Chirrut Îmwe’s walk ( Rogue One: A Star Wars Story) Bonus: Coruscant is the site, or at least the crash site, for the enormous space battle pitting Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker against the forces of Count Dooku at the start of Revenge of the Sith - an entire reel’s worth of action that ranks as one of the series’ finest.Ĥ5. Subsequent films would shore up the city’s night side, such as the noirish, neon-lit pursuit of an assassin by Anakin and Obi-Wan in Attack of the Clones, but our initial visions of the city-world leave the most lasting impression. This planet-sized city had been long cited in ancillary comics and novels before it finally showed up onscreen, and the then-state-of-the-art CGI available to the filmmaker gave the enormous urban sprawl a stately beauty that looked like the yin to the yang of Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner dystopia. Our first trip to the capital of the Republic is one of George Lucas’s greatest triumphs. Coruscant ( Episode I: The Phantom Menace) The wooshing and whirring and exploding that results gives the action a relentless rhythm all its own.Ĥ6. Rather than rely on master film composer John Wiliams’s versatile score, as had so many high-velocity pursuits in the series’ past, this chase sequence was set exclusively to the sound effects supervised by Ben Burtt. Perhaps the most impressive thing about Luke and Leia’s pursuit of Imperial scout troopers aboard hoverbikes hurtling through Endor’s titanic trees at suicidal speeds isn’t what it looks like, but what it sounds like. Speeder bike chase ( Episode VI: Return of the Jedi)
Obi-Wan’s white-knuckle battle against flying bounty hunter Jango Fett and his son Boba is merely the icing on a meticulously crafted cake.Ĥ7. Look no further than Kamino, the remote rain-soaked world where long-necked aliens craft the foot soldiers of the Empire’s genesis amid placid environments that exist halfway between the sterile white spaces of Kubrick’s 2001 and the uncanny domesticity of Eyes Wide Shut. Abrams’s recycling of previous environments (desert planet, forest planet, ice planet), Lucas’s knack for inventing stunning new locales and emotional palettes is a tremendous success.
#Star wars i am da one professional
But particularly when compared to TFA director and professional custodian of other people’s ideas J.J. Star Wars creator George Lucas’s prequel trilogy has been maligned - rightfully, to one degree or another - for wooden acting, byzantine plotting, and recourse to racial stereotypes in the makeup of his invented alien races.
Kamino ( Episode II: Attack of the Clones) Luke Skywalker’s discovery of the hidden holographic message stored within his newly purchased astromech droid R2-D2 served as a sort of magic spell, the “open sesame” that unlocked all the excitement to come.Ĥ8. In just eight words, Princess Leia Organa promised a whole universe of adventure. “Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi - you’re my only hope” ( Episode IV: A New Hope)
#Star wars i am da one movie
(Of course, Disney now owns the Fox movie library, so hey, if Emperor Palpatine can make a comeback … )Ĥ9. But for almost three decades, the adventures of the Skywalker clan were accompanied by this legendary music cue by composer Alfred Newman entire generations associated it with the battle between the dark side and the light. The 20th Century Fox fanfare (Episodes I–VI)Įver since the Mouse absorbed that galaxy far, far away, the traditional drum-and-brass theme music that opened every 20th Century Fox feature film is no longer associated with the Star Wars saga.
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Animated series like Rebels and this year’s live-action drama The Mandalorian on Disney+, which you can sign up for here, are not included.ĥ0. Note: To keep the comparisons fair, we’ve only included moments from the theatrically released Star Wars feature films.
Here are the 50 finest, from A New Hope to The Rise of Skywalker. Even in its most maligned installments, the franchise contains moments of dread and delight that number among the best in the history of sci-fi, fantasy, and action-adventure filmmaking. It’s why after a lifetime of fandom, I went into The Rise of Skywalker thinking, I’ve got a bad feeling about this - not about the movie itself, but the dark side of the discourse.īut if you’re suffering from Star Wars fatigue, the movies themselves are the best cure around. The galaxy George Lucas built has been roiled with controversy, with fans, trolls, and maybe even actors seemingly taking sides in a struggle over the series’ direction. These days, it feels like the title Star Wars refers to battles about the movies, not in them. We have since updated it to include events from Rogue One , The Last Jedi, Solo, and The Rise of Skywalker, all currently streaming on Disney+.
This list was originally published in 2015. Photo-Illustration: Maya Robinson/Vulture