Star Wars - A Special Review

In just one day it will be one of the most important nerd holidays ever. It will be May the 4th. Yes, it is that time of year again, Star Wars Day. This year, I've decided to do a review of all the Movies and TV series from that great work... except the Star Wars Holiday Special, ironically.


I'm going to do this by in universe chronology, not real world chronology. This is the way I watch them when I want to do a marathon.

Episode I: The Phantom Menace

2 out of 5 stars

I can safely say that this is not my favorite, in fact this is the worst installment (aside from the Holiday Special) I've seen. There are a multitude of failures in this movie. The first is the casting of Jake Lloyd. I'm sorry, he was a terrible child actor. In addition there was no reason to cast Anakin as being so young. He was already older than the younglings, so they could have aimed for someone closer to 12 or 13. It would have worked much better.  The second major problem (of many) of the movie is the scatter shot ending. There are like 4 stories going on at once - the gound battle w/ Jar-Jar (shudder), the star battle w/ Anakin, the Jedi battle w/ Obi-wan & Qui-gon, and the infiltration battle w/ Padme. Too much... if your script has that many concurrent endings going on, try resolving one or two in the previous act. Rewrite your script! The movie was fun because of my memories of seeing it opening night; the energy of the crowd was insane. I'll never forget that. The movie though... well... it needed to be much better.

Episode II: Attack of the Clones

3 out of 5 stars

This one gets better. For one we've replaced Jack Lloyd with Hayden Christensen. He's not the best actor, but he's loads better than our kid 'yippee.' The action is stronger, the story better, but there are still some really silly moments. One of the things that got me was the obvious 'lets sell toys' angle. The sheer number of different battle droids was just silly. Rolling ones, Quad-walking nose-gunners, etc. We did not need that many. I did like about everything to do with the Clone Army though... the introduction of the small Venator Class Star Destroyers. Loved that. Okay, the love story was just... bad...

Clone Wars (First Animated series)

4 out of 5 stars

I love the art style of this. It had a very Clerks Animated Series style of animation. Thick lines, bizarre proportions. Nice action, actually one of the things I love is the lack of dialogue. The story is told in action and images not through dialogue. Very impressive. Of course, it really had to work to tell its story since it came in 15minute chunks on TV when it first came out. This does come before the rest of the Clone Wars animations because C-3P0 gets his gold coloring in it, and it introduces both General Grievous and Asajj Ventress. 

 

The Clone Wars (Theatrical Movie)

4 out of 5 stars

I do not really remember why I went to see it in theaters. A whim maybe? All I know is that I left the theater thinking 'Well, that was the best Star Wars movie since the originals.' I'll stand by that. It was a very solid straight foward plot. It was good. It was strong. It introduced us to Ahsoka Tano, Anakin's padawan learner. The animation style has completely changed from the first Clone Wars series, but this was also made much later. It's all cutting edge CGI animation. It works.

The Clone Wars (Second TV series, 6 seasons)

4.5 out of 5 stars

I must admit that as of this writing I have not seen season 6 of this version of the Clone Wars TV series. I do not care... this is awesome TV. I eagerly look forward to seeing season 6. I've been watching season 5 on Blu-ray recently. It's fun, it's vibrant, it really expands the story, and it builds characters. It explains a lot... so I'm really looking forward to season 6, which I've just been lazy about getting around to watching. I can't wait to see how it attaches to Episode III.   
And back to the feature films. 



Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

3 out of 5 stars

We've been on a streak of ever increasing enjoyment and goodness, this unfortunately is a small slide backwards from where we end with The Clone Wars. This was not all that bad except for a few things at the end. Here are the worst sins it commits: Anakin's utter and super rapid descent into child murdering, Padme dies from a broken heart (really?). Those really bug me. Both of them are equally bad... It is really hard to justify having Anakin go from where he was to child murder in about ten minutes. That's bad... and yet it's not as bad as Padme's death via broken heart. What, the child murder can't kill his own wife? Instead she has to die in the most contrived and lame way imaginable. These two things drag down a rather decent movie.

Episode IV: A New Hope

4 out of 5 stars

Here we are at last, to the movie that actually started it all. This is an amazing movie for its time. I must admit that I'm shocked it did as well as it did. It had to have been word of mouth. There was no internet or Facebook to share the movie experience on, and the TV trailer for it was awful. I've seen it, and it would never have made me leave the house. This story began it all... the Rebellion vs the Empire. X-wings and TIE Fighters, the Millennium Falcon and the Force. In 1977 this began one of the most beloved science fiction series ever. It changed science fiction.   


Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

4.5 out of 5 stars

This may well be the single most fan loved movie. The Empire Strikes Back certainly deserves that accolade. It does everything almost perfectly. From massive ground battles with snow speeders tripping AT-ATs, Luke learning from an ancient Jedi Master the ways of the Force, to the revelation that would floor audiences around the world. Personally, I too love this movie. The snow battles always capture my attention, even now, some twenty plus viewings later. In fact the only issue I can find is that the light-saber choreography is so obviously outdated. For some, I imagine they actually prefer that. I actually stand in the crowd that prefers crazy martial arts light-saber battles. You have the force and a nearly weightless weapon, those make more sense to me... and I do love the spectacle. 


Episode VI: Return of the Jedi

4 out of 5 stars

The one thing I wish this movie had done is this: I wish they had used Wookies instead of Ewoks. I remember rumors that the original script had called on the forest moon of Endor to actually be Kashyyyk. All of the forst battles would have made loads more sense with Wookies beating the crap out of Storm Troopers. It's hard to believe, even in Star Wars, that cuddly teddy bears could take out Storm Troopers. Other than that, there is not a lot wrong with the movie. Ok, I'm not a fan of the updated Jaba's Palace song and dance number (It is almost as bad as when they made Greedo shoot first). The space battle over Endor is loads of fun, and if you pretend the Ewoks are actually dwarf Wookies, the ground battles are pretty solid too. Of course the best actual drama comes from the entire bit with Luke, Vader, and the Emperor. That is excellent.

But wait, now that I've given a short review of everything on that list, how do I feel about the overall Star Wars universe? Simple.

Star Wars

5 out of 5 stars

I'd not be half the nerd I am today without it. It is one of my major sources of nerd-fuel. It and Star Trek have been my go to science fiction series for decades. Battlestar Galactica is working its way in there as well... and there are numerous other things as well. But my science fiction obsession began with Star Wars and Star Trek (and Mystery Science Theater 3000). They will forever dominate my destiny.