Saga In your opinion, which Star Wars movie is the most underrated or most overrated movie? And why?

For me, the middle of EMPIRE is almost as good because of the Dagobah scenes. The objective philosophical experiences with Yoda are a nice foil to Anakin's hyper-passionate experiences in AOTC. (This is also why I think people miss the point when they complain about those types of scenes on Dagobah not being in the PT. But that is another topic.)

You are right about Lucas taking risks in AOTC. Part of the problem in Hollywood today is we don't seem to have enough of that risk taking.

 

Underrated: I'll say the Phantom Menace although I still hate the portrayal of Anakin and Jar Jar. That said the lightsaber battle at the end is in my mind without question the best duel of the entire saga. So when anyone says TPM is crap, they must be forgetting about the epic duel. I also really liked the droids vs gungans battle up until the silly Jar Jar antics.

Overrated: Easily and without question TFA. Unoriginal remake that violates a lot of well established Star Wars lore. Does TFA really deserve to be the highest grossing Star Wars movie? I personally like all of the OT, ROTS, and RO better.

 

TFA is the most over-rated. It's literally proof that box office is no indicator of how good a movie is. Inversely and like-wise, ESB earned the least box office but is the best of the saga. The most under-rated would have to be TPM or AotC imo.

 

I think the most underrated is Phantom Menace. It's one of the weakest films, but still enjoyable and a lot better than people give it credit for.
Most overrated is possibly Empire. I still love it and consider it the second best film in the franchise, but it's nowhere near as good as Star Wars.

 

AOTC, easily. It has fallen out of favor with many fans in recent years, gaining the reputation to some as “the worse Star Wars movie.” Whereas Episode I seems to be more positively reassessed lately, it is often at the expense of Episode II, which is a shame.
I distinctly remember the release of AOTC and that reception by both critics and fans was much more positive compared to TPM's more mixed response. There were the usual comments about wooden acting, corny dialogue, and so forth. But overall, fans were more engaged and excited.

 

Totally agree! Somehow TPM has been "redeemed" or "pardoned" in recent years while most haters keep on bashing AOTC.

 

Or maybe some people just don't like AOTC because they don't think it's very good. That doesn't make them "haters" and the way people view movies does sometimes change over time.

I fall into this category. Initially I did indeed like AOTC more than TPM.... but over time I've come to appreciate TPM more while AOTC has fallen to the bottom of my list.

ROTJ was my favorite SW film (easily) when I was a kid... but now it's my fourth favorite.

TESB was my least favorite (of the OT) when I was a kid but now it's easily my favorite SW film.

In fact, I'm pretty sure TESB had the worst critical reviews of the OT when the films were originally released.... but that's not the case now.

 

If it's an opinion or personal preference, and presented as such, I have no problem with it. But some people make it sound like it was some universal truth that everyone agrees on that the prequels just "suck", that Hayden is "wooden", that the romance is "unwatchable" or whatever, bla bla bla... Everyone is entitled to like or dislike whatever they want. But speak for yourself and not on behalf of SW fans in general. I am not referring to you but people who "argue" like that. I think everyone in this forum knows what I mean, we have all read it millions of times: "as we all know....", "everyone knows....", "we all agree that..." etc. It has really gotten old and boring. I know some people just don't like a movie for whatever reasons. But it's undeniable that a part of those truly are haters that just nitpick something to death for the sake of preaching that their point of view is the only possible one. I think you will probably agree that generally AOTC is the most disliked episode of all. That's what this thread is about. Only something that most people dislike can be underrated. When 90% of viewers go on about what a masterpiece TFA is then you can hardly call it "underrated". But let's face it, AOTC is the one SW movie that gets the most criticism and blame of them all.

 

I really feel that it's the opposite.

Revenge of the Sith is by FAR the best prequel, and has the most dramatic, riveting story out of all the films. It's always been close to the top of my list and I hate how people bunch it in with the prequels and dismiss it as a bad movie. It's way better than Return of The Jedi in my opinion.

Return of The Jedi is overrated for a very similar reason; It's easily the worst of the original trilogy, yet just because it is an OT movie, people bunch it in with the three of them and say it's better than any prequel. I don't agree! I'll take the birth of the Empire & order 66 over the fall of the Empire with the Ewoks any day.

 

That's not how underrated / overrated arguments work.

Revenge Of The Sith is generally considered to be the best of the prequels. So it's adequately rated in respect of your opinion. Unless you think it's even better than the best of the prequels.

And Return Of The Jedi is generally considered the worst of the OT and is marked down specifically for the presence of the Ewoks. So it is adequately rated in respect of your opinion. Unless you think it's worse than the worst film in the OT.

Revenge Of The Sith being better than Return Of The Jedi or vice versa is not an argument that crops up very often (nowhere remotely near as much as OT is better than PT does) so it's hard to make a case for an opposing argument getting more credence than it already has.

As it happens, I think that Return Of The Jedi is more cohesive and dramatically plausible in delivering its story than Revenge Of The Sith is at delivering its objectives. And it also happens that I believe that Return Of The Jedi deserves more credit than just being the worst of the OT. And I don't believe that Revenge Of The Sith being the best of the PT, which it is, makes it a very well made movie. It's not a case of just bunching it in with the other prequels, for me.

 

Personally I just enjoy watching Revenge of the Sith much much more than I enjoy watching Return of the Jedi. I think it's a better film and I rarely see people with that same opinion... which is why I feel that Revenge of the Sith is still underrated. It's my favorite movie after Empire and A New Hope.

 

That is not an unpopular opinion either.

 

Most Underrated = Return of the Jedi. I hate how it kind of gets brushed off as automatically the worst of the original three. I kind of view ROTJ the same way I do another trilogy closer, LOTR: Return of the King. It probably has the most problems of the three films overall, but the good stuff is so good that I forgive it and still consider it an A+ entry in the series.

I love the Jabba sequence. Yeah it takes up a good chunk of the movie, but its so fun to watch that I could have stayed there longer. As a lover of practical effects, puppetry, and animatronics in film, I was always blown away by the different creatures and monsters on display. Jabba looks incredible and alive, which is amazing considering the thing is stationary. The Rancor looks great and harkens back to those old monster movies that were clearly an inspiration to Lucas. And I love the whole sequences because one by one, we get the whole good guy group back together. We start with the droids, then we see Chewie, then Lando, then Han is freed, then Leia, and then we finally get Luke. As a kid, it was awesome to watch because the full group hasn't been together since the beginning of Empire Strikes Back, so to see the reunion and overcoming Jabba was a nice victory for the Rebels after so much hardship in the last film. I also always loved the little call back to ESB's "That's two you owe me" from Han with Han now telling Luke "Thanks for coming back for me. I owe YOU one!". Its all very nice.

And the main highlight of the film for me is the Luke/Vader/Emperor story arc. The Emperor is so deliciously evil that he instantly became a favorite character of mine. Some might say he's one dimensional, but I say hey, if you're going to go for pure evil, go all the way and they did here. Also, there are so many great scenes and interactions. Yoda's death scene legit upset me as a child because I loved him so much in ESB. Probably the most underrated scene in the entire Star Wars saga is that simple scene between Luke and Vader in the hallway. Every time I watch it, I just hang off every word they say. The way they talk to each other and respond to each other is really great and one of the most engaging and human moments in all of Star Wars. Luke's resignation that he can't convert Vader and his closure of "Then my father is truly dead" hits me right in the feels every time. And it all pays off beautifully with the final confrontation in the Emperor's throne room which is just one great moment after another. The Lightsaber duel, Luke's rejection of the Dark Side, and Vader's redemption to save his son is the emotional climax of the trilogy, and is beautifully executed (or at least it was until Lucas added those stupid "Nos" on the Blu-Ray...ugh).

As for some of the complaints against the film...I'm sorry guys, but I actually don't mind the Ewoks. I think they fit in thematically with Star Wars and them being able to fight off the Stormtroopers makes sense to me. First of all, this is a society of warriors and hunters and the battle is taking place in their natural environment...so...yeah, I do believe that they'd be able to help turn the tide on some Stormtroopers, especially if those Troopers. Also, like I said, it fits in with the theme of the whole saga where nature and spirit will conquer superior power and technology. How can a simple farm boy defeat the greatest military weapon ever? How can a simple scavenger be the key to bringing balance to the galaxy? How can a slave from a desert planet be the destined Chosen One? Unlikely heroes pop up all over the place in Star Wars and they always find ways to defeat seemingly more powerful foes, and to me, the Ewoks fit in with that. And I never felt like they got to the point that they were annoyingly cute. It was just enough to where I could tolerate it.

Honestly, my only major problem with the film is that they rehashed The Death Star. I would have preferred it if the Rebels had instead done a plan to invade the Imperial City and overthrow the Emperor that way instead of basically just rehashing the super weapon from A New Hope. But they probably didn't have the ability to do the Imperial City justice in 1983 and, hey, at least the space battle gave us some great moments like Admiral Ackbar's "Its a Trap!" and his reaction to the Super Star Destroyer going down.

Speaking of which, the movie also introduced us to Admiral Ackbar. That's a major point in its favor right there.

Overrated: The Force Awakens: I enjoyed the movie. I'm not saying I didn't. However, I didn't think it was the sun, the moon, and the stars like it was being hailed as at the time of its release. Its good. Its perfectly enjoyable and a nice return for the series, but it pales in comparison to the original trilogy that its tries so desperately to recapture.

The biggest issue with the film is the same complaint that has been thrown at it by its detractors: Its basically just A New Hope again. It hits most of the story beats and even has a big planet busting death ball (which the film literally referred to as "Another Death Star"). I feel like the movie focused a little too much on nostalgia and not enough on being its own thing. Going back to Starkiller Base, why was that even in the film? To me it just took focus away from the main plot device: The Map to Skywalker. What they could have done is having a Galaxy hopping Indiana Jones style film with the good guys and bad guys trying to beat each other to get the final pieces of the map. The space battle at the end was completely superfluous, tacked on, and felt like it was included out of obligation. Honestly, they could have just had Rey, Finn, Han, and Chewie go after the last piece of the map with Kylo Ren and the First Order on their tails, done everything else basically the same but without the space battle and it would have been fine.

But like I said, the film is enjoyable, I liked most of the new characters, and they did set up enough questions and mysteries that have me interested in seeing where it goes. Who or what is Rey? Where did she come from? Who is Snoke? What are The Knights of Ren? Is Kylo Ren a double agent? Why was Luke gone for so long? All these questions that they have two films to answer and hopefully it all goes well. If we just get Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi again, then that'll make me think a lot less of the sequel trilogy as a whole.

 

No, it's not underrated. Most people, even on this forum, consider it the best of, even go as far as regarding it the only acceptable prequel. It gets all the praise while the others, most of all AOTC, get all the hate. I still think we don't yet see eye to eye regarding what "underrated" means. How can the most praised prequel, which is even more popular than some of the OT, possibly be "underrated"??? I like the movie, and it deserves the praise, but it's not underrated by any means. But I don't see any point in arguing. Your signature says it all! As with any self-respecting prequel "hater" (no offense! ), AOTC is lowest on the list, way behind even TFA . To me it seems you somehow got the definitions of "overrated" and "underrated" mixed up. Now, TFA, that one must be THE single most overrated movie in the past two decades.

 

One thing I will give Phantom Menace. Visually, it has aged the best of the prequels.

Maybe it is because most of the movie is set on Naboo and Tatooine, which enforced the need to shoot on location, but Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith look so synthetic now. Even simple scenes of people walking down a hallway and talking look fake because for as vast and as colorful as the environments are, the actors don't look like they can interact with any of it. The best way I can describe it is that it looks like they are trapped in an invisible box, a side effect of green screening virtually everything.

But Phantom Menace kept the "all CGI" environments to a minimum, and as a result, it has a more organic look to it while Episodes II and III look more like video games.

And hey, most of the CGI characters look pretty good in that they look like they are actually there with the other characters. I mean say what you will about Jar Jar (Lord knows I've said plenty) but at least I believe he's actually there interacting with Qui-Gon. Its a shame because the mechanics behind creating the character were pretty groundbreaking, and predated the (deservedly) celebrated Gollum by a good 3 years, but nobody seemed to care because, you know, its Jar Jar.

 

Underrated: Return of the Jedi

Episode VI overall is excellent. Disturbing creatures, memorable quotes and camera shots, great music, a spectacular space battle and an intense lightsaber fight...Emperor Palpatine and more characterization on Vader...great stuff. Revelations about Luke and Leia being siblings and Anakin's death after being redeemed when Vader comes back from the Dark Side. Not a huge fan of Death Star 2.0 but it isn't horrible. Ewoks are cool aliens with spirit but wish they swarmed the Empire in greater numbers to make the ground battle more believable. 6 on 1 would be tough on the majority's home turf.

Overrated: The Force Awakens

It is entertaining the first few times and has some great artistic shots and lighting, with a cool new droid, but the writing is very weak, uninspired and sloppy. The backstories of the OT characters (Luke, Han & Leia) are very unsatisfying and disappointing, with new characters being either poorly written, unrelatable or uninteresting. The narrative logic often derails and the forced humor is grating. Starkiller Base is abysmal. The acting is a mixed bag with good performances by Oscar Isaac and Adam Driver, but there is too much over-exposition. The main protagonist is unrelatable due to lack of adversity, defeat and failure. Kylo Ren started out fantastic but steadily declined. Overall, I expected much more originality from this film.

 

I don't know how the rule of reviving topics works, but I was just going to make exactly this same idea, especially with the saga now concluded.

Underrated: The Phantom Menace: as people already brought this up, it isn't that much a bad movie, maybe people got too hyped and got disappointed. I also feel people have a little of bias on Rogue One, between the fanbase, the public seems to have enjoyed but I lost the count of people who said "It isn't a main movie so I won't be watching...", which is pretty annoying because this might be my favorite movie. I know it's an unpopular opinion, but I don't really see why many people disliked TROS.
Overrated: Not exactly overrate, but I must admit the fanatism over ROTS, especially under Prequel Memes is a bit scaring for me, but it's a nice movie, I admit. I also going to say A New Hope is a bit overrated. I don't know if I wasn't feeling well on the day I watched it, but it simply didn't catch much of my attention. Lastly, The Last Jedi, which is a pretty popular opinion, really disappointed me.

 

Underrated: Attack of the Clones
Yes the romance is cringy but to me the rest of the movie is great.

Overrated: Return of the Jedi
Has in my eyes many flaws and few saving graces, weakest of the original 6 in my opion and a huge step down from ANH and ESB.

 

Underrated: TPM. Not an absolute favorite, but the elements I like outweigh the negatives by a lot.
ROTJ is close. It deserves more praise but TPM’s criticism is much more overblown.

Overrated: TFA. I was part of the hype for both this film and TLJ, but I feel as though the praise was disproportionate to its quality
Hard choice between all the ST films, but TLJ and TROS were criticized more.

 

Overrated. Not sure to be honest.
Underrated: A New Hope. People had never seen anything like it. Like nothing else that came before it. Seems to not get the credit it deserves and it is surprising to see it so low on some people's lists. Best ending of any of the movies.

 

Overrated: Hmm probably ROTJ

Underrated: TLJ forever and always

 

Overrated: A New Hope is by FARRRR my least favourite of all the Star Wars movies. I don't get why it is so loved. Okay, it kicked this whole thing off, but I just find it boring, slow, uninteresting....I only stomach it on the rare occasion when I'm doing a full watch through.

Underrated: The Phantom Menace. I loved this as a 10 year old kid when it came out, I love it just as much (if not more) now. I don't understand the hate for this one!

 

Underrated - The Phantom Menace. It really is a wonderful film. I think it's the best looking of the prequels, probably due to being on film. I think people retroactively started to bash it after that long "review" of it. I have a friend who likes to tell the tale of how disappointed he was after first viewing TPM. Then I ask him, "How many times did you see it in theaters?" He says, "Five". Oh really? Went back 4 more times to watch a movie you didn't like?

Overrated - The Force Awakens. People seem to think it's the least bad of the sequels, but it really is the movie that sets the table for the sequel trilogy. If you don't like the sequels, this is the movie to blame.