A New Hope
Empire Strikes Back
Return of the Jedi
Phantom Menace
Attack of the Clones
Revenge of the Sith
Rogue One
Anything else is just shitty fanfiction and doesn't count.
Frankly for me....
The original trilogy
Rogue One
Solo
Episode 3
Episode 2
Episode 1
The newer sequels
attack of the clones and phantom menace are the only two films on that list that fluctuate
shareI only really like the OT. I waffle between Empire and A New Hope being on top.
I didn't really like Rogue One very much; the characters were uninteresting to me (blunt/sarcastic robot voiced by Alan Tudyk notwithstanding) so I never cared about anything going on on screen.
Solo I just avoided.
While I sort of agree that The Force Awakens is basically fanfiction, I also liked watching it more than any of the Prequels.
I only like Rogue One because it fills in some gaps of understanding on how things got to where they were with Episode IV. It's really cruel that they killed off the main characters when the Death Star's weapon was being tested near the end of the film, making it impossible to give those characters the time of day to develop and become more interesting.
shareI sorta feel like A New Hope stands alone really, really well; I can't recall any gaps of understanding. Can you go a little deeper on that?
There were some things that Rogue One did that annoyed me when stacked together with A New Hope. For example, Princess Leia is barely involved in Rogue One. She doesn't plan anything, she doesn't make any moves, she doesn't engage in any political machinations or espionage, she's just the last runner in a relay race. Compare this to the audio drama of Star Wars produced by NPR (with actual Mark Hamill reprising his role!) where Leia and her father (well...kinda) are making clandestine moves to obtain the data tapes. It's much more satisfying to me when Leia is integral to the Rebellion. And for all of Disney's posturing with making "strong female characters," I found it ironic that they nerfed one of sci-fi's strongest ladies.
As to giving the characters time to develop, they had a whole movie and very little development happened. Jyn Erso was a flatline (as far as I'm concerned, anyway) and Cassian Andor always just seemed like ersatz Han Solo. In the original Star Wars, Luke goes from a naive, whiny farm boy to a more confident hero with purpose and goals. Han starts off as a devil-may-care, selfish rogue and comes back for his friends. All the characters receive bits and moments that are endearing and make us want to be with them more. That's just in one movie. What was holding Rogue One back? Nothing at all.
...Compare this to the audio drama of Star Wars produced by NPR (with actual Mark Hamill reprising his role!) where Leia and her father (well...kinda) are making clandestine moves to obtain the data tapes. It's much more satisfying to me when Leia is integral to the Rebellion...
Oh, yeah. The audio drama storyline is far more interesting and involved Leia - a character we all already love - in a main role. What might have been...
shareAbsolutely agreed, and here I would add one more thing that annoyed me about R1 - the characters lacked interaction.
Setting up a ragtag bunch is a huge task for the writers. All of them are coming from different backgrounds, some of them believe in the rebellion, some of them only partly. Some of them are sarcastic or burnt out, some of them are idealistic, etc. So they need to interact and work together. They will have differences in their approach, behavior, etc. that means conflict, that they need to resolve for effectively working together.
And we get NONE of that in the movie. There are even characters that don't say A WORD to each other. It's a real shame especially considering that Andor was masterfully characterized in his series that we got nothing in R1 about his philosophy, his worldview, and how it clashes (or might clash) with the view of other characters. Jyn seemed like a flatline (very fitting description) since she also did not have any conflicts with anyone inside the team. The robot seemed to be the only character they bothered to actually characterize - Alan Tudyk was utilized well enough - but it really really lacked that brilliant "characters are playing off of each other" vibe of Firefly (speaking of Alan Tudyk), and that was really sad to see. I didn't expect Firefly level dialogue, but we did not even get a tenth of that. We did not really get the sense of the writers even being aware of the fact that the characters should... you know... talk to each other.
Very good point. That's a great way to articulate one big reason why I (and many others) didn't care about the characters of Rogue 1.
A while ago I started up a thread on the Mission: Impossible board about the team at the beginning of that film and how rapidly they became endearing to me as a viewer. Some of that is certainly down to the banter and interplay between the teammates. We quickly get a sense of the relationships that these people have, the history that they have with one another - there's a rapport. Rogue 1 doesn't give us that. You're right to negatively compare it to Firefly.
But even teams that get together in a movie can still have that connection. The first Avengers movie does this nicely. Heck, the original Star Wars brings together disparate adventurers and makes us love 'em all. Rogue 1 just failed on that point.
And I'm 100% with you on Tudyk's robot. He was the exception to the rule, and was a fun character. Too bad they saddled him with a bunch of duds.
The M:I thread, in case you are interested: https://moviechat.org/tt0117060/Mission-Impossible/600f03f7eef9966eef80967e/Sympathy-for-the-First-Team
I don't really care about M:I (however I might need a rewatch of the first few films in that series...), but read through your post, and it is spot on in wording what I myself always think about teams & crews in films and series.
I always go for the feeling of "They are real people" VS "Everything and everyone exists only for the plot".
In this sense: Firefly VS Star Trek Discovery is an interesting juxtaposition for me. In Firefly, I can picture the crew's "normal days". We get enough information and characterization for each crewmember to see what they are interested in, what they want, what they feel, etc. So when they are not involved in a crazy adventure, they still feel like people with actual, very well formed personalities (see the cold opens of the show - that ballgame opening, the various discussions on things outside the plot, etc.)
Compare and contrast: in Star Trek: Discovery, we get none of the fine-tuned characterization of Firefly. The crew of the Discovery are mainly officers and they are mainly defined by what they do, not who they are. We get very little information about even the main character for her to rise above this. "These people like to explore new planets, but MY GOD, what do they do when there is no plot?" was my constant thought in the back of my head. I don't like shows where entire characters are only showing up for one purpose to serve in the plot, and we get no information on their worldviews, ideology, etc. So yes, we need to see scenes about "how horrible the coffee is" to get proper characterization on all characters - that's my view.
I've only seen the first three M:I films. Although, I think Fallout is supposed to be really good... To be honest, I sorta liked that they ended M:I III with Ethan Hunt getting married and finding a little oasis of happiness in the middle of a crazy spy universe, and I sorta like that as the ending. I also feel like M:I was the only one that was trying to be a spy thriller instead of an action movie. Maybe that's changed, but I feel like they're only getting bigger/louder (based on trailers and the trajectory of II and III).
Yeah, plot should come out of characters. If they don't feel like real people, nothing works. The plot just feels like "and then this happens." If the characters feel real, they're motivated to get to the next part and we want to go with them.
Well, I haven't seen Discovery, but based on reactions, I don't really plan to, either. That does sound bad. Not even something that would make the show awful, just tedious. Because, as you say, it's just a bunch of plots that could be happening to anybody. This is especially bad in a TV series where, even if you use the first few episodes to get a plot going and hook viewers, you could take whole episodes to explore the inner lives and private lives/downtime of the characters. The ballgame opener in Firefly is a great example. I also love whenever not every crew member is needed, they all seem to get up to different things - the way a lot of coworkers would. Firefly was so great.
https://moviechat.org/tt2527338/Star-Wars-Episode-IX-The-Rise-of-Skywalker/6092cdc81e68156598fd5af9/SW-films-ranked?reply=60971f8a3bb97e2a1bf89d88
I may have to rethink that list. There's actually quite a lot of well-made fan films.
By "fanfiction," I meant all the shitty Disney films and tv shows that came out after 2012, with the exception of Rogue One.
Now fan-made films that are shown online are a completely different ballpark.
In regards to the list I posted three years ago (linked above), I ranked "any fan made film" above TLJ and TRoS but below TFA. If I were to write the same list now, I would have probably put fan films higher up, because I've seen some pretty great ones lately, and my hatred for the Disney content sludge has only increased.
shareSame here. I don't even acknowledge that "lesbos in space" shitshow that came on recently.
shareAll real Star Wars films ranked best to worst:
1. Star Wars - 9
2. Empire Strikes Back - 8.7
3. Return of the Jedi - 6.5
The Empire strikes back
The return of the Jedi/ The revenge of the Sith
A new hope
Rogue one
Attack of the clones
The phanthom menace
..............................
The Force awakens