OT: My personal ranking of the Star Wars movies

I think I need to see The Last Jedi at least a couple more times to be certain (my son & I loved it), but I see these rankings popping up everywhere and here’s my list. Queue the comic book guy voice…

1. Empire Strikes Back — This is still a no brainer for the huge reveal, the constant feeling of tension during the escape through the asteroid field, the Hoth battle, and Yoda. My all time favorite movie experience was seeing this as a 6yo. We couldn’t get tickets for the early show, so my parents took me to play mini golf and my first trip to Taco Bell to pass time before the movie. I can’t even begin to tell you how cool that was to see that as a late movie. I told my Dad about how much I remember that night a couple years ago. He looked at me funny for a second and said all he remembered was having to dig through the car seats to find enough loose change to pay for the night.
2. A New Hope — C’mon, you just can’t beat the one that started it all. Remember too, this was actually a little better move before the prequels kind of ruined the back story of Vader and Obi Wan. My second favorite movie experience was seeing the original movie at the Webb City drive in a couple summers later with a cooler of grape welch’s soda (that sounds nasty now, but as a kid…)
3. The Last Jedi — No spoilers, but I thought it was great overall. I get the criticism that maybe it dragged a bit in the middle, but there were several good scenes in the middle too. I thought there were definitely callbacks to Empire Strikes Back, but the outcomes were very different and sometimes unexpected. It didn’t feel as derivative as The Force Awakens. Really surprised by how good Mark Hamill was in the movie. My daughter is only 8 mos old, but there’s definitely going to be a year she goes as Rey for Halloween
4. Rogue One — The last third of it is the best battle sequence in the whole series. I’m nerdy enough that I enjoyed spotting all the easter eggs. Loved Alan Tudyk as the droid, but he’s still “Wash” to me.
5. The Force Awakens — Loved it, just liked Rogue One and the new movie a little better. My favorite scene was the initial reveal of the Millenium Falcon.
6. Return of the Jedi — This would have been a better movie if he’s stayed with the Wookies instead of the Ewoks, but oh well. It was a blast in the theater at the time.
7. Revenge of the Sith — There were a handful of action scenes that were good. Maybe less of the super annoying dialogue than the other prequels.
8. Attack of the Clones — Actually going to say that this was a much better movie in the IMAX release when they had to cut a lot of the “Anakin whines” dialogue.
9. The Phantom Menace — Duel of the Fates and I still like the drag racing scene. The dialogue was atrocious and the plot was weak. I remember reading spoilers online before it came out about the Midi-chlorians and thinking that was so stupid that it couldn’t possibly be true, but there it was.