Hey, so this has been pretty popular recently, in an internet endlessly obsessed with ranking things. (Hey, I do it, too, and have many lists here, but without pictures. So nobody cares.) Here's my worst to first:
12. Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008)
In their rush to prop up the narrative that anything's better than the prequels, fans latched onto the later TV series, but...this is the bottom of the barrel. Period. In animation particularly, the need for art becomes paramount. A lot of animated flicks try to skirt by on adventure or jokes, but if there's nothing to hang it on, sparse characterization or minimal effort in storytelling, the results fall flat. And this is as flat as Star Wars will hopefully ever get.
11. Rogue One (2016)
Those same fans latched onto Rogue One because it was everything they wanted Star Wars to be, and to my mind, this can be summed up as: embarrassing. A true bastardization of the saga, with as flat an understanding of the source material as Clone Wars. Although ironically, the thing I originally liked least is the one element I like now, Ben Mendelsohn's showy turn as an outright mustache-twirling Imperial officer.
10. Solo (2018)
Here's where I quit griping (I'm disappointed when fans grumble about seemingly the bulk of a franchise), because I actually really like Solo, but I'm finding it hard to rank the saga entries themselves, so it's just easier to get this out of the way.
9. The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
What??? Invariably, this is the one everyone else picks as the best of the franchise, and here I'm ranking it as essentially the worst? Thematically, it's an entirely interstitial piece; where it isn't introducing bold new ideas (Yoda, Lando, Vader-as-dad) the story is actually mostly in a holding pattern, with all the key players struggling to accomplish something and having no idea if they're actually making progress. It's literally Star Wars with no real idea of where it's going, but attempting gamely to set itself up for something bigger. That's the definition of a game-changer, but not necessarily in glowing terms.
8. The Last Jedi (2017)
In contrast, Last Jedi makes bold creative decisions while attempting to ensure its characters are making definitive progress, too. While Empire Strikes Back makes a lot of heroes look hapless, at least it's easier to root for Yoda than for Luke in Last Jedi, although conversely it's easier to root for Rey in Last Jedi than Luke in Empire Strikes Back. And for all the criticism Rian Johnson has received, he's easily the third best director of the saga.
7. Attack of the Clones (2002)
Fans have been ripping on the dialogue and chemistry on display in Attack of the Clones for years, but artistically it's probably the best George Lucas ever delivered, the most streamlined of all his interests and instincts. But as cool as Yoda is in action (the initial reaction to the movie loved this aspect, but it's since been completely forgotten), it's a little disappointing to know it rests entirely on his shoulders to pull off what the two other prequels achieve so effortlessly in lightsaber dueling.
6. The Rise of Skywalker (2019)
The final film in the saga is an excellent summation and synthesis, as well as radical reinterpretation of everything that came before it, confidently exploring the concept of redemption that felt like an afterthought previously.
5. Return of the Jedi (1983)
The later Pirates of the Caribbean franchise feels like an outgrowth of the thrilling onslaught of enthralling action that the original climax of the saga essentially is. It might as well have been the literal template.
4. The Phantom Menace (1999)
The first of the prequels ends in breathtaking fashion with the spectacular lightsaber duel between Darth Maul (the perfection of a concept in minimalism created for Boba Fett), Ob-Wan Kenobi, and Qui-Gon Jinn. I happen to love Jar Jar, thank you. But no acting tops Liam Neeson in the franchise, whose performance here led to a career renaissance, regardless of what fans think.
3. The Force Awakens (2015)
The introductions of Rey and Finn were the best in the whole saga, and Han Solo still manages to steal the show, and proving that J.J. Abrams was a worthy successor to George Lucas.
2. A New Hope (1977)
The sheer boldness of the first film will always top Empire Strikes Back in my book, an astonishing vision that sprang forth from the simple idea of trying to update Flash Gordon. Mission greatly exceeded, Mr. Lucas.
1. Revenge of the Sith (2005)
It was the vision George Lucas had from the moment Star Wars solidified in his mind: how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader. The prequels extended that vision to three films, but by the third it focused not on the epic clash between Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi, but the seduction of Palpatine, in the single best dramatic sequence of the saga: a conversation at an opera. Then of course Skywalker and Kenobi clash, and the inevitable happens, and the acting in the franchise reaches its zenith. So yes, the prequels reign supreme.
Showing posts with label Star Wars. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Star Wars. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 31, 2019
Saturday, December 21, 2019
Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (2019)
rating: ****
the story: The saga concludes.
review: This will be another film from 2019 I hesitate to call an out-and-out classic. (True story: when I was picking up the recent home video release of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, I heard it referred to as the movie where Bruce Lee gets his ass kicked.) Because I really like Rise of Skywalker, but I'm not immediately prepared to go all in. Sometimes a movie will leave you with that kind of impression, right from the start. Sometimes it takes a while. Some of my all-time favorites are like that. My appreciation for Tarsem's The Fall has grown even from a hugely favorable initial impression.
But what you want to read about is Rise of Skywalker. The Star Wars saga has quite an interesting backstory to it at this point. I'm not talking about the films but how they've been accepted by fans over the years. Empire Strikes Back sort of instantly, for most observers, became the franchise favorite, but it didn't make as much money at the box office as A New Hope. Fans instantly derided Return of the Jedi as a shameless conclusion to the original trilogy, festooned with nonsense teddy bears and sudden revelations like Luke and Leia actually being siblings all along. But fans forgot these facts by the time the prequels came around. Over the years, the prequels became pariahs. But the saga continued. J.J. Abrams launched the sequel trilogy with The Force Awakens, but it wasn't until Rian Johnson's The Last Jedi that fans, who were already thinking Force Awakens echoed A New Hope too directly, started to grumble loudly. We live in a #notmy[fillintheblank] era, so of course a fan community already discontent over the prequels had begun suggesting Star Wars was over.
Then of course Rise of Skywalker comes around and is announced as the finale of the Skywalker saga. Not necessarily Star Wars itself, but the saga as it revolves around the Skywalkers. (Do you want a spoiler? By the end of Rise of Skywalker, the concept of revolving around the Skywalkers sort of gets a new definition. But I think it still technically completes the saga as we know it.)
Now, we also now live in a world where Baby Yoda exists. Maybe this is enough to bring back some of those skeptics. I think one way or another Star Wars goes out with a bang, not just in the movie but as a cultural experience. I don't really care what the public perception is. I love Solo. (And still am ambivalent at best about Rogue One.) But it's nice to think Star Wars can still compete with the MCU.
I think Rise of Skywalker is infinitely better than Avengers: Endgame. I think it absolutely schools the Thanos finale. Where Endgame plays at trying to have resonance for a whole franchise, Rise of Skywalker speaks to unanswered questions for eight previous films spanning more than forty years, and does so brilliantly. It doesn't attempt to resolve everything. In the finest Star Wars tradition, it introduces new mysteries, that need never be resolved. I mean, we'll never really know who shot first, after all. (Thanks, George!)
If Last Jedi was unconventional, Rise of Skywalker dips immediately and enthusiastically back into A New Hope, and revisits Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi. Fans who only want to interpret things negatively will consider the results as nothing more than the original trilogy in a blender, a shameless rip-off.
But it's so much more than that. J.J. Abrams is not George Lucas. He's not Kershner. He's not Marquand. His sensibilities are as much informed by Star Wars as they are Peter Jackson and Harry Potter. He's very much a modern blockbuster filmmaker, and crafts his movie around moments and ideas that didn't exist in the saga previously. His Jedi have the ability to heal, just as George Lucas eventually built up the Sith to have the ability to create life itself (the disputed origin of Vader). Rey has powers we've never seen before. I've seen this sort of thing done with existing mythos before. Green Lantern comics, for instance, which in the '90s I was thoroughly convinced had all the grandeur of Star Wars, before they ever went full epic in the new millennium. Again, some fans will have problems with this sort of thing. I think it rings true. The Force now resides, effectively, in a handful of individuals at best. And by the end of the movie, by the end of the saga, has shrunk even further.
I think the mythology is given its due. I think the characters introduced in Force Awakens are given fitting roles to play, and have fitting arcs. Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Adam Driver, and even Domhnall Gleason turn in trilogy-best performances. Original trilogy actors abound! And deliver. Everything delivers.
Even though I didn't like the movie itself, Return of the King had a killer, memorable climax when Sam tells Frodo that even if he can't carry the ring, he can carry Frodo. I don't know if Rise of Skywalker has a moment like that. I don't know if it needs to. Last Jedi had a rousing moment, when Rey and Kylo Ren strike down Snoke unexpectedly, and that's a tough moment to beat in this trilogy, and so it's not really worth trying to compete against. Instead, Rise of Skywalker is filled with reflecting back on everything we've learned, everything we've experienced over the course of three trilogies. There isn't a Vader who seems far from redemption, or two Jedi being torn away from a treasured brotherhood at stake. Rey and Kylo spend the entire movie going over their Last Jedi experiences. Kylo's best moment is a direct riff on a scene in Force Awakens, a quieter and perhaps as a result, more affecting echo. And that's sort of the whole movie.
It knows, as with the best stories, that the ending reflects back on the beginning. We last see Rey in the most perfect place possible. I think if the results aren't perfect, they're as perfect as they could possibly have been, especially since George Lucas isn't at the helm, and because Abrams sort of swooped back in at the last minute. That's some kind of magic. And that's always been Star Wars in a nutshell. You don't have to worry about what the fans think.
the story: The saga concludes.
review: This will be another film from 2019 I hesitate to call an out-and-out classic. (True story: when I was picking up the recent home video release of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, I heard it referred to as the movie where Bruce Lee gets his ass kicked.) Because I really like Rise of Skywalker, but I'm not immediately prepared to go all in. Sometimes a movie will leave you with that kind of impression, right from the start. Sometimes it takes a while. Some of my all-time favorites are like that. My appreciation for Tarsem's The Fall has grown even from a hugely favorable initial impression.
But what you want to read about is Rise of Skywalker. The Star Wars saga has quite an interesting backstory to it at this point. I'm not talking about the films but how they've been accepted by fans over the years. Empire Strikes Back sort of instantly, for most observers, became the franchise favorite, but it didn't make as much money at the box office as A New Hope. Fans instantly derided Return of the Jedi as a shameless conclusion to the original trilogy, festooned with nonsense teddy bears and sudden revelations like Luke and Leia actually being siblings all along. But fans forgot these facts by the time the prequels came around. Over the years, the prequels became pariahs. But the saga continued. J.J. Abrams launched the sequel trilogy with The Force Awakens, but it wasn't until Rian Johnson's The Last Jedi that fans, who were already thinking Force Awakens echoed A New Hope too directly, started to grumble loudly. We live in a #notmy[fillintheblank] era, so of course a fan community already discontent over the prequels had begun suggesting Star Wars was over.
Then of course Rise of Skywalker comes around and is announced as the finale of the Skywalker saga. Not necessarily Star Wars itself, but the saga as it revolves around the Skywalkers. (Do you want a spoiler? By the end of Rise of Skywalker, the concept of revolving around the Skywalkers sort of gets a new definition. But I think it still technically completes the saga as we know it.)
Now, we also now live in a world where Baby Yoda exists. Maybe this is enough to bring back some of those skeptics. I think one way or another Star Wars goes out with a bang, not just in the movie but as a cultural experience. I don't really care what the public perception is. I love Solo. (And still am ambivalent at best about Rogue One.) But it's nice to think Star Wars can still compete with the MCU.
I think Rise of Skywalker is infinitely better than Avengers: Endgame. I think it absolutely schools the Thanos finale. Where Endgame plays at trying to have resonance for a whole franchise, Rise of Skywalker speaks to unanswered questions for eight previous films spanning more than forty years, and does so brilliantly. It doesn't attempt to resolve everything. In the finest Star Wars tradition, it introduces new mysteries, that need never be resolved. I mean, we'll never really know who shot first, after all. (Thanks, George!)
If Last Jedi was unconventional, Rise of Skywalker dips immediately and enthusiastically back into A New Hope, and revisits Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi. Fans who only want to interpret things negatively will consider the results as nothing more than the original trilogy in a blender, a shameless rip-off.
But it's so much more than that. J.J. Abrams is not George Lucas. He's not Kershner. He's not Marquand. His sensibilities are as much informed by Star Wars as they are Peter Jackson and Harry Potter. He's very much a modern blockbuster filmmaker, and crafts his movie around moments and ideas that didn't exist in the saga previously. His Jedi have the ability to heal, just as George Lucas eventually built up the Sith to have the ability to create life itself (the disputed origin of Vader). Rey has powers we've never seen before. I've seen this sort of thing done with existing mythos before. Green Lantern comics, for instance, which in the '90s I was thoroughly convinced had all the grandeur of Star Wars, before they ever went full epic in the new millennium. Again, some fans will have problems with this sort of thing. I think it rings true. The Force now resides, effectively, in a handful of individuals at best. And by the end of the movie, by the end of the saga, has shrunk even further.
I think the mythology is given its due. I think the characters introduced in Force Awakens are given fitting roles to play, and have fitting arcs. Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Adam Driver, and even Domhnall Gleason turn in trilogy-best performances. Original trilogy actors abound! And deliver. Everything delivers.
Even though I didn't like the movie itself, Return of the King had a killer, memorable climax when Sam tells Frodo that even if he can't carry the ring, he can carry Frodo. I don't know if Rise of Skywalker has a moment like that. I don't know if it needs to. Last Jedi had a rousing moment, when Rey and Kylo Ren strike down Snoke unexpectedly, and that's a tough moment to beat in this trilogy, and so it's not really worth trying to compete against. Instead, Rise of Skywalker is filled with reflecting back on everything we've learned, everything we've experienced over the course of three trilogies. There isn't a Vader who seems far from redemption, or two Jedi being torn away from a treasured brotherhood at stake. Rey and Kylo spend the entire movie going over their Last Jedi experiences. Kylo's best moment is a direct riff on a scene in Force Awakens, a quieter and perhaps as a result, more affecting echo. And that's sort of the whole movie.
It knows, as with the best stories, that the ending reflects back on the beginning. We last see Rey in the most perfect place possible. I think if the results aren't perfect, they're as perfect as they could possibly have been, especially since George Lucas isn't at the helm, and because Abrams sort of swooped back in at the last minute. That's some kind of magic. And that's always been Star Wars in a nutshell. You don't have to worry about what the fans think.
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