Star Wars is one of the most popular movie franchises of all time, if not the most popular.
That being said, I had never watched them until recently. I thought the movies were boring, uninteresting and only for people who were super into science fiction or fighting movies. And while that is the primary audience hit by the franchise, the movies have an appeal from countless other angles.
One thing I would not recommend while watching these movies with no real prior knowledge is not watching them with your Star Wars-loving boyfriend, who will tell you all of the major plot points and eliminate your shock.
Even with this hindrance, these movies absolutely stood up and proved to be incredibly interesting.
When watched in release order, the first movie, Star Wars: A New Hope, introduces a grown-enough teen, Luke Skywalker. This movie introduces fan-favorite characters such as Obi-Wan Kenobi, Han Solo, Princess Leia, Chewbacca, and the droids R2-D2 and C-3PO.
Luke learns about the force from Obi-Wan, who also explains that he and Luke’s father were Jedis together. Luke originally refuses to help Obi-Wan in his cause to stop the Empire, but upon discovering his home had been torched and his aunt and uncle murdered, he agrees to help Obi-Wan.
In a bar owned by Jabba the Hutt, Luke and Obi-Wan meet Han Solo. Solo, with the help of Chewbacca, pilots Luke and Obi-Wan to Alderaan, so Luke can train in the force. Alderaan, however, was incinerated by the Death Star before they arrived. The Death Star then sucks Solo’s ship, the Millennium Falcon, in, leading to the whole crew on board the ship.
They then discover Princess Leia is locked up here, and they attempt to save her. This plan goes awry and leads to Luke’s first confrontation with Darth Vader, in which Obi-Wan is killed. Luke then pilots a small fighter jet and uses the force to guide his shot perfectly into the reactor of the Death Star, destroying the ship nearly entirely.
The next movie, The Empire Strikes Back, follows Luke’s in-depth training in the force as he travels to the planet Dagobah to learn from Jedi Master Yoda.
During this training, Han Solo and Princess Leia are fleeing from Imperial fighter jets while coming to terms with their feelings for each other. Luke sees visions of his friends being tortured and decides to stop his training early in order to attempt to save them.
Solo and Leia seek refuge with Lando, an old friend of Solo’s, who betrays them at Vader’s command. Han Solo is then frozen in a slab of carbonite and sold to Jabba the Hutt, to whom Solo owes a large amount of money.
Luke and Darth Vader fight, and Vader cuts off Luke’s hand and reveals to him that he is his father, in an iconic line. Luke, now knowing the father he idolized for so long has turned to the dark side, jumps into a shaft on the ship, choosing to die over killing his father and becoming corrupted like him.
In Return of the Jedi, the third movie released, Luke returns to Dagobah to finish his training with Master Yoda. Leia and Lando infiltrate Jabba’s tavern in an attempt to save Solo. Luke steals this victory from them, bursting in with his new Jedi knight attire and scaring everyone off.
Not really. He gets cast into a pit with a gross monster that he then kills while his friends free themselves.
While Solo was frozen and Luke was training, the Empire started work on a second Death Star, which the group must now destroy all over again. The crew befriends a strange population native to the forest, called Ewoks, and uses their primitive location as a base for their refuge.
It is here that Luke reveals to Leia that they are siblings and that Leia is also Darth Vader’s child. This is hard for Leia to grasp and leads to some conflict between her and Han Solo, as he thinks she has the hots for Luke due to their secrets.
Luke surrenders to the Empire with the goal of convincing Vader to return to the good side of the force. Vader refuses, as he feels he is no longer redeemable, and takes Luke to the Emperor.
The Death Star, now operational, begins wiping out rebel forces as they attempt to destroy it, and Luke gives in to his thoughts of hatred and anger, trying to kill the Emperor. Vader, the Emperor’s apprentice, jumps in to protect him, and Luke must fight his father. Cutting off Vader’s hand, Luke remembers how the same was done to him and throws his lightsaber to the side in fear of becoming too consumed by the dark side.
The Emperor begins to electrocute Luke, and Vader overthrows him, desperate to save his son. Vader kills the Emperor, but it is not at no cost to him. Ruined by the fight with his son and then with his mentor, Vader is on the brink of death. He begs Luke to remove his mask so he can see his son with his own eyes, knowing he will die without it.
Luke obliges, removing the helmet and looking at his father as he dies, knowing he had chosen good and done the right thing. The Rebel forces then destroy the Death Star, Han Solo and Leia officially consider themselves together, and peace is restored to the galaxy.
Yay, a happy ending, right?
WRONG.
The next three movies, or I suppose the first three movies, lead down a much more emotionally involved path that left me literally unable to sleep.
The first episode of this movie saga, The Phantom Menace, tells the story of a Jedi called Qui-Gon Jinn and his Padawan apprentice, Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan are tasked with protecting Queen Padme Amidala, a beloved political figure in the Republic. The Jedis take the princess to Tatooine in search of parts for their ship. There they encounter a young slave boy, Anakin Skywalker, who Qui-Gon believes to be the chosen one, destined to take down the Sith once and for all.
Qui-Gon cannot afford the part they need and convinces the shop owner to gamble with him. He bets his ship and Anakin’s freedom on a podrace in which Anakin will race his own pod. Anakin is revealed to be a very crafty child, creating his own droid, C-3PO.
Anakin wins the race and is brought back to the Jedi council, who reject him, saying he is too old to be trained. Qui-Gon takes him on as his new Padawan apprentice, regardless.
Although Padme begs for her planet to be freed, offering Senator Palpatine unbalanced amounts of power to do so, her efforts are useless, and she takes matters into her own hands. She rallies the citizens of Naboo, her planet, and storms into the capitol building to fend off the drones in the area, while Qui-Gon is left to fight Darth Maul, the current apprentice of Darth Sidious, on his own.
Qui-Gon is killed, leaving Obi-Wan to fight Darth Maul to avenge him. With every plan falling into place, Anakin, Padme, and Obi-Wan all complete their missions, and Obi-Wan vows to train Anakin as his own.
A large time skip happens between the last movie and Attack of the Clones, as Anakin is no longer a young boy and is now in his late teens, fighting alongside Obi-Wan.
The Jedi council assigns Anakin to protect Padme, who he has not seen since their last encounter when he was young, although he has dreamt about her since. An assassination attempt is made on Padme, and she and Anakin must hide out on her home planet of Naboo, where they begin to develop feelings for each other, despite her previous reservations and his being forbidden to form attachments due to the Jedi code.
While the two hide out, Obi-Wan is sent to the planet Kamino, where he discovers thousands of soldiers, clones of the bounty hunter attempting to kill Padme. Anakin begins to have visions of his mother dying, and he and Padme visit Tatooine in hopes of finding her before it is too late.
Obi-Wan uses this time to discover that a past Jedi, Count Dooku, is forming a droid army on behalf of the Sith, and that Darth Sidious is secretly in control of the Senate of the Republic. Senator Palpatine, now Chancellor, uses his newly found powers to deploy the clone army onto the separatist droids.
Anakin finds his mother has been captured by the Sand People, a ruthless group of outcasts on Tatooine. He arrived just in time to see her but not in time to save her. He then wipes out the entire village, women, children, and all, symbolizing his descent down the path of the dark side.
In an attempt to help Obi-Wan, Anakin and Padme are captured and placed into a gladiator-style situation, and must fend for themselves until the Jedi council can get there.
The council finally arrives, and a war breaks out between the Jedi and the clones and the Sith and their droids. Anakin and Obi-Wan then fight Count Dooku, and Anakin loses his arm in the battle.
Dooku flees with the Death Star plans. The Jedi council discovers that Darth Sidious is controlling the Senate and vows to discover his true identity. Amidst all the chaos, Anakin and Padme secretly marry, choosing their love over the defined social structure.
Revenge of the Sith is maybe the most awful movie in the whole series. Don’t get me wrong—it is an absolutely beautiful movie, cinematically, incredibly emotionally captivating, and probably my favorite of the series—but it is just awful simultaneously.
This movie starts with Anakin saving Chancellor Palpatine’s life and killing Count Dooku, though he feels conflicted because that is not the Jedi way.
Upon his return home, Padme tells Anakin that she is pregnant and that he is to be a father. He described the moment as the happiest of his life. Soon after discovering Padme’s pregnancy, Anakin begins having visions of her dying in childbirth, similar to his visions of his mother. Believing this is fate, because of his mother’s demise, he becomes desperate for a way to cheat death, to save his wife.
Anakin is then instructed to spy on Palpatine, despite his admiration and bond with the Chancellor. Palpatine reveals to Anakin during his spying that he knows about his marriage and his dreams about Padme dying, and offers Anakin a way to save her life by using the magic of the dark side. Anakin reveals to the Jedi Council that Palpatine is Darth Sidious, but is still desperate to save Padme’s life.
Mace Windu, a member of the Jedi council, confronts Palpatine and is forced to fight him. Anakin chooses to aid Palpatine in this fight, leading to Windu’s death. Anakin vows his full allegiance to Palpatine as long as he teaches him the Sith knowledge required to save his wife, and earns himself the name Darth Vader. Anakin is then ordered to kill every Jedi in the temple, children included, and he does so, moving afterwards to kill any separatists the Chancellor knows of. Palpatine then alerts the clone soldiers to execute order 66, an order which instructs them to turn on the Jedi they are fighting alongside and kill them all.
With the Jedi largely wiped out, Padme goes to Mustafar, a fiery planet, in search of Anakin. Obi-Wan secretly goes with her, vowing to do whatever it takes to save Anakin, even if he must kill him. During their travel, Yoda fights Palpatine and loses, allowing Palpatine to turn the Republic into a galactic empire and leaving Yoda with no choice but to seek refuge on Dagobah.
Upon seeing Padme and Obi-Wan together, Anakin, now fully taken over by the dark side and fully immersed into his role as Darth Vader, chokes Padme using the force, believing she has betrayed him. This leads to Obi-Wan and Vader fighting across Mustafar. As the weather worsens and the lava begins to damage the buildings they are fighting within. This fight ends with Obi-Wan beating Vader, leaving him to burn to death.
Padme gives birth in an agonizingly painful way, dying due to her inability to cope with her beloved husband’s descent into evil. The droid doctors operating on her told Obi-Wan she would not be able to be saved because she had no will to live.
Vader is then found by Palpatine, now fully immersed into his role as Darth Sidious, and taken aboard the Empire’s ship. Vader is placed into his suit, in which he has legs he cannot walk on without using the force, robotic eyes he cannot see out of normally, needles jabbing him at every angle, and a horrible, menacing, fear-mongering mechanical breathing pattern that makes him so distinguishable.
Sidious then reveals Padme’s death to Vader, informing him that he is the reason for his wife’s fate he fought so hard to avoid, and Vader cries out in agony, mourning his wife and regretting his decisions.
Is that not literally the most devastating thing you’ve ever heard? If this franchise had been marketed as being so emotional from the beginning, I would’ve been all over it.
Overall, I would say Star Wars has absolutely earned the popularity it has, especially the Anakin saga, and I would recommend it to anyone and everyone.
