Rate the Star Wars Movies

[Mercurius]

Sure. Tell that to a bored six-year-old.

Six-year olds also prefer donuts to kale. Should we listen to them for nutritional guidance and let them decide on their diet? Ultimately it is the parents' choice what their six-year old eats, just as it is the choice of adult film producers* what they're selling to young people. What we've seen for the last 40 years is a kind of "stimulation inflation," which has encouraged a kind of numbing of the senses in younger people, who want more and bigger and faster. I see it as a kind of cultural decline.

And just so we're clear, I think we've evolved in some ways as well. But film--as a whole--has become more about dopamine excitement than good story and myth telling.

*Edit: By this, I mean film producers who are adults, not people who produce "adult films"

 

[Jester David]

Six-year olds also prefer donuts to kale. Should we listen to them for nutritional guidance and let them decide on their diet? Ultimately it is the parents' choice what their six-year old eats, just as it is the choice of adult film producers what they're selling to young people. What we've seen for the last 40 years is a kind of "stimulation inflation," which has encouraged a kind of numbing of the senses in younger people, who want more and bigger and faster. I see it as a kind of cultural decline.

And just so we're clear, I think we've evolved in some ways as well. But film--as a whole--has become more about dopamine excitement than good story and myth telling.

There’s a big difference between dietary health and getting them to enjoy a movie. You can’t force someone to enjoy a film or become a fan of a franchise.
Not anymore than I’m a soccer fan because my dad kept exposing me to games.

 

[Zardnaar]

Sure. Tell that to a bored six-year-old.

Kids these days, attention span of a gnat.

 

[Jester David]

Kids these days, attention span of a gnat.

 

[Jester David]

(This was me for a loooong while. My son had no interest in watching the movies with me.)

 

[Mercurius]

Sure. Tell that to a bored six-year-old.

There’s a big difference between dietary health and getting them to enjoy a movie. You can’t force someone to enjoy a film or become a fan of a franchise.
Not anymore than I’m a soccer fan because my dad kept exposing me to games.

Well, first of all I'd question taking a six-year old to see a Star Wars movie. But that aside, I would ask, why doesn't a six-year old today like the original Star Wars (presumably) but six-year olds in 1977 did? I would argue it is because of prior "dietary habits."

So yes, it is dependent upon what the parents expose them to. Media is a form of diet - it is food for the nervous system. If you feed a child bowls of sugar and then an apple, they'll find the apple "boring." Same thing with films.

 

[Zardnaar]

View attachment 103607

And get off my lawn.

Its more the 18-26 years olds I have noticed. Can't stay off the phones when its a health and safety thing. Feel free to get hit by forklift idiot.

 

[ccs]

Honestly, I think the views of this thread say more about how old we are here at ENWorld.

Here's the thing: younger Star Wars fans like the prequels. That was sometimes their introduction to the franchise and they have fond memories of those movies. The original trilogy can be cheesy at times, with weak special effects and really slow action scenes. A New Hope is really slow in the middle and the "fight" between Vader and Obi-Wan is kinda sad to watch. It may have been Phantom Menace or Attack of the Clones that made them fall in love with Star Wars. Being more familiar with The Clone Wars they may be more attached to Anakin than Luke.
After twenty years, there's a lot of growing affection for the prequels.

1) Oh, I completely understand. When I watched PM the moment it opened there were two versions of myself sitting in that seat. My 29 year old self was watching it more from a technical PoV - and thinks Lucas could have done a better job story/plot wise. My 7 year old self though was quite entertained. But I generally like PM (and Clones & Sith - though again, my adult self is positive the story/plot could've been better). Not as much as I like the original trilogy, but I do like them.

2) And now there's TFA, TLJ, Solo, & R1 to contrast the prequels against. Compared to most on this list the prequels end up looking pretty damned good.

 

[Zardnaar]

Prequels had a better plot than most give credit. It was the execution.

 

[Jester David]

Well, first of all I'd question taking a six-year old to see a Star Wars movie.

Who do you think the Star Wars movies are for, apart from kids?
The success of the films owes as much to toy sales as the box office.

 

[billd91]

Who do you think the Star Wars movies are for, apart from kids?
The success of the films owes as much to toy sales as the box office.

Who are the movies for? Um... everyone? And even if the company owning the IP profits from the toy deals, that doesn't necessarily make the movies suitable for all 6 year olds. There's usually quite a bit of violence and that's got to be judged on a case-by-case basis with the personality of the kid. I started my kids on the movies early, but I did so on the small screen in my home where the environment and exposure was more controlled and if things weren't going well, we could stop for a while.

 

[Zardnaar]

I was 5 or 6 when I saw RoTJ and Jabba scared the crap outta me.

Still better than seeing Aliens at the age of 8 or so. Didn't finish that movie.

 

[Shasarak]

Who do you think the Star Wars movies are for, apart from kids?

You mean the rest of you dont take your kids to see the black and white French art films?

 

[Jester David]

Who are the movies for? Um... everyone? And even if the company owning the IP profits from the toy deals, that doesn't necessarily make the movies suitable for all 6 year olds. There's usually quite a bit of violence and that's got to be judged on a case-by-case basis with the personality of the kid. I started my kids on the movies early, but I did so on the small screen in my home where the environment and exposure was more controlled and if things weren't going well, we could stop for a while.

Sure.
But stuff like Ewoks and Jar Jar and showing Anakin as an 8yo boy is very much trying to sell the movies to younger kids. As was toning down the violence of the prequels by having the bad guys be robots and CGI bug men.
And a lot of these new fans might put movies like Revenge of the Sith atop the list, having more nostalgia and affection for it than A New Hope.

 

[Eltab]

Prequels had a better plot than most give credit. It was the execution.

The prequels maybe had too much plot.
- Rise of the Emperor (with similarities to Julius Caesar and Octavian / Augustus)
- Republic Civil War
- Sidious is running both sides of the civil war. When does he sleep?
- Anakin grows from cute kid into … Darth Vader?! … as a young man
- Anakin has to have a romance with somebody so Luke and Leia can be born.
- Destruction of the Jedi; Yoda and Obi-Wan flee to exile and successfully hide

Sidious / Caesar could be a movie without anybody else involved. The backstory for Ep 4-5-6 could be a movie with no other factors involved. Romances are a movie all by themselves, year in and year out. Ditto war movies. I've piled up more than a trilogy already.

 

[Zardnaar]

The prequels maybe had too much plot.
- Rise of the Emperor (with similarities to Julius Caesar and Octavian / Augustus)
- Republic Civil War
- Sidious is running both sides of the civil war. When does he sleep?
- Anakin grows from cute kid into … Darth Vader?! … as a young man
- Anakin has to have a romance with somebody so Luke and Leia can be born.
- Destruction of the Jedi; Yoda and Obi-Wan flee to exile and successfully hide

Sidious / Caesar could be a movie without anybody else involved. The backstory for Ep 4-5-6 could be a movie with no other factors involved. Romances are a movie all by themselves, year in and year out. Ditto war movies. I've piled up more than a trilogy already.

Always thought AoTC clones should have been episode I (didn't need to see Anakin as a kid), and the rest is easy.

 

[MoonSong]

Sure.
But stuff like Ewoks and Jar Jar and showing Anakin as an 8yo boy is very much trying to sell the movies to younger kids. As was toning down the violence of the prequels by having the bad guys be robots and CGI bug men.
And a lot of these new fans might put movies like Revenge of the Sith atop the list, having more nostalgia and affection for it than A New Hope.

You are basically describing me. n_n

In a way I think that is the worst problem of the new trilogy, it doesn't seem to pander enough to children.

 

[Morrus]

And a lot of these new fans might put movies like Revenge of the Sith atop the list, having more nostalgia and affection for it than A New Hope.

Even the kids who liked the prequels don't rank them as classics in the way we did the originals. When they're our age, they won't be reminiscing about the Star Wars prequels with rose-covered glasses in the way we do the OT. They'll be reminiscing about something, but it won't be the Star Wars prequels. Those three films never had that cultural zeitgeist.

 

[Jester David]

Even the kids who liked the prequels don't rank them as classics in the way we did the originals. When they're our age, they won't be reminiscing about the Star Wars prequels with rose-covered glasses in the way we do the OT. They'll be reminiscing about something, but it won't be the Star Wars prequels. Those three films never had that cultural zeitgeist.

Fans of the prequels very much do exist:
https://www.digitaltrends.com/features/star-wars-youre-all-crazy/
https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWars/comments/4qhrq7/i_like_the_prequels_more_than_the_original/
https://metro.co.uk/2017/05/18/why-...are-much-better-than-everyone-thinks-6605636/
https://www.thedailybeast.com/actually-the-star-wars-prequels-dont-suck
https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2015/12/02/star-wars-prequel-trilogy-defense/76628934/
https://screenrant.com/star-wars-prequel-trilogy-good-popular-underrated/

 

[MoonSong]

Even the kids who liked the prequels don't rank them as classics in the way we did the originals. When they're our age, they won't be reminiscing about the Star Wars prequels with rose-covered glasses in the way we do the OT. They'll be reminiscing about something, but it won't be the Star Wars prequels. Those three films never had that cultural zeitgeist.

I'm a child of the nineties. I look fondly towards stuff like Friends, Seinfield, Sky Dancers, the Dreamstone, and the like. Granted, I'm not that fond of the prequels, but being that fond of Star Wars after the 80's is not really feasible. The OT was groundbreaking and highly influential, but that is the problem, everything made after the OT is heavily influenced by it, where once it was a fresh new thing, it barely stands apart by now.

By the time the original trilogy was re-released in the mid nineties, I had been bombarded by countless parodies, shot outs and homages of it to really care. -And lets not go into the empire strikes back main plotwist that has been spoiled to death-. Then the Phantom menace came out and I got to watch something that truly stood out. By proxy it also gave me a reason to care about the OT as well. Suddenly I knew I wanted to watch the originals, to see what comes after that. Back to today, you won't see a single thing of SW parafernalia, no toys, no nothing, just a couple of old Playstation games and the six movies in Blu-ray in a single package, six movies together as a whole that I hold fondly.