This is Star Wars week on the site, which means I am writing about nothing but Star Wars. I thought it would be fun, as we look ahead to the new movie this Friday, to look back on the previous six movies. Today, I am looking at the prequels and rating each of them. Wednesday, I will be looking at the original trilogy, and will rate each of those. At the end of that post, I will list each of the movies in order according to my rankings. I am making no promises that these will be at all unbiased, but I will do what I can. I will be ranking them from worst to best, although with the prequels, maybe I should rank them best to worst, to switch it up. Too late, I already established they would be worst to best. So, let’s get started.
Star Wars: Attack of the Clones
There is a case here to be made for either Attack of the Clones or Phantom Menace. I think either side of the argument would have a pretty solid case. Why did I place Attack of the clones at the bottom of this list? I just can’t take this movie. There is very little that redeems this film. Yes, it’s Star Wars, so it has that going for it, but barely. It felt like this film was a hot mess from the very beginning. We had to replace one of the coolest villains of the Star Wars franchise when Darth Maul died at the end of Episode I. To do that, they selected two different villains. Count Dooku, who has one of the worst names in the Star Wars universe, and General Grievous. I liked General Grievous, but didn’t care for Count Dooku. That is not a dig at all to the incomparable Christopher Lee. He may have performed as the character, but he didn’t write him. He just wasn’t threatening at all. He was a poor replacement for Darth Maul.
Then there’s the dialogue between Anakin and Padme/Amidala. Each time I watch this movie, it gets more and more painful and awkward. It’s like watching a really bad CW show that is really long. Please make it stop. Not to mention, the whole flying to Tatooine, and then killing all the sand people. I get that they kidnapped his mom and did unspeakable things to her, but he killed women and children in his murderous attack. Women and children! At this point in the story, aren’t we supposed to be pulling for Anakin? He isn’t a hero. He is a villain from the start. Heroes don’t kill women and children, although, murdering innocent children kind of becomes Anakin’s thing.
Lastly, there’s the name. It sounds like an old B-rated monster flick from the 50s. I have never been able to get over the title. Ever since I heard it, I couldn’t look past it. It was like they had no idea what to call it, so they just settled on this. Just bad. This is the movie that I tell friends who have never seen Star Wars to just skip. Don’t put yourself through it. There is nothing in this one that is worth sitting through.
Star Wars: The Phantom Menace
There was so much hype and excitement around this movie when it came out. I remember working at the movie theater when the first trailer dropped, and all of us were just blown away. If I remember correctly, some of the projectionist guys tried to put the trailer on every film we were showing at the time. The only thing that stopped them were the number of copies of the trailer that we had. So much hype, and so much disappointment.
Star Wars was known for its spectacle and explosions and action. The Phantom Menace offered us very little of any of those. What it did offer was trade negotiations, protests against taxes, diplomacy, and lots and lots of Jar Jar Binks. It was just so boring. I remember seeing it quite a few times when it finally came out, I think mostly out of obligation. Now, when I sit down to watch it, I have to make sure I’ve had plenty of sleep and my preferred cola drink handy, or else I may just not make it through awake.
Why does this rank above Episode II for me? The one thing this has going for it is the above picture from the final battle between Qui Gonn and Obi Wan and Darth Maul. It was the greatest lightsaber duel we had ever seen. Ever. It still may be the best. It was so much better than anything that we had seen in the original trilogy, that it is enough to catapult this above Episode II. That, and they filmed a lot more on location in this one. It felt more like Star Wars in that sense.
Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith
This is the best of the three prequel films. It seems like they almost finally got it right. This added more spectacle than what we had seen in Episode I and combined it with a much better story than what we saw in Episode II. Let’s face it, this movie was what we were all waiting to see in the prequels anyway: Anakin becoming Darth Vader. Not just turning to the Dark Side, but putting on the suit for the first time, and the scene where we see him rise for the first time as the Vader we all know and love, it was awesome.
This also featured some great lightsaber duels, like Anakin versus Obi Wan, Yoda versus Palpatine, Anakin versus all the younglings…ok, that last one is still disturbing to a lot of Star Wars fans. It would have been more shocking too, except he had already done it in Episode II, except those were just sand people, so they didn’t count. All of this was supposed to get us to really hate Anakin, and feel bad for him for how far he had fallen, but we didn’t. That is the biggest failing, for me, with the prequels. We never feel that attached to Anakin. We never really find ourselves rooting for him, and when he finally “turns,” it’s not the dramatic tragic fall we had been anticipating. It was more like the inevitable outcome for him based on his actions.
Overall, it may be the best of the prequels, but it still had lots of problems. It was by no means the best Star Wars movie, but it wasn’t as big a disappointment as the previous two films. That may have been because we had our expectations so much lower for Episode III, based on what we had seen in Episodes I and II.
What do you think? How would you rank the prequel movies? Did I get it right, or am I way off base? let me know in the comments below, or send me feedback directly at [email protected].
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