Star Wars Ranked

Welcome to the inargual editon of my new "Ranked" series. Every week for the forseeable future, I'll be ranking franchises or the filmography's of actors/directors from worst to best, dropping various accolodes and delivering some postive/negative commentary. Hope you enjoy.   

11.Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (D+)
10.Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (C-)
9.Star Wars: Episode II-Attack of the Clones (C+)
8.Star Wars: Episode I-The Phantom Menace (C+)
7.Star Wars: The Last Jedi (B-)
6.Star Wars: Episode III-Revenge of the Sith (B-)
5.Solo: A Star Wars Story (B)
4.Star Wars (B+)
3.Star Wars: The Force Awakens (A-)
2.Return of the Jedi (A-)
1.The Empire Strikes Back (A)

Top Movie: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
Sorry to start things off with such a hot take, but I can't help how I feel damn it!!! The Empire Strikes Back is pretty much the perfect epic blockbuster movie. The story is constructed in a way that allows the stakes to gradually built throughout, the cast collectively improved upon their performances from the original and the ending is an iconic cliffhanger that organically sets up an exciting conclusion to the trilogy.
 

Worst Movie: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)
The Rise of Skywalker is less of a movie and more of a soulless business transaction cooked up in a Disney shareholder's meeting masquerading as a logical climax to this massive franchise's latest underwhelming trilogy. Everything from J.J. Abrams' bland direction to the phoned-in performances from everyone not named Daisy Ridley or Adam Driver gives off the feeling that most of the people involved with The Rise of Skywalker approached it like they were trying to complete a prison sentence. That laziness carries over the story which is essentially just a string of loosely-connected characters/callbacks from the original trilogy seemingly designed to serve as a pandering olive branch to the den of dinks who were furious about what Rian Johnson did to their precious canon with the "daring" choices he made with The Last Jedi. If Disney continues to actively undermine the creativity of the people that they hired to give their take on an iconic franchise in order to try and appease a group of angry YouTube commentators that are more than likely going to hate whatever they come out with, this franchise is fucking doomed (although today's news that Taika Waititi has been hired to direct the next movie is an encouraging sign that this won't be the case).

Most Underrated: Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)
Trying to replicate the quality of the original trilogy is a dragon that Star Wars has been chasing since the franchise was revived in 1999. The Force Awakens is the only instance thus far that they were able to actually catch it. Sure it's more or less A New Hope 2.0, but it's familiar plot was injected with a palpable sense of energy and passion that allowed for the fun sci-fi adventure spectacle that the series was built on to make its long-awaited return. How the sequels failed to build off this strong start will be always be a bizarre and infuriating mystery to me.

Most Overrated: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
While Rogue One is a noble attempt to tell a standalone story that departs from a traditional Star Wars film as much as possible, those ambitions failed to result in an interesting product. Gareth Edwards (2014's Godzilla) gives his soul-crushingly slow pacing muscles an extensive workout, the leads (Felicity Jones, Diego Luna) are so stiff that I'm not unconvinced that the actors weren't replaced with mannequins at the start of filming and Ben Mendelsohn's cartoonish, pun-spewing villain is jarring as hell in a movie that otherwise embraces bleakness.

Best Character: Han Solo (Harrison Ford)-Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, The Force Awakens, The Rise of Skywalker (cameo)
Luke Skywalker may have been the hero of this story, but Solo is the hardened, swaggering presence that gave the Rebellion against the Sith the credibility it needed to flourish.

Worst Character: Poe Dameron (Oscar Issac)-The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, The Rise of Skywalker
Let's just say that I didn't except a typically top-notch performer like Oscar Issac to be the most consistently bad part of the Skywalker trilogy. Poe Dameron is just a bargain bin version of Han Solo that routinely derails scenes with his thoroughly unconvincing "Look at me, I'm the cool, wisecracking Rebel Pilot guy!" routine.