9 – Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith
This part of the list is hard, I know that for some people, this is the best of the prequel trilogy, but for me, it just feels like such a waste. We get a story that is told where characters who have to die off die off, where characters who have to become bad, they become bad. It doesn’t tell me anything interesting, it’s just what I expect it to be, and then there’s the whole Padme dying off because she just can’t possibly go on knowing that Anakin is becoming evil, this movie is just a waste of time and space in my opinion. It doesn’t have amazing action, it doesn’t have compelling duels, it just kind of falls flat at the end of telling a story that wasn’t needed.

8 – Star Wars: The Last Jedi
This is hard to put this low, because there are some parts that I really do think are interesting. About 65-75% of the stuff that we get with Luke, Rey and Kylo is pretty interesting and works well. I think that the moment where Luke projects himself and taunts Kylo into fighting him is just brilliantly done, and the development of the relationship between Rey and Kylo works well. However, then there is the rest of the story focused around Finn, Poe, and Rose, and that’s just hot garbage. It takes characters who were developing in an interesting direction, makes them stupid, changes up the characters completely, and then sends them on a stupid mission that makes no sense. Such a waste of time and space and such a waste of Snoke as well.

7 – Star Wars: Attack of the Clones
This is probably considered by most people to be the worst, but I think it tells more of an interesting story, when we’re not getting Hayden Christenson trying to act romantically. We get Clones, we get Geonsians and the starting constructions of the Death Star. Count Dooku is out there. It just tells a more of an interesting story in a space where there is still room to tell a story. We’re not in the endgame of Anakin becoming Darth Vader and while we still have to have some characters end surviving of dying, it doesn’t feel like it’s as forced. Now, the romance in this is just awful and creepy and should be stricken from the records, but we get to see a group of Jedi in action and see what they can do that we really don’t get to see in any other film. These bottom three were hard to put in order, as I consider all of them pretty bad, this just best the best or at least the least disappointing.

6 – Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker
What, this movie is garbage, how could I like it? No, you’re wrong, this movie is great, it had everything Star Wars in it, it must be the best. That’s what I feel like I hear about this movie, but I wrote a longer review of it, so I’ll only recap it here. I feel like it brings back, Finn and Poe to characters that we got in The Force Awakens, which I prefer to what they were in The Last Jedi. Plus, we got more awesome force stuff with Rey and Kylo and a good conclusion to that story with a redemption arc that feels more fully developed. Plus, it wrapped up the whole saga nicely, and I think, that’s what the movie set out to do, finish up the stories of Luke, Leia, and Han, as well as the new characters, but to bring this part of the world of Star Wars to a close. I think that it succeeds at that, and for that reason, I like it quite well, yes, it is rushed, especially early, but it tells a story that works and brings things to a fitting end.

5 – Star Wars: The Phantom Menace
What, you might say, this movie this high, but Anakin is a whiny little boy and Jar Jar Binks. Yes, Jar Jar is in there for no good reason except to be dumb comedy. But I do enjoy this movie. I think that it blends the balance of the senate with a plot that makes some sense and has enough action that the movie doesn’t bog down. It also isn’t a movie about Anakin becoming Darth Vader, like the previous two, so it tells a more interesting story because of that, when it’s just progressing us to where we know it’s going to go, it’s a bit more dull. Plus, it tells a complete story. If they hadn’t made Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, this movie still stands alone telling a complete story.

4 – Star Wars: The Force Awakens
JJ Abrams might not be everyone’s favorite Star Wars director, but I really enjoyed this film. I thought that the characters were created in such a way that they had good depth, and interesting plot lines that could be run with. In particular I liked Finn, this person with no real identity because he was supposed to be a mindless soldier like a Clone Trooper before, but then finding out that he was more and thinking more about that. Also, Kylo was an enjoyable villain, I liked that they didn’t just make another Darth Vader, but made someone who wanted to be Darth Vader but didn’t understand what that truly meant and couldn’t ever live up to what he thought it was for himself.

3 – Star Wars: Return of the Jedi
Ewoks are the best, aren’t they? I think this movie has one of the better space battles and one of the better lightsaber battles, and the whole bit with Luke and the Emperor trying to tempt look to turn to the dark side is just well done. But then there are Ewoks and the battle on the moon of Endor. It just drops the level down to more of a kids level than either of the other two original trilogy films. With that said, I do think it does a solid job of taking the original trilogy to a satisfying conclusion and more satisfying than any of the other trilogies in the Skywalker Saga.

2 – Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back
More original trilogy love, but Empire Strikes Back just works as a film. We get Yoda in the film, and there’s just a nice level of action, betrayal, double crossing and more that goes on. I know for a lot of people, this is their favorite, but for me, there’s one that beats it out. Empire Strikes Back doesn’t have an ending, which drops it a little bit, yes, that’s because there’s a film after it, and yes, it has a bit of an ending to it, but I want an ending to my films, which is why this is a bit lower. I think that this is also one of the most serious ones in terms of the story that it tells, but that is a good thing, because it tells it well.

1 – Star Wars: A New Hope
Yes, this is my favorite, I think that there’s just something about the almost stand alone nature and the way that we’re introduced to characters that works really well. We get a good arc for Han as a character where he kind of becomes a better guy, but overall isn’t a great guy. It just works for me, I also like that it’s a bit more of a lighter space story in how everything is done, and that’s probably because it’s more stand alone in the nature of the story. So, for me, there’s just something about the original that makes it the best, maybe because it is the first, and you don’t know what you’re getting into if you watch it first. It just kicks off such a big world that is interesting to explore.

What is your order? I’m not going to ask why I’m wrong, it’s like my opinion, man. But what is your order and what draws you to some of the movies more than others?

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So, without any spoilers, the Rise of Skywalker is the 9th Star Wars film. George Lucas had originally planned on doing nine films in the 1980’s and had it plotted out, but due to the stress of making the original trilogy and the following that he had, he held off for a long time, until he made The Phantom Menace and then Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, which were not that well received. He then later sold the rights to Star Wars to Disney who with JJ Abram at the helm for the first film, The Force Awakens, started a new trilogy.

Now that we have a proper spoiler buffer, let’s talk about Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker. This, like I said, is the ninth film in the Skywalker Saga, and the end of the Skywalker Saga (theoretically). After The Last Jedi, which was half of a good film and some other characters being taken in a direction that they weren’t set-up for in The Force Awakens, JJ Abrams came back in to wrap up the story that he had laid out for Rian Johnson, which had then been promptly thrown away. Abrams then had to try and cut down and cram what he had laid out previously into a single film. That might sound like a bad thing, but I think that it worked for this film.

In the Rise of Skywalker, we start out by getting a pretty heavy information dump about how the Emperor has been broadcasting his return from somewhere deep in space. Kylo Ren, with the First Order, has been trying to track down this signal, but they need an old Sith map to be able to do so. Finding one, he goes to the Emperor. In the mean time, Finn, Poe, and Chewbacca chasing down leads to the First Orders plans and what is happening with their search for the Emperor and plans for domination. Rey is back with the resistance training to become a Jedi. She leaves her training when they get wind that Kylo has found the Emperor, and they go searching for a map of their own. This leads them into a handful of adventures where they run across someone who Poe used to run with and run spice with and they end up wiping out C3PO’s memory in order to translate where the map is hidden. Rey, during this time, becomes more and more obsessed with finding and defeating the Emperor. This leads to her going to a moon of Endor where they come across more Stormtroopers who have rebelled against the First Order. Meanwhile, Kylo is able to track down Rey and they fight on the destroyed Death Star with Kylo getting the upper hand on Rey, but then Leia, feeling the anger and disturbance from her son, used the last of her energy to stop Kylo. In a fit of rage, Rey strikes Kylo who has lowered all defenses and dropped his lightsaber, realizing, though that her anger has taken over, she uses the force to heal him. She runs away, in Kylo’s ship, to the planet where Luke had hid away, and there, meeting the force ghost of Luke, he convinces her that she needs to go and confront her grandfather, Palpatine. The rest of the resistance tracks her flying through a gravitational field, which is why the map was needed and goes to aid her. However, things look bleak until Lando Calrissian manages to gather up the support of people who are willing to stand up to the First Order and they join the fight. During this time, Kylo (Ben), sees a vision of Han Solo who talks to him and gets him to give up his lightsaber, returning back to being Ben Solo. He flies to the Emperor and joins Rey as they stand against the Emperor’s plan to return. The Emperor again gets the upper hand, but what Rey wasn’t able to do in her training earlier in the film, connect with the spirit of the Jedi, she was able to do in that moment and with the power of them behind her, she is able to get back up and defeat the Emperor. There is much celebrating, and Rey goes and leaves both Luke and Leia’s lightsabers back at the moisture farm (what’s left of it) where Luke grew up.

There’s just a little bit of story there, and I normally wouldn’t write out the whole thing, but this is a spoiler episode and I wanted to demonstrate how much was packed into this movie. Now, do I think that it probably would have been better split into two movies and we just lose The Last Jedi? Probably, but does that make Rise of Skywalker a bad movie? I don’t think so. I really enjoyed it in the theater and I thought that it did a good job of wrapping up the Skywalker Saga. Before going to see the movie, my hope was that it was going to wrap up the Skywalker Saga and then we wouldn’t have any more movies with Rey, Finn, Poe or Kylo. And I feel like it did that, now if Disney decides it was popular enough with those characters, they might bring them back again, but I personally don’t want it. With have a massive world, and with the great work that the Mandalorian has been doing, there is clearly room for stories that aren’t focused only around the Empire and the Skywalkers.

For me, one of the things that this film does impressively is wrap up the storylines for the original trilogy characters. We get more of a send off for Han Solo and he gets to deliver a famous line in a meaningful way. We get another send off for Luke. And we get, kind of, a send off for Leia. I feel like hers was the most lacking, which makes sense with Carrie Fishers passing. Her passing in the film is really the start of a turning point for both Kylo and Rey, and then Han and Luke, respectively, finish bringing both of the characters back around.

What might bother some people about this film, and I hinted at it in the paragraph above, with Han delivering a famous line, but there is a feeling to this film that it’s kind of a Star Wars greatest hits. We get lines, we get callbacks, Chewie finally gets his medal. This will definitely be an issue for some people who don’t know what they want, probably just to watch the original trilogy and repeat, but for me, it was what I was looking for when wrapping up the Skywalker Saga. It gave the main characters a send off that they needed and it kind of showed that the story has always been about them, even with the new cast of characters, it was still about Luke, Leia, Han, and the Emperor. For some people, that’s not going to be enjoyable, but it wrapped up the saga.

I think, it’s also fair, as this wrapped up the last trilogy in the saga, to look at this as part of the whole trilogy. I think that you’d be able to watch The Force Awakens and The Rise of Skywalker without watching The Last Jedi and have a pretty complete film. And if someone were to create a cut of The Last Jedi that dropped out the whole gambling planet and Finn and Poe becoming whiny for no reason, you could then add back in the Luke, Rey, and Kylo story. But, I feel like Rise of Skywalker did a good job of recapping some of that information in a meaningful way. Now, yes, you would miss a little bit by skipping The Last Jedi, but less than you’d think. So as a trilogy, that’s definitely a downside for it. I don’t think that Rian Johnson set out to change it so much, but it felt like he didn’t have a full understanding of the characters. I hope that he gets a Star Wars film with his own characters, because I felt like it was interesting in concept, but overall it wasn’t set-up like it should be to continue to tell a cohesive story. But this is a considerably better trilogy than the Phantom Menace trilogy.

Overall, this was a really fun film. I think that it wrapped up stories really well, I think it was decently well acted, and I feel like the saga was completed. Now, don’t ever show me any of these characters as main characters on the big screen again, maybe in the background 10 years down the line would be fine, but even that’s questionable. Or maybe a plaque with Rey’s face on it. I’m ready for more new Star Wars, but I’m also glad to see this finish the way that it did. I hope that Disney and Kathleen Kennedy can get a better, more clear, direction for Star Wars and really be able to build off some of what Marvel has done for Disney but also to then create a more developed universe. I will also wrap this up by saying that I’m not someone who knows the extended universe stuff, but I know there were a lot of references to the stuff that I only vaguely knew about.

So, what were your thoughts on Rise of Skywalker. But, as much as that, stepping back and looking at this as the Skywalker Saga, what are your thoughts on the nine movies put together as a whole?

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