***Spoiler Alert***
The Star Wars trilogy is probably the greatest film trilogy of all time. One of my favorite movies is in fact Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. It probably would have been one of my top five if it didn't end on a cliffhanger. No matter how great a movie, if it cannot stand on it's own, it is not great to me. That's pretty much tells you how awesome Empire is. Even though it ends on a cliffhanger, I still consider it a great movie.
Now to be clear, Batman Begins does end on a cliffhanger but not really. At the end of Batman Begins, Batman goes to Lieutenant Gordon and is told that the Joker murdered some people and robbed a bank. Batman and Gordon say some cool lines and then Batman flies off to fight crime. The difference between this cliffhanger and the one in Empire is that the main story in Empire is not resolved while in Batman Begins it is. The Batman Begins ending was just kind of a fun way to say that Batman's adventures have only just begun, and I am satisfied that he stop Ra's Al Ghul from destroying Gotham. Empire ends on an incredibly emotional moment where Leia may never see the man she loves again. The problem with this ending is that - while it is beautiful - it is essentially just a set-up for the third movie.
Actually now that I think about it, The Matrix did the exact same thing as Batman Begins. Hopefully, you get my point though.
Star Wars: A New Hope changed film making even more than The Matrix although I think I may be happier if I stopped seeing the bullet time effect being used so much unnecessarily. But aside from its use of special effects; the mythology, story, and characters within Star Wars is what makes it stand the test of time. It is now at this time where I feel compelled to tell you what I liked and disliked about each movie including the prequels. I am going to start from The Phantom Menace to Return of the Jedi so I have a better taste in my mouth at the end.
Star Wars, Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Let me first say that RedLetterMedia has produced an epic review of The Phantom Menace that I implore you to watch. With that said, I'll kind of sum up what I liked about The Phantom Menace and what I didn't like (excluding what Mr. Plinkett points out here).
What I liked:
- I thought that the overarching plot of Senator Palpatine manipulating our heroes and villains into getting him into the position of Chancellor of the Galactic Republic was a pretty cool idea.
- Having Anakin Skywalker as a kid didn't really bother me that much and I thought the pod races and even the star ship battle at the end were fun to watch.
- Qui-Gon Jinn really should've been Obi-Wan Kenobi except for the dying at the end. It would've justified The Phantom Menace more (I'll explain in Episode II).
- Where did the Trade Federation blockade go when they returned from Coruscant?
- How did they get through the blockade when they left Naboo? (Maybe that's why the ship's left, they were useless).
- The lack of emotion in all of the lightsaber duels especially between just Obi-Wan and Darth Maul.
- Jar Jar Binks ...
- Queen Amidala is supposedly a fourteen year old, democratically-elected queen! I don't know how she got elected (nevermind why she is called a queen), but this is more likely a bull**** retcon so that Anakin can have a love interest when he gets older without having to create a new character.
- Why the Trade Federation was risking everything to conquer Naboo didn't make any sense. I understand that they were upset about taxes, but while I did kind of understand the blockade, the invasion didn't make any sense. George Lucas really needed to establish why the Trade Federation was taking orders from Darth Sidious since that was THE ENTIRE PLOT OF THE MOVIE AND THE OTHER PREQUELS!
- Anakin is like ten years old and is too old to be trained as a Jedi!?!
- Midi-chlorians ... Why is this even in the movie!?! The Force was a mystical and mysterious force that flows through all life, not bacteria in your blood.
One thing to note about this movie is that the way it is set-up pretty much makes The Phantom Menace an unnecessary movie. Palpatine's rise to chancellor could've been cut out. Anakin and Obi-Wan became "friends" before this movie which could've been avoided if Obi-Wan was the main character of the first movie instead of Qui-Gon Jinn.
This movie is an abomination to the entire Star Wars series, so I'll spare you my rant and just tell you what I liked about the movie.
What I liked:
- The fight between Jango Fett and Obi-Wan on Kamino was pretty cool.
- Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Padme fighting for their lives against the three monsters in the the Geonosian Arena was exciting.
- Anakin finding his dead mother was emotional and showed his path down the dark side.
- Padme not showing a little horror for learning that Anakin committed genocide.
- Everything else
The first PG-13 Star Wars movie, how exciting. I will say that this was certainly the best of the prequels, but I don't understand why people thought this was a good Star Wars movie. The beginning of the movie was pretty cool, fun, and fast paced; but as soon as they landed Grevious's ship, the movie dragged for me. Probably the only thing that kept me awake was John William's orchestra playing
What I liked:
- As I said earlier, the whole beginning scene was a pretty cool way to start a movie.
- On the lava planet, Anakin describing his ambitions to Padme and then force-choking her was pretty cool (even though the reason was pretty lame).
- Yoda verses the Emperor. I really hated Yoda using a lightsaber (this is especially true in Episode II), but when they stopped using lightsabers, it reminded me of why Luke said Yoda was a great warrior as well as a master of the Force.
- Order 66 was pretty dark and cold.
- The Anakin verse Obi-Wan fight at the end lasted quite a bit too long. While it did just end on a hill, I thought that was actually the best part of the whole fight.
- Anakin had to be told by Palpatine that Palpatine was a Sith. Between the clone army's suspicious origin and Obi-Wan being told by Count Dooku in Episode II that the Senate was being controlled by a Sith Lord, I thought they could've put two and two together.
- I was really angered that the whole finding a clone army commissioned when Palpatine became chancellor was totally ignored. Why this wasn't explored further in Episode II or in this movie really bothered me.
- Grevious really disappointed me. He was so cool in the microseries Star Wars: Clone Wars, but while he did show some awesomeness, the movie portrayed him more as a coward than someone who even the Jedi feared.
- Padme's death was the most bull**** thing ever. She lost the will to live!?! I guess having twins wasn't a good enough reason to live. Thank goodness Luke and Leia never met their mother. This is nit-picking, but how did the medical droids diagnose that she lost the will to live? I would've totally bought a heart condition, but this is just pitiful.
- NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!
Ahh now that we have survived through the prequels, we can enjoy the good Star Wars movies.
What did I like:
- Everything
- Nothing
George Lucas's masterpiece.
Star Wars, Episode VI: The Return of the Jedi
This was probably the weakest of the trilogy which isn't saying much because the first two were so coolio. That said, this is still leagues better than the prequels.
What I liked:
- Everything that I don't mention below
- The Empire still losing at the end despite having a huge fleet of ships. I think this movie would've been a thousand times more awesome if the Emperor had died first, then the rebels disabled the field generator. This is a hind sight idea, that was spawned by Bioware's Knights of the Old Republic videogame where they introduced the idea of battle meditation. For those who haven't played the game, battle meditation was a Jedi ability which basically made soldiers fight better. Emperor Palpatine using battle meditation and then the Imperials losing that when he dies would've made the Imperials loss seem more plausible to me.
