom Menace realizing that it had an intricate plot and it was underrated storywise. We also saw a little boy in the front row that loved Jar Jar.

Dart I can see why you like Return of the Jedi. The final confrontation was amazing. But it was surrounded by so much fluffy puppet nonsense I just can't put it above Empire. It really marked the beginning of the end for Lucas. Last Jedi was pretty good but the villian needs to grow a pair and stop the emo crap.

ToddMcF2002 said:

Dart I can see why you like Return of the Jedi. The final confrontation was amazing. But it was surrounded by so much fluffy puppet nonsense I just can't put it above Empire. It really marked the beginning of the end for Lucas. Last Jedi was pretty good but the villian needs to grow a pair and stop the emo crap.

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That's ok, to each his own

Last Jedi wasn't perfect - but I think the villain is interesting and the actor is superb.

I like him but he has made his last mistake running the empire. Next one and he is sacked.

Flawed villains aren't exactly a new concept in Star Wars, though

Lucky Day said:

Why am I the only one who will go on record and say that was stupid. I was 11 years old and I knew that was stupid. And for sending a telepathic message to Leia. That was dumb too. But not as dumb.

The original line was, "No, Obi Wan Kenobi killed your father." That was the line first spoken in bad English accent on the first take. That would have been far more compelling.

Also

Revenge of the Sith > Return of the Jedi. RotJ was never the worst but it was a sign of bad things to come. Its unfortunately that RotS took two movies to get to a real good one.

My brother and I saw the first 4 movies together. We both walked out of Phantom Menace realizing that it had an intricate plot and it was underrated storywise. We also saw a little boy in the front row that loved Jar Jar.

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There was a bunch of scenes that got re-edited in the updated versions. Also everyone thinks Vader says "Luke I am your father", but he doesn't. This is the real line.

In Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, Darth Vader never says “Luke, I am your father.” He actually says, “No, I am your father.”

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Jar-Jar yeah we was annoying but he didn't deserve to get cut out completely. The actor who played him still gets harassed by fans nowadays. Sheesh what a tough fanbase.

The thing with Jar Jar was that he was fine as a character, lots of people quite liked him, the problem is that such a character isn't the lead character, it's a supporting comedy relief, like CP30 or Chewbacca etc. Since The Phantom Menace didn't have a lead character and since Lucas wanted to make Jar Jar "the key to it all", it didn't work. The thematic contrast between the slapstick of Jar Jar and the stoic statuesqueness of everything else was way too evident for most to connect with anything. But sure, there will be some who "just like Jar Jar", there was someone in my own family even.

Too much CGI and the inability of the actors to act in it, coupled with the CGI animators overdoing it, killed those scenes. The only movie that ever made it work was Roger Rabbit and Bob Hoskins was seen as a great actor after that.

Also, the characters needed to interact with each other which they weren't allowed to do. Lucas focused too much on the plot/story, a mistake he didn't make in the first two films.

Now Jar Jar

Jar Jar was intended to be "The Mule", up there with the greatest characters in fiction along with Darth himself, Vladmir Harkonnen, and Randall Flagg. He rewrote it for Count Dooku instead which was a big mistake. Again, it would have been far more compelling.

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As for what was said by Darth, the point is - Darth Vader as Luke Skywalker's father was outright stupid. Princess Leia as Luke Skywalker's sister was almost equally stupid, if he didn't take this idea from Dune in the first place.

What? The greatest twist in the history of twists was stupid?

Ok, I don't agree - I thought it was super compelling and cool when I was 9 - and I still do.

As much as I want to say it's a contest, in my mind, it really isn't. I have to go with Empire Strikes Back.

Not only was it told with a superb narrative, but it was visually impressive too (at the time). Being behind the big screen as Walkers (AT-ATs) marched on toward the rebel outpost on Hoth was amazing. I actually still get goosebumps when I see that, which is also probably induced by nostalgia.

ESB took a lot of twists and turns that left the audience wanting more, and it had such a profound impact that it's still remembered to this day. It also spawned one of the most well known movie quotes of all time. To the audience, Vader was a cold and heartless being, but also a complete mystery. It was an incredible shock to audiences when we not only discovered who he was, but that he cared for someone. Suddenly that veil of mystery and heartlessness had been lifted.

I also like A New Hope for the beginnings of Luke and the franchise as a whole. It's fun to experience the birth of a new idea and watch it find its footing - you get to witness it mature over time. But that's more of a personal thing for me.

You could look at it either way, really. It's a move you might expect in a daytime soap opera, but also a move right out of Greek tragedy. Low or high, take your pick!

Today it might be something in a daytime soap opera - but at the time it wasn't a common sort of twist.

Heck, it rivals the reveal in Chinatown.

But it wasn't just shocking, it was perfect for the drama and established a very effective conflict of emotions for both Luke and Vader.

Without that twist, the entire power and love struggle of RotJ would be gone.

I don't know how anyone could consider that a good thing.