[Aldin]

I've watched each movie one time except for the original trilogy which I've watched several times. My take?

4
5
6
8
7
Rogue
1
2
Solo
3

Loved the original trilogy, and it holds up pretty well. I think casting was key, as were the special effects and action scenes. A rip-roaring good time!

Similarly, I'm loving the current trilogy. Again loving the casting and great special effects and action scenes. Again loving the adventure of it all.

Rogue One was a good movie. It tells a very different kind of story in the Star Wars universe. It just never grabbed me the way the others have. The only cast member I can name off the top of my head is Alan Tudyk and that's more of a Firefly thing than a Rogue One thing. Special effects and action were adequate, but nothing that felt remarkable. A fine spy/war thriller.

1&2 were fine, mostly, if I ignore the dialogue and just watch the action scenes. The pod race was cool. The Darth Maul duel was cool. Even Yoda going off on Dooku was cool. Casting was mostly a disappointment though. The simmering political tensions storyline was a non-starter.

Solo was watchable. If it had been just a story about a dude, I might even have enjoyed it. Some really fun action sequences. Unfortunately for the movie, it was supposed to provide the heavy lifting of getting Han Freaking Solo from youth to scruffy nerf herder and it had neither the plot, nor the casting to do so.

3 hasn't aged well. I lied a bit when I said I'd only seen it once. I recently watched a hefty chunk of it on cable and couldn't quite believe I'd sat through it in the theater. The final fights between Obi Wan and Anakin and Yoda and the Emperor (they are interspersed), just go on and on and on without being particularly interesting (I channel flipped and came back a few times). The ending feels utterly forced with Yoda leaving the fight with the Emperor, Obi Wan abandoning the on fire but not dead Anakin, and Padme dying as things that had to happen so they did rather than anything rising organically out of the movie.

~Aldin, ready for 9