Not long after critics started posting their opinions to social media early last week about Star Wars: The Last Jedi, an inevitable parlor game commenced: How do you rank the Star Wars movies?
That people even thought in these terms was a testament to how well Rian Johnson’s first foray into the Star Wars universe has gone. More than any other Star Wars movie in recent memory, The Last Jedi seems like a movie that really can compete with the most beloved entries in the franchise. But is this just the recency bias in effect? Am I completely wrong to believe this? (The initial reactions from some fans suggests that I am.) The only way to figure this out is to compare The Last Jedi to every other Star Wars movie and see which film comes out ahead.
But first, for the sake of time and not making this exercise totally tedious, let’s establish the following truths:
1) The Last Jedi is great but it’s not greater The Empire Strikes Back. It’s just not. The Empire Strikes Back will always be the best Star Wars film. It has the best ending. It has the best plot twist. It introduced Yoda. It introduced Lando. It introduced Boba Fett. It has “I know.” No subsequent Star Wars will be able to touch the mythical weight of that movie. So, this is really a discussion of which is the best Star Wars movie that isn’t The Empire Strikes Back.
2) The three prequels — The Phantom Menace, Attack Of The Clones, and Revenge Of The Sith — will always be the three worst Star Wars movies. You can keep any contrarian opinions about this to yourself. Nobody wants to hear them. If you honestly think The Phantom Menace is “actually better than Return Of The Jedi, I’m serious,” that’s great, enjoy your Blu-ray disc in the privacy of your own home. But here in the real world, we don’t have time to sit through your counterintuitive defense of lil’ Anakin.
This leaves (in reverse chronological order) Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Return Of The Jedi, and Star Wars. Let’s jump into the Sarlacc pit!
The Last Jedi vs. Rogue One
I liked Rogue One, as I am a big fan of the “Ben Mendelsohn plays a huge d*ckhead” genre. But in my mind it doesn’t really count as a Star Wars movie. At this point, the primary appeal of new Star Wars is revisiting a familiar mythology that I originally discovered when I was four. Star Wars is practically like an uncle or older brother to millions upon millions of people. It’s a fixture in your life that you’ve come to count on, which is why it was canny for The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi to use many of the characters from the original trilogy to help shepherd viewers into a new trilogy. It mirrors the experience we all go through in our own families as we age, in which we welcome one generation while bidding farewell to another.
During The Last Jedi, I felt a lump in my throat suddenly appear when Luke Skywalker reunited with R2-D2, and then I definitely shed a tear when R2-D2 played the video message from Princess Leia that Luke originally saw in the first Star Wars movie. (The Last Jedi also functions as a critique of Star Wars nostalgia, with several characters voicing “kill the past”-style sentiments. Yoda even shows up to literally burn down a Jedi monument! Somehow, having it both ways doesn’t feel cheap, though I suspect this irreverence informs the distaste that a vocal corps of superfans have had with this film.) Rogue One simply doesn’t have that kind of emotional resonance. It has Riz Ahmed, whom I also love, but I’m not nostalgic for The Night Of quite yet. The Last Jedi and Rogue One take place in the same universe but Rogue One feels … different, like spending Thanksgiving dinner at a different house on the block where you grew up.
Winner: The Last Jedi
The Last Jedi vs. The Force Awakens
People seemed to love The Force Awakens in the short term and like it less in retrospect. It’s become fashionable to criticize J.J. Abrams for essentially making a “greatest hits” version of a Star Wars movie. Some even wondered wistfully what The Force Awakens would’ve been like if George Lucas had been involved, going as far to praise the prequels as the flawed but righteous work of a “real” auteur. “For the first time in a more than a decade,” Bryan Curtis wrote in The New Yorker, “people are talking about Lucas with something other than withering contempt.”
So, The Force Awakens was overrated, and now it seems a little underrated. Abrams deserves credit for introducing a genuinely compelling group of new characters — Rey, Finn, Poe, and above all Kylo Ren — and casting them pretty much perfectly with a talented, and diverse, collection of actors. I would also suggest, with all due respect to Lucas, that The Force Awakens was adored by fans because it was the first Star Wars movie in more than 30 years that was actually fun to watch.
Compared with The Last Jedi, however, it seems derivative — at the risk of restating what’s already become the defining critical cliche of Johnson’s film, The Force Awakens doesn’t move the ball forward like The Last Jedi does. It’s more like a pep rally designed to get alienated Star Wars babies back on board. Abrams gets props for setting up the pins, but Johnson knocks them down with superior style and substance.
Winner: The Last Jedi
The Last Jedi vs. Return Of The Jedi
Okay, preseason is over. Now let’s get serious. We’ve breached the original trilogy now.
Let’s start with a confession: Return Of The Jedi was my favorite Star Wars movie growing up. It was the first Star Wars movie that I saw in a theater. It had Jabba The Hutt. It had black-suited Luke Skywalker, the only time he almost looked as cool as Han. It had my favorite Luke vs. Darth lightsaber battle. And, yes, it had Leia’s iron bikini.
I had no idea that a significant number of people thought Jedi sucked until I saw Clerks in high school. I feel like that movie gave people permission to knock Jedi — because it’s the one with the Ewoks, and it also seems a little hokey after the “darkness on the edge of the galaxy” vibe of Empire.
Give this to the Ewoks: they are clearly superior to the porgs in The Last Jedi. However, The Last Jedi has the superior Mark Hamill performance. It also has the better “Ghost Yoda” cameo. And it has that dark vibe from Empire. With Return Of The Jedi, even as a little kid, I knew that things would turn out okay. With The Last Jedi, there are genuine surprises as far as who makes and who doesn’t. (Though it’s not clear when The Last Jedi is supposed to end — it has that “multiple endings” issue that The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King has, though it doesn’t seem quite as tiresome.) The Last Jedi just feels more substantial than Return Of The Jedi, even when you factor in the older film’s home-field nostalgia advantage.
Winner: The Last Jedi
The Last Jedi vs. Star Wars
This is an impossible comparison, for all the reasons why it’s impossible to compare Aaron Judge to Babe Ruth. There’s no question that Babe Ruth is more legendary and important to the history of baseball. But it’s also obvious that Aaron Judge is more impressive physically, and plays in an era in which the game is much more difficult to excel at. If Babe Ruth had to face modern pitching, or just beat out a throw to first base, he would be swiftly drummed out of the minors. Meanwhile, if Star Wars, (or A New Hope, if you must) had to deal with lunatics on the internet in 1977, it might’ve influenced how we perceive that film today.
Star Wars is probably the most iconic blockbuster-type movie ever made. It not only set the tone for subsequent Star Wars movies, it also represents an ideal for every film of its ilk that has followed in the past 40 years. In the history of cinema, there aren’t 10 films that are more influential than Star Wars.
But it’s not as well-made as The Last Jedi. It’s not as exciting, or as well-acted, or as funny on purpose. As a writer-director, George Lucas was capable of being funny by accident, whereas Johnson actually pulls off a mother joke in the opening scene of The Last Jedi.
As a phenomenon, Star Wars is unparalleled. As an actual film, The Last Jedi is better.
Winner: The Last Jedi
So there you have it: The Last Jedi is the best Star Wars film that’s not Empire. I look forward to nobody disagreeing with this take on the internet. May the force be with us!
