YouTuber The Critical Drinker Joins Ben Shapiro To Rank Every ‘Star Wars’ Film, Opinions Over ‘Rogue One’ Divided
Stephen Kent
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There is no better way to get to know another Star Wars fan than by asking them for the definitive ‘Best-to-Worst’ ranking of the franchise’s films – and recently, YouTuber The Critical Drinker linked-up with The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro to do just that.
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Meeting on the latter’s personal YouTube channel, the pair of cultural commentators each provided their own individual ranking of the galaxy far, far away’s cinematic outings.
According to Shapiro, his read of the once-beloved sci-fi series’ offerings shook out as:
- The Empire Stikes Back
- A New Hope
- Rogue One
- Return of the Jedi
- Revenge of the Sith
- Attack of the Clones
- Solo
- The Phantom Menace
- The Rise of Skywalker
- The Force Awakens
- The Last Jedi
Meanwhile, in The Drinker’s opinion, the films ranked as:
- The Empire Strikes Back
- A New Hope
- Return of the Jedi
- Revenge of the Sith
- Rogue One
- Attack of the Clones
- Solo
- The Phantom Menace
- The Force Awakens
- The Rise of Skywalker
- The Last Jedi
As The Empire Strikes Back and A New Hope are the most commonly cited top Star Wars films, both Shapiro and Critical Drinker admitted that their placements on their respective lists were predictable and deserved.
However, their first point of contention arose when it came to Shapiro’s slotting of Rogue One above Return of the Jedi for the third-place-spot on his podium.
“Here, I have sort of an internal battle,” admitted Shapiro. “I love Return of the Jedi. The second half of Revenge of the Sith is great, the first half is a little bit of a mess. I do have a peculiar liking for Rogue One. I think that Rogue One is a good piece of content. So I’m I have to decide between those three and it sort of varies based on based on the day so I’m gonna I’m gonna go with Rogue One.”
As for The Drinker, he placed Return of the Jedi in third, noting that while he had grievances over “those Ewok things”, the “big emotional payoffs” that result from Luke’s duel with Vader aboard the Death Star was well worth it in the end.
He also placed Revenge of the Sith in fourth, citing its well-known feature of being “the most mature” and “definitely like darkest in terms of emotional tone” of the entire series (The younglings might agree).
For slot six, Shapiro and Critical Drinker found common ground in Attack of the Clones, with Shapiro praising the contributions to the film made by late and famed actor Christopher Lee, whose performance he described as “incredible”, and Count Dooku as an “unappreciated hero” of the Star Wars universe.
Unsurprisingly, when it came time to add Disney’s prequel trilogy films to the mix, both Shapiro and The Drinker – like a respective fan of theirs would expect – threw them in to the absolute bottom of their rankings.
In particular, Shapiro took issue with Han Solo’s death in The Force Awakens, opining to his guest, “the killing of Han Solo is unforgivable, it’s legitimately unforgivable”.
Further, Shapiro noted that not only has he not shown his children the aforementioned film, but that instead, he has been “reading them the Timothy Zahn novels where Han lives and Luke gets married and Mara Jade’s in them.”
“They should have just done that – they should have just done all the Thrawn stuff, which now they’re trying to do in Ahsoka,” he asserted, adding that in his opinion, The Force Awakens and The Rise of Skywalker director J.J. Abrams was “the most derivative director working today.”
What Critical Drinker and Shapiro seem to be most united on when it cane to Disney’s trilogy was its ‘original sin’ of tossing out the “old IP” of the former Expanded Universe and starting a brand new narrative venture rather than utilizing the established stories of such popular EU creations as Darth Bane, or Darth Plagueis or Grand Admiral Thrawn – all of which Shapiro claimed would have been better starting points for a reboot of Star Wars than rehashing the ‘Rebels vs. Empire’ plotline and killing off the franchise’s classic characters.
Their time together concludes with both Shapiro and The Drinker placing The Last Jedi as the absolute bottom of their list, finding that the sequel trilogy’s sophomore outing was both “demoralizing” and evidence that director Rian Johnson “does not like his audience, and thinks his audience is a bunch of rubes and morons.”
Of course, as any Star Wars fan knows from experience, one’s personal ranking of the films are likely to shift over time – As the fan changes, their perception of certain entries may change as well.
In 2019, Ben Shapiro’s outlook on the franchise looked a bit different.
Following the release of Episode IX in December 2019, the conservative commentator tweeted, “Just saw Rise of Skywalker. Everyone is wrong. The movie is mostly nostalgia-packed joy. If you love the original Star Wars, you should be grateful to J.J. Abrams for attempting to right his own wrongs in Force Awakens and the travesty that is Last Jedi.”
In follow-up, Shapiro also updated his personal rankings of the entire series, explaining that in light of his recent movie going experience, his list read:
- The Empire Stikes Back
- A New Hope
- Rogue One
- Revenge of the Sith
- Return of the Jedi
- The Rise of Skywalker
- Solo
- The Force Awakens
- Attack of the Clones
- The Last Jedi
- The Phantom Menace
As one can see, Shapiro’s view of both The Rise of Skywalker and its director has diminished since 2019, his ranking of the film dropping a full three spots from #6 to #9.
The Phantom Menace, however, moved up from the bottom of the barrel to being Shapiro’s #8, coming in right after Solo.
Such is the life of a Star Wars fan!
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