Saga Darkest to most lighthearted star wars film.

No, the half was on Netflix. I never got around to finishing it.

 

My update. I don't always mean "better" when I say darker.

Revenge of the Sith: A tragic ending to the prequels, with the best character development of the three. One of the two protagonist is lured into killing children and an army commits genocide. The other hero is forced to dismember his best friend. Best use of CGI of the three, though I'm generally indifferent to CGI. While the final duel is a little dragged out, it's entertaining to watch the action scenes.

The Force Awakens: Villain orders the massacre of a village. While containing light moments and jokes, main character is shrouded in mystery, Han Solo, a well-known, emotionally weighed character is killed by his son, five planets are destroyed. Ends with note of uncertainty


Rogue One: Though a ray of "hope" shines at the end, all the main characters die. Shows war most realistically, with shady characters allied against the Empire, shatters the illusion of straight up good vs. evil, though the Rebels are still clearly in the right. Shows the horrors of war that civilians face up close

Attack of the Clones: As main character is seduced into darkness, he experiences the loss of his mother and kills women and children. Contains some lighthearted humor.

The Empire Strikes Back: Heroes are scattered, villain is heavily featured, one of the protagonist is left with unknown fate. Explains nature of Force expanding on previous film, hero struggles with good and evil, hero is left helpless by villain



Return of the Jedi, fewer dark moments, though they are very dark as hero nearly succumbs to his anger and hate. Hero nearly dies helplessly at the hands of a new villain more sinister than the one we already knew. Triumphant ending, most emotional stakes of trilogy

The Last Jedi: Humor weighs down movie slightly, ends with hero's victory, some intense/suspenseful scenes, mentor/hero of OT dies by self-sacrifice, villain struggles with good and evil

A New Hope; planet is destroyed although with little emotions attached, aunt and uncle of hero are killed and burned, contains humor proportionate to overall tone, few truly dark scenes, although mentor is killed, his death is slightly glossed over

The Phantom Menace- Most childlike humor, slapstick comedy is most frequent here, slightly hints at dark tone of laer installments, sad scene of mentor death, and separation of mother and child, though not many suspenseful scenes, ends on lighthearted note

 

When I think about it more I guess RotS is a touch darker than TESB, mostly because in TESB Han and Luke nobly sacrifice themselves, the latter outright refusing to turn Dark, and there isn't something similarly inspiring even though somber in Sith.
AotC-pretty strong themes of corruption and unease, doubts about the Clone army including its origins, Dooku's nature, how Anakin will turn out.
ANH-pretty intense even though in a pretty fun way.
TPM-The Sith are shown to be a really big deal and there's good conflict about Anakin's training, with both the Council's reasoning and Anakin's future implied to be dubious, also even apparently good Palaptine comes off as at least a little opportunistic.
RotJ-Despite the Emperor's evil (which correlates a bit with toning down Vader's) and also going more into Luke's anger, generally not a lot of sense of high stakes, generally the most optimistic one with the least amount of doubt that the good guys will win and succeed.

 

1. Revenge of the Sith (Obviously)
2. Rogue One
3. The Force Awakens
4. The Last Jedi
5. The Empire Strikes Back
6. Attack of the Clones
7. Return of the Jedi
8. A New Hope
9. The Phantom Menace

 

Darkest

The Force Awakens

Rogue One

Revenge of the Sith

The Last Jedi

The Empire Strikes Back

Attack of the Clones

A New Hope

The Phantom Menace

Return of the Jedi

Lightest

 

RotS - ESB - AotC - RO - ANH - RotJ - TPM - TLJ - TFA

 

ROTS
RO
TESB
TLJ
AOTC
ANH
ROTJ
TFA
TPM

 

Darkest was ROTs

Lightest was ROTJ

 

From Darkest to Lighthearted:
ROTS
RO
ESB
AOTC
ROTJ
TFA
TPM
ANH
TLJ

 

ROTS
RO
ESB
TLJ
AOTC
TFA
ANH
ROTJ
TPM
SOLO

 

Darkest Empire/RO. Lightest TPM/ ROTJ

 

Very hard to provide a ranking. All SW films have dark and lighthearted moments. But if I really had to choose I'd say dark: ROTS>AOTC>TLJ>ESB>ROTJ>ANH>TPM. I only watched TFA and R1 once, so I'm not sure how to rate them

 

ROTS is darkest.Then TFA.

 

Revenge of the Sith (has never been topped in terms of it's dark tone, I was hoping The Last Jedi would)

The Force Awakens (in the context of the whole saga, almost as dark as Revenge of the Sith, unpopular opinion)

Solo (this one was surprisingly dark)

The Empire Strikes Back

Attack of the Clones (some of the same childish humor as its predecessor, but its darker moments are very dark, as well as the final impression it leaves)

Rogue One

A New Hope (I prefer to call it "Star Wars", but this is to avoid confusion)

Return of the Jedi (roughly tied with The Last Jedi, I prefer this film though)

The Last Jedi (roughly tied with Return of the Jedi)

The Phantom Menace

 

Revenge of the Sith: the republic becomes the empire, the Jedi knights are exterminated and the chosen one falls to the dark side

The Last Jedi: The Resistance/Rebels starts the story off with over 10000 soilders, pilots, etc and end with only a hand full of people, Luke Skywalker becomes one with the force

The Empire Strikes Back: The Rebels lost their base on Hoth and are on the run from the Empire, Han is Frozen in Carbonite, Luke is an emotional wreck after the "big reveal" by the story's end and hasn't completed his training

Rogue One: Jyn, Cassian, K2-SO and others all die on Scarif but at least Leia got away with the Death Star schematics.

Attack of the Clones: Dooku escapes with the Death Star schematics, The Clone Wars begin which the Republic was trying to Anakin prevent andmarries Padme which is his next step close to the dark side

Solo: Qi'ra and Beckett betrays Han and leaves him behind on Savareen. But at least he still has Chewie and then wins the Millennium Falcon from Lando after a game of Sabacc

A New Hope: Alderann is destroyed by the Death Star and Darth Vader kills Obi Wan but at least the rebels succeed in destroying the Death Star

The Force Awakens: The First Order uses the Starkiller to destroy the New Republic, Han Solo is killed but the resistance destroyed Starkiller base and Rey finds Luke

Return of the Jedi: Anakin is redeemed and destroys the Emperor, the Galactic Civil War ends sometime after the battle of Endor and the Galaxy is at peace... At least for another thirty years

The Phantom Menace: I would agree if someone says this one is kid friendly and it has the least dark stuff out of the other movies and since it's the first act of the Star Wars saga the shroud of the dark side hasn't formed just yet.

 

ROTS
TFA
AOTC
RO
TESB
Solo
TROS
ANH
ROTJ
TPM
TLJ

 

ROTS
TESB
AOTC
ROTJ
ANH
TPM

I’ll just stop there.

 

I'm not trying to tell you that your opinion is wrong, but what makes you put TLJ as the lightest movie?

For me it's one of the darker ones with all the Resistance deaths, Luke's cynical attitude, Kylo remaining dark, Holdo and Luke's sacrifices, no reinforcements coming for the Resistance and even Leia saying that the spark is out before Luke arrives at the end. Even a Porg looks on in horror at Chewie eating one of its species in this one.

I know hope is mentioned a lot in the movie and Luke is symbol of it at the end, but I would still say there's a pretty dark tone throughout.

 

@Grievousdude In retrospect, I’d probably rank it above TPM but still below everything else.

Even when things were the most at stake, the film didn’t seem to take itself seriously. For example, Motti wasn’t made into a Chaplin-type slapstick joke when Vader choked him, but we saw how scary Vader was.

It’s hard to take the villain seriously, even though yes, he does stay dark.
That’s just me, of course.

Luke was also a source of comedy for me as well from his first to last appearance in TLJ

 

I get where you’re coming from. In many ways, TLJ played more like a strange comedy than a Star Wars movie, which have always had light moments, but never went for Python gags.

 

ROTS
ESB
TLJ
Rogue One
AOTC
ROTJ
TROS
TPM
SOLO
TFA
ANH
TCW

If we went by death toll it'd be

TFA
ANH
Rogue One
TROS
ROTJ
ROTS
AOTC
TLJ
TCW
TPM
ESB
SOLO

 

Darkest to lightest - (Lucas Star Wars only)

ROTS
ESB
AOTC
TPM (while everyone is happily celebrating, children are singing and the sun is shining... ultimately The Phantom Menace gets what he wants and is on his way to taking over the Universe and unleashing an evil the like of which no one has ever seen before - which is pretty dark)
ANH
ROTJ

 

Darkest: RotS —> R1 —> ESB

Lightest: TPM —> RotJ

I wasn’t counting the ST in my analysis because it’s hard for me to judge those films as a legitimate part of the story. If I look just at narrative, I’d say TLJ and TFA are far darker than R1 and ESB, and I would put TLJ ahead of even RotS as the darkest SW film. TLJ to me undoes the payoff fixing RotS, and the galaxy is at an even worse place because there are fewer Jedi and no one rebelling. RotS ended with the seeds of the rebellion and the twins. TLJ ended by telling us we shouldn’t be sad about the massacre we just witnessed and the total defeat/surrender of the galaxy despite the victory in RotJ, and only because of vague cliches, and that is so flipping dark and depressing. I actually think slaughters and defeats merit being sad. RotS didn’t shy away from that.