Star Wars movie reviews (*spoilers*)

My history with Star Wars

I knew that whoever Darth Vader was, he was Luke Skywalker's father. I'd never seen Star Wars in my entire life, yet, as a child, I basically knew the entire plot, the theme song by heart, and all of the characters just by watching enough TV and surfing the net.

I first legitimately introduced to Star Wars in March, 2016, when I got a compilation of the original trilogy's novelizations. I had been learning a lot of the songs from Star Wars on the piano, and I was pretty good at it. My godfather is a Star Wars nutjob, and my mom made me play, like, half and hour worth of Star Wars songs for him on video. She knew that I probably would like the actual story (she had never seen any of the movies either) since I liked science fiction/fantasy/space stuff, so she got me the books. I devoured them, and became obsessed. I found the first (Episode IV) online for free and I watched it, became more obsessed, learned more of the music, then watched the second one (Episode V {why did they put the movies in this order?!?!?}), as well. Then, I moved on to other things and all was forgotten.

Then, for some reason, this past week or so, I became obsessed again. I started looking up a lot of the expanded universe books, I watched videos, I listened to the music, and, randomly, I decided to rewatch all of them, including the sequels. I didn't really remember much from the two that I had watched earlier in the year, and I was kind of confused while watching the videos on YouTube.

So, I watched all of them, Episodes I-VII, and, now, I will review them.

The Prequels

Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace

This is highly regarded as the worst of the Star Wars films, so I went into this movie expecting to absolutely hate it. In reality, I didn't. It was actually pretty enjoyable.

Here is the plot to the movie. I really don't want to get into the whole thing.

A lot of people found a lot of the politics and everything to be boring and slow. I, being the political geek that I am, found it quite interesting how the Star Wars universe works politically and economically. It wasn't the most exciting movie, but there were a few parts that I really liked. I loved that race scene with little Anakin Skywalker and everything. I definitely loved that whole fucking lightsaber duel at the end. That is literally one of my favorite movie scenes of all time. It was so epic, and the Duel of The Fates score in the back added to the epicness.

I hated most of the effects, nearly all of them being digital, but I did like some of them. I loved how pretty they made everything look and how ascetically pleasing everything was, no matter how fake it looked. I loved the landscapes and city.

The acting was horrendous, but that wasn't the case of bad actors. Liam Neeson is one of the best actors I've ever seen (just watch Schindler's List) and Samuel L. Jackson, while not being a good actor, still gives a memorable performance. It was a case of bad directing and bad writing. I mean, when you look at these actors' other films, they are really good actors, and I think that the casting was okay. They were just given terribly written lines and were directed to sound very melancholic and monotonous, much like they did in the original trilogy. Nothing sounded very natural. I didn't find JarJar Binks to be very annoying as he is unneeded. It just kind of seemed a little dumb to add him to an otherwise okay movie.

So, all in all, I'd give this movie about 6/10. It could've been better, and it could've been worse.

Star Wars Episode II: The Clone Wars

Extremely forgettable. Basically all of the bad things about The Phantom Menace was in here, without most of the good things. It was boring, melodramatic, and, even though I watched this only days ago, I forgot most of it, and I don't want to go into research to try to remember what it was about.

All in all, it's a 3/10.

Star Wars Episode III: The Revenge of The Sith

This is when things got fucking interesting. OH MY GOD. This was actually a really great movie! Other than the poor writing, there wasn't anything that I didn't like. It was emotionally triggering, epic, great effects, an amazing score by an amazing composer, and an unforgettable ending. I cried at the end. Hayden Christensen actually gave a pretty good performance, in my book. If you didn't like how Anakin was as a character, that's perfectly fine; you aren't supposed to root for him, anyways. He's the bad guy. In all honesty, you could probably skip Episodes I and II, and you could easily figure out exactly what's going on.

All in all, I give this movie 8/10. I was expecting the worst, and I got one of the best.

In conclusion

The prequels were interesting. Almost all people say that all of them are horrible, but I think that it's really the second one that I would consider to be a bad movie. They were kind of a "so bad it's good" thing. It also helped that I like politics enough to not be bored with all of the talking and everything. I don't think that you should say that all of them are bad just because of Attack of The Clones, and I don't think that you should say that all of them are good just because of The Revenge of The Sith. I'd give the entire prequel trilogy about 6/10.

The Original Trilogy

Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope

This is where things get controversial.

I *liked* this movie. It wasn't a great movie, but I liked it for what it is. Like the prequels, the actors were given poorly written lines, and gave melodramatic monotonous performances. The effects were revolutionary for its time, but they do not hold up well after 40+ years. The score was basically one of the only redeeming qualities, other than the cultural significance after its release. It wasn't particularly original, especially since there had been things like Star Trek and The Lord of The Rings beforehand, and it's basically a combination of the two. 

So, the music and the movie's icon status are the only things that I really like about this one. The characters were given flat personalities, and were portrayed poorly by amateur actors. There were a bunch of parts that I liked, but other than that, it was an okay movie. There were a lot of bad things, and a lot of good things. 6/10.

Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

My favorite. Cliche? I think not. There is absolutely NOTHING that I don't like about this movie. It took the initial concept of A New Hope and went with it. Everything that Episode IV got wrong, Episode V got right. The performances were extraordinary, the effects were stunningly spectacular, the music was even better, the writing excelled, the characters had far more depth than before, and that plot twist. Oh, the plot twist! It's barely even a plot twist even more. As I said before, I was basically born with that fact in my brain.

My favorite scene is the battle on Hoth, especially the AT-AT effects. This movie, in my opinion, has the best effects other than The Force Awakens. It's also nice that the Special Edition changes were for the better.

10/10. Basically a flawless movie.

Star Wars Episode VI: The Return of The Jedi

I liked this movie. There really wasn't anything wrong with it that I could find. It had a nice story and was a satisfying ending to an epic saga. I felt as though they saw what they could do in Episode V and tried to upstage it by having more effects. More effects doesn't mean more realism, but they were okay. Jabba the Hutt was interesting. I don't really feel like he was needed as he never contributed anything to the main plot.

I really sympathize with Darth Vader after watching this movie. This was the movie where they made the villains so much more human than before, and I liked that. Emperor Palpatine was extremely unnerving and probably one of the creepiest characters in all of cinema.

7/10. 

The Sequel Trilogy

Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens

Wow. I was expecting a lot out of this, considering how many people loved this, but... WOW. This was so much fun to watch. It's funny, sad, epic... everything you'd ever want in a movie is in here--including C-3PO. I absolutely loved this one, and I hope that the sequel trilogy will keep it up. The effects were beautifully realistic with vivid colors and an unmistakably gorgeous style, and the cinematography was done exquisitely. All lens flares aside, JJ Abrams done good.
9/10.

I have yet to watch Rogue One: A Star Wars Story or any of the TV shows, but I suppose that those can wait. I have watched the main movies, and I loved almost all of them. Even if I only loved one movie from this franchise, I would still love Star Wars because I would know what you could do with this universe and how stellar the films could be.

May the Force be with you. ✌😊