Note that, while I'm using the date of the premiere for this post, the time of it is 5:04 AM -- or 0504, or May the 4th, which some celebrate as Star Wars Day: "May the 4th be with you."
July 16, 1977: My father took me to see it, at the Menlo Park Twin Cinema on U.S. Route 1 in Edison, New Jersey. It has since been demolished, as has the old Menlo Park Mall. The new Mall has a multiplex.
You hear that 20th Century Fox fanfare, and then that pause, and then that John Williams score, through Dolby stereo speakers, when you're 7 years old, and your previous science fiction experience has been watching Star Trek, the Tom Baker version of Doctor Who, and the old Flash Gordon serials on TV with your father... and you totally get it when, years later, you first hear the expression "the magic of the movies."
The Yankees frequently use Williams' familiar theme song to introduce their players on special days, like Opening Day and postseason games, and Williams'"Imperial March," a.k.a. "Darth Vader's Theme," to introduce the opposing players.
Creator George Lucas envisioned a 9-episode "Skywalker Saga." It's now been done, plus 2 "Star Wars Stories" that were intended to add some background to the 9. How should they be ranked?
Some Lucasians insist that Episode V -- The Empire Strikes Back is the greatest film not just of the series, but in motion picture history. They are wrong, as I will explain in this ranking. Nor is Episode I -- The Phantom Menace the worst one.
11. Solo: A Star Wars Story, 2018. An origin story for Han Solo, played as a young man by Alden Ehrenreich, showing how he met Chewbacca and Lando Calrissian, and how he became the captain of the Millennium Falcon.
It had Donald Glover, a.k.a. Childish Gambino, as the young Lando. It had Emilia Clarke from Game of Thrones. It had Woody Harrelson. It had Thandie Newton. It had Phoebe Waller-Bridge. It had Paul Bettany. It had Ray Park reprising his role as the popular villain Darth Maul, somehow having survived getting cut in half by young Obi-Wan Kenobi in Episode I. It was directed by Ron Howard. What could go wrong?
Lots of things. It grossed a little under $400 million worldwide, or about $100 million less than it needed to break even. Critics thought that the younger version of the "scruffy nerf-herder" so beloved in the original trilogy was held back a little too much, suggesting that, as a younger guy, he should have been rougher, not neater. (Howard said that Harrison Ford talked to him and praised both Ehrenreich and the film in general.)
For the most part, the story was unnecessary. Essentially, it was a chance for people who always wanted to be in a Star Wars film to get their chance, like all those original Trekkies who fought hard to keep the torch burning in the wilderness years of the 1970s, and were rewarded by bring the crew/audience for Admiral Kirk's mission briefing in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. That wasn't a very good movie, either.
10. Episode I -- The Phantom Menace, 1999. Three words: Jar Jar Binks. Okay, that's not the only bad part of it. George Lucas ripped off his own early film, American Graffiti, to do the podracing scene. Don't blame Jake Lloyd for being a 9-year-old Anakin Skywalker that just couldn't be taken seriously. Blame Lucas for writing the character that way.
It wasn't just Binks that helped to make this film bad, it was all the Gungans. Watto. The Battle Droids. The Trade Federation didn't make for quality villains. (If they were, Palpatine could not have manipulated them so easily. He had to really work to eventually turn Anakin to the Dark Side.)
Liam Neeson is used to saving people in movies, but he couldn't save this movie. Nor could Ewan McGregor, though he made a fine young Obi-Wan. Nor could Natalie Portman, although she was a believable teenage royal. (She was 17 playing 14, so it wasn't outrageous.) Nor could Ray Park as the nasty Darth Maul. They were all good. But, overall, this film stunk like tauntaun guts.
9. Episode VIII -- The Last Jedi, 2017. Easily the most depressing film in the canon, and that includes Revenge of the Sith, or ROTS, a film in which the Republic falls, Padme dies, and 99 percent of the Jedi are slaughtered.
This movie lasted 2 hours and 32 minutes. For the 1st 2 hours and 15 minutes, it felt like a complete waste. Rey failed to convince Luke to rejoin the fight. The Resistance got clobbered, almost down to the last man. Snoke was killed, but Kylo got no closer to his teased redemption. The entire Canto Bight sequence was pointless.
Worst of all, once again, J.J. Abrams and his lackey Rian Johnson held to the pattern, and remade the 2nd film of the trilogy, The Empire Strikes Back. Only this time, the last-ditch retreat was on a planet where the snow was actually salt. They're running out of atmospheres and surfaces to try.
My brother-in-law is a huge Star Wars fan. He really, really hated this movie. I told him the only good thing about it was the end, and he didn't even like that.
But as someone who is old enough to remember the original Star Wars film (he isn't), I loved the way that Luke went out, holding the First Order off long enough for the Resistance's "Dunkirk" to be completed. It was a noble sacrifice, especially when you consider that he could come back as a Force Ghost in Episode IX, which he did.
8. Episode II -- Attack of the Clones, 2002. Samuel L. Jackson being a badass is nothing new. Nor is Christopher Lee being one. Natalie Portman being one was. But that was about it for the good stuff in this movie.
Like Return of the Jedi, AOTC made Boba Fett look like the overrated schmuck that he really always was. Hayden Christensen did Anakin's character development few favors. C-3PO was rendered truly slapstick. There was another of Lucas' beloved "car chases."
And the fight between Yoda and Count Dooku was not worth it. Imagine, a fight involving Christopher Lee, and it not only isn't worth it, but is outright silly. Congratulations, George Lucas.
7. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, 2016. Set just before Episode IV, it tells of how the Rebel Alliance got the all-important plans to the 1st Death Star. Critics used words like "lobotomized" and "depersonalized." The critic for The New York Times said:
All the pieces are there, in other words, like Lego figures in a box. The problem is that the filmmakers haven't really bothered to think of anything very interesting to do with them. A couple of 9-year-olds on a screen-free rainy afternoon would come up with better adventures, and probably also better dialogue.
Somebody searched their feelings, and found strong ones.
6. Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith, 2005. Since, at that point, we did not really expect Episodes VII, VIII and IX to get made, many of us thought that this was going to be it. We wanted a satisfying conclusion, even though we knew the ending had to be unhappy.
It was the best of the prequel trilogy, but that's like calling Tiffany the best Trump child. Honestly, the best thing about this movie is seeing a great villain truly revealed, but it's Palpatine, not Vader. We're supposed to believe that Anakin begins the movie as a battle-hardened 22-year-old Jedi, but he still comes off as a petulant child, not as a believable Sith Lord-to-be.
5. Episode VII -- The Force Awakens, 2015. After making Star Trek films that Star Wars fans could like but Star Trek fans couldn't, J.J. Abrams finally got to achieve his dream, and make Star Wars films. And, judged on its own merit alone, TFA is a good movie.
The problem is, Abrams basically made the 1st movie (Episode IV) all over again. Luke becomes Rey. The Young Han part was kind of split between Finn and Poe. R2-D2 becomes BB-8. Darth Vader becomes Kylo Ren. Grand Moff Tarkin becomes General Hux. Emperor Palpatine (for a movie and a half, as it turns out) becomes Supreme Leader Snoke. The Death Star becomes Starkiller Base. The hard part, of course, was that Obi-Wan became Old Han.
The thing we hated the most about Episodes II and III? The big dark villain turned out to be a whiny petulant manchild, hard to take seriously. Kylo seemed less the corrupted son of the Han and Leia we saw finally, officially, get together at the end of Episode VI, and more the grandson of the Anakin we saw in Episodes II and III.
So, as a science fiction/fantasy movie, TFA works. As a Star Wars movie, less so.
4. Episode IX -- The Rise of Skywalker, 2019. The final chapter of "The Skywalker Saga," but apparently not the last Star Wars film. Knowing that it was an Abrams film, that Episode VII was an underwhelming retread, that Episode VIII was an underwhelming and depressing retread, and that it had already been leaked that ultimate villain Palpatine was returning, I couldn't have been the only Star Wars fan who thought, "I've got a bad feeling about this!"
That feeling was wrong. Abrams finally got it right: He didn't just hold to the pattern and "remake Episode VI," he properly evoked Episodes IV and VI, and providing the happy ending we all needed, the success the new generation of characters had worked so hard for, and the closure that the previous generation deserved.
And let's be honest: "I am all the Sith!""And I... am all the Jedi!" was a better last exchange than Avengers: Endgame's "I am inevitable!""And I... am... Iron Man!"
3. Episode V -- The Empire Strikes Back, 1980. Just as it is blasphemy among some James Bond fans to say that Sean Connery is not the best actor to play Bond, and that Goldfinger is not the best Bond film; and that it is blasphemy among some Star Trek fans to say that The Wrath of Khan is not the best Trek movie (and I said each of these in recent posts); I am going to blaspheme the cult of Darth Vader (Rolling Stone magazine called it one in 1999 when TPM was released), and say that this is not the best Star Wars film.
No. It is a very dark and depressing film, and not just because Dagobah being a swamp planet made it hard to see things. Much of the Bespin scenes had white walls, but it was still a dark film. Let's face it, we spent about 90 percent of this film thinking Luke Skywalker was going to die, and about 25 percent of it thinking Han Solo was going to die.
There is no happy ending, only the promise of Episode VI having one. If something had happened to prevent that film from ever getting made, and the saga ended here, it would have been a tremendous letdown -- worse than Spock dying near the end of Star Trek II.
Even at the time, there was no consensus that this film was better than the original. Vincent Canby of The New York Times correctly stated that the sequel wasn’t “as fresh and funny and surprising and witty” as Star Wars. It was, he believed, “a big, expensive, time-consuming, essentially mechanical operation.”
But it goes beyond even that. In an article for the BBC, Nicholas Barber argues that Episode V actually betrayed the original film (not unlike the way Anakin betrayed the Jedi), and set up all the flaws in not just the Star Wars franchise as a whole, but in most film franchises.
It's worth pointing out that sequels weren't really a thing until 1980. The Godfather and Jaws had each released a second film in their series, but that was about it. Most film series were basically one single one-off after the other. You didn't need to watch a previous James Bond or Sherlock Holmes or Tarzan film to appreciate the next one.
TESB (or just "Empire") changed that, forever: From this point onward, pretty much every single film has been designed to set up a franchise, some successfully, some not. So much is invested now, that producing just one film is considered short-sighted.
This is not the only thing that started in 1980 that got out of control, but it's a big one. And that's not just a potshot at the American conservative movement: Just 2 months before Empire premiered, the TV show Dallas ended its season by having J.R. Ewing get shot, thus inventing the season-ending cliffhanger, something all too common on TV shows ever since.
Also, having a big "twist" is not necessary, and you're not going to have a more effective one than "No. I am your father," either.
Be honest: If you believe TESB is the best Star Wars film, it means you wanted the Empire to win. It means you have given yourself over to the Dark Side. As Yoda put it when Luke asked, midway through this film, "Is the Dark Side stronger?""No -- but, seductive, it is."
Sometimes, bad guys have appeal. Even James Earl Jones, who voiced Darth Vader while David Prowse wore the armor, has admitted this. But you should never, ever root for them.
It doesn't matter if any of them actually have a point to their arguments. You don't root for the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz. You don't root for Emilio Barzini in The Godfather (even though the Corleones are also mobsters). You don't root for Doc Hopper in The Muppet Movie. You don't root for Voldemort in the Harry Potter series. You don't root for Thanos in the Avengers movies. You don't root for the Klingons in the original Star Trek series or the Borg or the Dominion in the subsequent series.
In the closest analogy, you do not, under any circumstances, root for the Nazis in Casablanca, or in any other World War II-themed movie (or even in The Blues Brothers). And you do not root for the Empire in the Star Wars saga.
2. Episode VI -- Return of the Jedi, 1983. I know what you're thinking: "What?!? Are you kidding me, Uncle Mike? Ahead of Empire? Surely, you can't be serious!" I am serious, and don't call me Shirley.
One of the things you don't like about this movie is the Ewoks. Well, that's one of the things I like about it. Losing to an alliance that included the Ewoks shows just how incompetent the Empire really was.
One of the things you don't like about this movie is that it made Boba Fett look like a complete joke. Well, that's one of the things I like about it. It shows that neither the Empire nor Jabba the Hutt really had an eye for talent.
I get the fact that Palpatine was truly powerful in The Force, and that he had absolute command over his troops, their total loyalty. So that's how the Empire managed to last as long as it did, despite being a very backward government, as well as an authoritarian and evil one.
But how the hell did the Hutts maintain control of Tattooine for so long? Was it that there was simply no resistance to them? No planetary equivalent of the FBI to crack down on them?
Anyway, ROTJ is a very good action movie, but also a very good psychological thriller. On both of those bases, it is better than TESB. And, of course, it has what everybody except the moral defectives who rooted for the Empire wanted: A happy ending. (Which J.J. Abrams managed to screw up, 32 years later.)
1. Episode IV -- A New Hope, 1977. For all the silliness, and for all the borrowing from various mythologies to begin a new one, Star Wars remains 1 of my top 5 favorite films of all time. That happens when you're 7 years old, you haven't yet seen a real movie in a real theater with a big screen and Dolby stereo, and you're into comic books and superheroes, and Luke Skywalker is a new Superman.
The cult of Darth Vader wants us to believe that he's the greatest villain ever, but this film makes it clear that Governor Tarkin is the big villain in this film. Think about it: Who ordered the destruction of Alderaan? Tarkin. And, in the next 2 movies, Vader freely calls Palpatine "my master."
Vader is big, black, powerful and foreboding, but you don't need to have seen the prequel trilogy -- or to know that he's Luke's father, as we didn't until Episode V -- to realize that he's a symptom, and that the Emperor and his Empire are the disease.
And how many films have so satisfying an ending? Well, except for Chewie not getting one of those medals along with Luke and Han.
So, yes: 43 years later, the original is still the best. See ya around, kid.