Ranking Star Wars

It gets a bit tricky once you get into books, videogames, etc. so, for the sake of simplicity, I decided to stick with movies and TV....

1. The Empire Strikes Back

2. Star Wars (aka A New Hope... I'm OG so it's just Star Wars to me)

3. The Force Awakens

These are all very close--- Empire has always been my favorite and the original is the original and, in some ways, The Force Awakens is actually superior to both… however, it  still stands on the shoulders of its predecessors.

4. Rogue One

5. Return of the Jedi (original edition)

6. Revenge of the Sith

7. Return of the Jedi (special edition)

 Rogue One is definitely the boldest thing that has ever been attempted with a major Star Wars theatrical release so I gotta  give it props over the weakest of the originals. Sith is the only one of the prequels worthy of standing among the originals and it is, by far, the best of that lot.  It beats out the special edition of Jedi because of the CG musical number in Jabba’s palace…. Just awful….

8. Genndy Tartakovsky’s  Clone Wars shorts.

9. Rebels

10. Clone Wars

11. The Boba Fett animated sequence from the Star Wars Holiday Special

12. Episode II (its title isn’t even worthy of being spoken)

13. Clone Wars (theatrical release)

14. Droids Cartoon

15. Mark Hammill hosting the Muppet Show

16. Episode I

17. Ewoks Cartoon

18. Those Made for TV Ewok Movies

19. The rest of the Star Wars Holiday Special

2016 Favorites: TV

10. Lady Dynamite- Maria Bamford delivers an offbeat metatextual exploration of mental illness... and it's a comedy! Bold move. Also, it has pugs.

9. Star Wars: Rebels - The second season surpasses the first in overall quality and the finale delivered on every level for a fan of both the original Star Wars films and the Filoni-verse of Rebels and Clone Wars. The return of Captain Rex and a Chopper-centric episode were just icing on the cake.

8. Love- I've always felt Judd Apatow's movies were about 30 minutes too long, turns out his pacing works much better in the serialized format of a TV series.

7. Better Call Saul - While the overall quality of writing, directing and acting remains the same, the second season seems to lack direction and meanders a bit in terms of plot. Not nearly as tight as the first season and, as much as we all love Jonathan Banks, his storyarc this season seemed forced and unnecessary.

6. Unbreakable Kimmie Schmidt- While I don't find myself quoting this season as much as the first, this is, most likely, because I haven't watched it as many times (yet!). Still my favorite current comedy and Tina Fey should have gotten an Emmy for her guest performance this season (ok, she won one with Amy for hosting SNL--- probably why she wasn't nominated for this one--- but it should have been for THIS one).

5. Daredevil - While Daredevil is the weakest of Marvel's Netflix offerings thus far, it is still very good. The second season was, overall, stronger than the first and Bernthal's Punisher and Elodie Jung's Elektra were spot on.

4. The Get Down- Baz Luhrman dials back his stylistic tendencies just enough to give this tale of the origins of hip-hop as hero's quest the mythic quality it needs.

3. Game of Thrones- the fifth season makes up for the lack of direction of the fourth with a much tighter overall narrative and a one, two punch in the last two episodes that sets the important pieces in place for the series' endgame.

2. Luke Cage - Stylistically, this might be the best Netflix show; the soundtrack, the cinematography and the reinvention of blaxploitation tropes are all top notch.  Additionally, a series about a bulletproof black man whose costume is a bullet-riddled hoodie might be the most aggressively political thing done with a mass media interpretation of a Superhero.

1. Stranger Things- Ok, liking this show is in my DNA. However, this show is more than a nostalgia trip that pays homage to the beloved 'PG Horror/Sci-Fi' films of my youth. It uses those Spielberg-Carpenter-King texts as inspiration to tell a tale that is brilliant in its own right.  Also, it reminds us why we all love Winona Ryder.