 The Skywalker Saga is over, three generations of Jedi films loosely knitted together. The question is, which one feels like a satisfying conclusion, and which one's just downright forced? It's the Revenge of the Sith vs Return of the Jedi vs Rise of the Skywalker on Movie Feuds. Return of the Jedi brings back all the fan favorites for One Last Ra, and then decades later they're brought back again for one last meh. Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Han Solo, Lando Calrissian, Chewbacca, Yoda, C-3PO, R2-D2, Darth Vader, and the big boss man himself, simply known as the Emperor. These are some of the most recognizable characters to ever hit the big screen. Joining them on their non-Disney-owned adventure are the Ewoks. Lovable, murderous little scabs. Who make for a terrific collection of plush dolls? I'm honestly a bit shocked Disney hasn't spun them yet into their own minion-style animated adventure. Speaking of animated, let's talk about Revenge of the Sith. A film that's only been made better thanks to the Clone Wars cartoon series. Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan, Padme, Mace Windu, Count Dooku, General Grievous, Palpatine, and a more athletic Yoda. Fan of Jar Jar Binks will be disappointed that he has as much screen time here as a black man does in Lord of the Rings. Last but also probably least is the Rise of the Skywalker crew. We have Poe, Finn, Rey, Skywalker, Leia Found Footage, Cookie Doe, I mean Lando, George Lucless, BB-8, and the droid crew. Emperor Pulpoclone, Snokes, Lifeless Husk, Kylo Ren, Chewie, Rose Tico, General Hux, Maz Kanata really in this movie, and the newcomer toy, Baboo Frick. And I think there is a poor cameo for good measure. As far as character development goes, Luke and Anakin certainly changed and grew over their adventures. While Rey never really had much of an arc outside of the whole, who am I, shtick? That was done much better in Zoolander. Kylo Ren, on the other hand, had a far more compelling story, and probably should have been the focus of this trilogy. And we're going to dive more into that in round two, which is the story, and guess what? It's here. It's happening right now. If anybody's familiar with me and my channel, you'll know my thoughts on the prequels. I'm not too keen on them to put it lightly. I'm also not too overjoyed with what happened in the new franchise. So the OG is really the only one that I think is worth going back and watching. Yeah, I'm one of those gross people. That said, there is zero question that Revenge of the Sith is easily the strongest of the prequels, and I believe that many really only enjoy the prequel films because of how good the third one was. Return of the Jedi in contrast is a very fun, albeit safe affair. And that works kind of as a criticism, but more as an observation. Empires often consider the greatest of the original run because it pushed our characters into harsher situations with darker tones. Return of the Jedi could have pushed things further, but instead reverts back to the first film in a lot of ways. It starts out very well, with a good amount of time dedicated to saving fan-favorite Han Solo from the clutches of the evil, Jabba the Hutt. Once the dated fight in the Sarlacc pit concludes, though, the movie comes to a pretty abrupt stop. The energy drains during the middle act, but thankfully the final conflict with Luke and his father is easily worth the investment. Having Vader in the end make the right choice finally, and dying with a small amount of humanity felt oddly satisfying. It's a shame that storyline is blended with the silly antics down on Planet Endor. We see a tribe of Ewoks hurling rocks and beating AT-ATs with sticks. My nine-year-old self ate that up, absolutely, even those Ewoks spin-off films. But as I grew older, and more bitter and jaded, yeah, that doesn't really blend well with the whole Death Star, you know, good versus evil thing. Revenge of the Sith is not messing around at all. The movie's tone is incredibly dark and somber. A brutal decapitation within the first 20 minutes really sets the stage for the rest of the film. Palpatine gets his face fried off, Mace Window loses an arm in his life, getting chucked out the side of a window, younglings are slaughtered. I mean the contrast alone from, now this is pod racing, to this is where the fun begins. I mean, you have on one hand a young kid who's having a good time racing a bunch of aliens in the desert to, hey, I'm getting ready to go kill a bunch of people, you know, kind of night and day there. The Yoda fights are epic to watch unfold along with the extended lightsaber battles. Are they completely over the top in showboaty? Yes, for sure they are. They're also the only parts I really find myself enjoying. I still wasn't sold on the ending of this thing. It somehow still felt rushed into getting characters where they needed to be for a new hope to kick in. This is where Rise of Skywalker has an advantage as all the characters were already pretty much mismanaged that there was no stakes going into it. Rey and Kylo are still frenemies. On the search, on the hunt for a thing that leads to another thing that leads to a final thing which opens the gates to the final boss of a video game. This is similar to Return of the Jedi in the sense that much of the story has gone backwards to the first entry. Poe and Finn get their bromance back, Kylo is once again conflicted and missing his dad. Another giant death ray comes into effect, this time in the form of a bunch of exical star destroyers, I think that's what they are. And of course another large wave of nostalgia takes flight, which travels to familiar places with familiar faces. There are some interesting ideas brought into the fray, such as Jedi healing and force linking, but nothing has any time to breathe. The final confrontation with Pelpe is large and bombastic, it's intense, yet it never really hits the crescendo that this saga should have. I mean you contrast this with Avengers Endgame, there's this giant last 30 minutes plus of dedicated time to this fight. There's loss, there's tears shed, there's anger, there's hope and most of that is completely out the window by the time we hit this 9th Star Wars film, which is a damn shame honestly. For a franchise that's all about being in tune with the force, it feels incredibly fractured here. I've been doing movie feuds for quite a while now and it still amazes me to this day how people in the comments can get upset when I compare production values thinking that it's unfair that I talk about a movie from 2019 to a film back from 1996, like people don't have eyes and ears and we should just ignore the fact that technology has gotten better. I mean it's just like anything else, you talk about video games and you always look back like wow look how much better the graphics have gotten in the gameplay, like these are good things, things will age, that's just a part of life, but to turn a blind eye to it is just silly and nonsensical. And that also I believe kind of hurts the creators, you know it's a disservice to the artists and the musicians and people that do put passion into the projects even if those projects don't turn out that well. And to continue this little rant CGI has grown leaps and bounds, but that doesn't necessarily make the film overall better. There's so much more that goes into it than fancy computer wizardry. The lighting plays a huge aspect, the whole tone of the film. And that's where I think the original Star Wars is such a kind of timeless wonder, yes the effects have aged, yes the action is pretty pathetic, but there is a feel that rings throughout the whole movie. And to me this is still where Revenge of the Sith suffers the most. I just don't like the look and style of the prequels. Lucas was of course championing new tech in terms of the audio and visuals but lighting, camera placement, and some of the more nuanced techniques are often off. Many moments feel lifeless and unnatural. It's easy to get removed from the scene because of the presentation. This is where the original really was ahead of its time. While the models and fight choreography certainly have aged, the elements all blend well together. The heroes are often interacting with physical objects on set and puppets and models have real weight to them. That can be very hard to replicate on just computers alone. Revenge of the Sith has some beautiful shots. Don't get me wrong, but the overall package just isn't what I enjoy. The JJ Abrams directed conclusion is very polished but very uninspired for the final act. Exigul is a parking lot of machinery and empty temples. The earlier stuff is far more interesting and easy on the eyes. From the lush forest to sweeping sand dunes, there is some great variety. There's a light speed jumping sequence early on that showcases just how interesting some of these locales can get. But like every single other thing in this movie, they're teased and gone just like that. Visually though, I think JJ does land a perfect balance between old and new tech. The new films may have missed the mark in terms of story, but it really does nail the execution in production. John Williams composed all three entries and our ears are very thankful for that. The OG trilogy has a lot of fan favorites while providing some new flavor. While Revenge of the Sith has some incredibly heavy and haunting pieces. Rise to me is the weakest of the bunch here, which makes sense because John Williams often mirrors the music to the story. I put a poll up on my YouTube community tab as I always do. Granted, this one is like months ago, but still I got to it. I made it happen. And the viewers have spoken as to what's installment of the final trilogies they enjoyed the best. In last place with a paltry 12% of the votes is Rise of the Skywalker. In second place was Revenge of the Sith with 37%. Making Return of the Jedi the winner at 51. I'm in full agreement with this list, and in fact, I can totally see why people would put Revenge of the Sith as number one. I respect those that enjoy all these films and I can only ask they do the same in the comments below. I'm joking, this is YouTube, that's not gonna happen. Anyway, thanks for watching and voting if you did. Make sure to subscribe to my channel, Adam Does Movies. I post a lot of movie feuds and just random rants on films in general. And remember, this is more than just reviews, this is movie feuds. Thanks for watching the video. I try to put out new stuff on a weekly basis, so make sure to subscribe if you haven't already. I have a second channel full of more shenanigans and I'm also on Twitch now. So there's a lot of variety, a lot of options, and hopefully you can find these channels via links on this video itself, if I did my job correctly. Otherwise they might be in the description below or you can just visit the channel page. All right, take care.