What's the WORST Star Wars movie?

[Zardnaar]

The actors in the original film were good enough to rise above the cornball dialogue, but for Empire and Jedi...Lucas wasn't the screenwriter or director, unlike the Prequels. He did the story outline and was a heavy handed producer, but he didn't do any of the dialouge in Empire, nor did he direct Ford and Fisher together.

Ford and Fisher also did some off screen chemistry apparently. Her coke fingernail made it onscreen in RotJ.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Apropos of nothing, Revenge of the Sith has the best composed and arranged musical score of the entire Star Wars franchise. I have no desire to watch that film again, but if I wanted to listen to John Williams Star Wars music...it has to be the Revenge of the Sith album.

I agree the music in that is stunning. One of the dissapointments for me was how unnatural Anakin's turn to the dark side felt, especially given the music that was accompanying. After the turn, it starts to work for me. It is that leading up to his decision and that scene where he attacks Mace Windu that doesn't (and connecting it to Padme dying in child birth rather than Anakin's anger and ego). I also found the scene where he actually turns and pledges allegiance to the emperor, off somehow. Like the music was dramatic but the imagery and dialogue didn't match it enough (it reminds me of the really terrible scene in Godfather III when Michael makes Vincent the new head of the family----a lot of build up for a way too laid back and glib ceremony)

 

[Parmandur]

I would agree there are lots of hanging threads. And that isn't all that is wrong with it. It started out kind of interesting but got so messy and mishandled so many of its characters, by the end it just doesn't hold up. I also think it was just built too much like a ride. It didn't feel like a movie. The star wars films often have that ride component but there is a movie in there too and there is heart in there as well.

It was just incoherent, and the director and writer had nothing to say. The infuriating part is that there was a decent script that made some darned sense, which was scuttled because Abrams panicked at the reaction to Last Jedi.

Doesn't even do that particularly well just pulls threads out of thin air. Why? Doesn't natter cut to next scene.

TLJ made TFA worse retroactively, RoS made TLJ worse.

Dumb thing is if you rearranged things a bit there's an actual trilogy in there somewhere. Have palps return in part 2, Snoke die Part 3 like Dooku/Jabba, Palpatine at the end.

TLJ elevated TFA, or would have if the ending of the trilogy wasn't a flaming bag of horse leavings. If they had actually followed through instead of scrambling to rewrite to "please the fans," the whole trilogy may have been interesting.

 

[Parmandur]

I agree the music in that is stunning. One of the dissapointments for me was how unnatural Anakin's turn to the dark side felt, especially given the music that was accompanying. After the turn, it starts to work for me. It is that leading up to his decision and that scene where he attacks Mace Windu that doesn't (and connecting it to Padme dying in child birth rather than Anakin's anger and ego). I also found the scene where he actually turns and pledges allegiance to the emperor, off somehow. Like the music was dramatic but the imagery and dialogue didn't match it enough (it reminds me of the really terrible scene in Godfather III when Michael makes Vincent the new head of the family----a lot of build up for a way too laid back and glib ceremony)

Yeah, the story is ill-executed, but the music is working overtime.

 

[Bedrockgames]

The actors in the original film were good enough to rise above the cornball dialogue, but for Empire and Jedi...Lucas wasn't the screenwriter or director, unlike the Prequels. He did the story outline and was a heavy handed producer, but he didn't do any of the dialouge in Empire, nor did he direct Ford and Fisher together.

Fair enough, but the dialogue still had that same spirit I think of corniness (it was also spectacular at times which is probably a good argument for having lucas not write all the scripts and working with other people for the story). My point is there is something charming about it. The first film has a lot of very bad dialogue, that miraculously works. I think that is something you felt through the whole original trilogy (even if George wasn't writing the later scripts: personally I am not that informed on who wrote which movie). In the prequels the dialogue was really difficult to ignore (I think because a lot of the actors were struggling with it). Like I can imagine Carrie Fischer and Harrison Ford doing all the same Attack of the Clones Romantic scenes and somehow getting it to land.

 

[Zardnaar]

It was just incoherent, and the director and writer had nothing to say. The infuriating part is that there was a decent script that made some darned sense, which was scuttled because Abrams panicked at the reaction to Last Jedi.

TLJ elevated TFA, or would have if the ending of the trilogy wasn't a flaming bag of horse leavings. If they had actually followed through instead of scrambling to rewrite to "please the fans," the whole trilogy may have been interesting.

TLJ kinda painted then into a corner though. Smoke was dead so was Phasma, Hux and Kyle ineffective as villains.

Idk how they could gave gone forward from there you have no villain. Maybe have Snoke return via cloning and tie it to Palpatine in some way? Makes Snoke a bigger badass and ties it to the PT. Palpatinevdidnt cheat death but Snoke did. He'll have Snoke be Palpatines master cheating death.

IDK but that's the big problem with TLJ. Who's you villain going forward (and no Kylo doesn't count).

 

[ThorinTeague]

AotC. Plodding action with

TPM/AotC/RotS... although I've never seen ep 8 or 9.

People voting for Solo & Rogue One are very different people than me. Solo had its flaws but I'd take that over the prequils any day.

 

[ThorinTeague]

Ford and Fisher also did some off screen chemistry apparently. Her coke fingernail made it onscreen in RotJ.

No junk, no soul

 

[Parmandur]

Fair enough, but the dialogue still had that same spirit I think of corniness (it was also spectacular at times which is probably a good argument for having lucas not write all the scripts and working with other people for the story). My point is there is something charming about it. The first film has a lot of very bad dialogue, that miraculously works. I think that is something you felt through the whole original trilogy (even if George wasn't writing the later scripts: personally I am not that informed on who wrote which movie). In the prequels the dialogue was really difficult to ignore (I think because a lot of the actors were struggling with it). Like I can imagine Carrie Fischer and Harrison Ford doing all the same Attack of the Clones Romantic scenes and somehow getting it to land.

Lawrence Kasdan wrote Empire, Jedi, Force Awakens, and Solo (in addition to Raiders of the Lost Ark, Body Heat, Grand Canyaon, Silverado, and so on). George Luchas wrote New Hope and the Prequels, and it kind of shows. New Hope had a certain freshness and simplicity to it, so the simple dialogue fit. The Prequels were Byzantine and convoluted, but the dialogue was just as flat and simple. If Spielberg had directed Phantom Menace, and someone else wrote the final script...and Anakin was a teenager, like originally intended...may have been kind of watchable.

 

[MarkB]

That dialogue really killed the movie for me. I still do enjoy Attack of the Clones. It is just so bad in those moments. I also feel like this is something that captures a key part of what made the first star wars work, but was so hard to replicate: corny, even bad, dialogue, delivered well by gifted actors or by people with the charisma to pull it off. Normally Portman is a fine actor but in this movie, I don't know if it was the direction or if just that it was outside her wheelhouse, but that combination of performance and bad dialogue was painful to watch (then compare that to the nerfherder scene in Empire and you can really see a big difference; or even to some of Luke's corny dialogue at the start of a New Hope).

For me, those scenes are not just bad but creepy. Based upon what we see of both of them, there doesn't seem to be any natural connection there, any reason for Padme to fall in love with Anakin, and I've always had the feeling that he was basically just unconsciously using the Force to gradually influence her every time they were together.