Which movie was best is certainly a matter of opinion and it is interesting to read the various rankings. However, one thing that is difficult for me to fathom is why people continue to insist on calling the first movie (Episode IV) "A New Hope." I saw the movie when it first came out in theaters and it was not called anything but "Star Wars." I only noticed people starting to call it "A New Hope" years later. If you look at all the promotional material of the time, the movie was known as nothing but "Star Wars." Now it seems that, among aficionados, "A New Hope" is the only thing anyone ever calls it. I understand that the entire series is known as "Star Wars" and calling one of the movies that may create some confusion -- but to rewrite history and call a movie something that it never was known as in its time somehow takes something out of the original magic of the movie. I seem to recall that even the book that came out at the time of the movie was just called "Star Wars" -- I could be wrong about that though. Regardless, I will always consider Episode IV to be just simply "Star Wars."
Originally posted by DoctorRocktopus
Which movie was best is certainly a matter of opinion and it is interesting to read the various rankings. However, one thing that is difficult for me to fathom is why people continue to insist on calling the first movie (Episode IV) "A New Hope." I saw the movie when it first came out in theaters and it was not called anything but "Star Wars." I only noticed people starting to call it "A New Hope" years later. If you look at all the promotional material of the time, the movie was known as nothing but "Star Wars." Now it seems that, among aficionados, "A New Hope" is the only thing anyone ever calls it. I understand that the entire series is known as "Star Wars" and calling one of the movies that may create some confusion -- but to rewrite history and call a movie something that it never was known as in its time somehow takes something out of the original magic of the movie. I seem to recall that even the book that came out at the time of the movie was just called "Star Wars" -- I could be wrong about that though. Regardless, I will always consider Episode IV to be just simply "Star Wars."
I agree about the re-naming.
My rankings:
ESB
ROTS
STAR WARS
ROTJ
AOTC
TPM