Was home sick all weekend, so skipped the theatre and fired up:
Star Wars: The Complete Saga (episodes 1-6) Blu-ray: I watched these in the order Lucas, I suppose, intended, so starting with Phantom Menace and ending with Jedi. This was actually the first time I had seen Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, the latter being pretty enjoyable and the former being an absolute slog. It's amazing how much of the fun and humour from the original trilogy was completely lacking from the prequels.
I remembered enjoying parts of
Phantom Menace, but overall disliking Jake Lloyd and JarJar to the point they kind of ruined the film for me and wow, they were even more painful to watch this time around. I have no doubt that this particular film was 100% designed for kids, but good lord, the writing and dialogue was so freaking clunky, it was excruciating. Really Liam Neesons was the only bearable character in this. I also like Darth Maul a lot and some of the action was still pretty freaking awesome, but anything with the stupid kid and/or JarJar was painful.
Attack of the Clones needed to remove the entire love story; it was so hackneyed and forced that it never felt believable. I actually did not mind the other parts of the story that were happening (the Obi-wan investigation) but every time it cut to Anakin in any way, I pretty much tuned out because he was god awful.
Revenge of the Sith actually held the most enjoyment for me out of these three films since it was a little bit darker, plus you eventually get to see Anakin get his limbs cut off and his body melted, which he deserved after being such an annoying prick through all of these films. Ewan McGregor was at his best here and while I ever really bought Anakin's love for Padme (or her love in return to be honest) nor his transformation to the dark side, I did like some of the stuff with the emperor and the overall idea of how it all came to be was kind of cool. It was just executed quite poorly.
Star Wars is probably the film I have seen the most out of the entire hexalogy and re-watching it again did not disappoint. It is interesting watching these next three films again after just watching the prequels. There is a lot of stuff referenced back and forth, not all of it smoothly, so it makes it a little more work on the brain as I tried to catch things. I also noticed several things that looked different from how I remembered them, so I was constantly second guessing whether I had just forgotten how things were when I last saw the film, or if they were new. I'll have to listen with the commentary at some point.
The Empire Strikes Back is still by far my favourite film of the series; re-watching it now did nothing to dissuade this. So many awesome moments right from the very beginning on Hoth, to the cloud city, Jabba's palace, etc. Definitely the pinnacle of the series and one I plan on re-watching again soon.
Return of the Jedi. I know a lot of people bitch about the Ewoks, but I'd be lying if I said I did not find myself chuckling at their antics here and there. Sure, this film does not have the heft of the first two films and it is somewhat clunkier in its composition, but there is a lot of fun stuff here and I had a smile on my face through good chunks of the movie. I had no idea Lucas ditched the Yub Nub song at the end. Not a happy camper:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=np6vAuS0KNs&fmt=18 :colbert:
The films all looked and sounded great on Blu-ray. There are some dated things, well really from all of the films, but they are forgivable. I was amazed at how awesome much of the puppetry was in the early films, I wish there had been more of it in the prequels.
So my final ranking would go: Episode 5>4>6>>>3>>1>2
KT
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