Your Favorite Star Wars (Movie & Misc.)

I'm curious which movie ranks as your favorite! Empire is the most common answer I've heard, but I don't know that the question has ever been posed here. So which is your favorite AND why?

And second, what is your favorite Non-movie Star Wars thing and why? (Could be a book, comic, game, toy or whatever.)

For me, I would have said Ep. 3 for years when it comes to the movies, since it just went so dark. But thinking about it today I have to say Return Of The Jedi. While Ep. 3 was more consistently dark (with its glaring lack of Ewoks), I was never honestly invested in the characters. But the most impactful movie moment in all of Star Wars for me was when Luke, who is trying not to fight his father, can't help but burst out from hiding when Vader threatens to convert Leia. In desperate rage and inner conflict he just goes nuts on Vader, while John Williams wonderfully uses tragic music, instead of an action theme, to bring the emotions to the forefront. When the Special Editions were released in theaters and I went to see this movie, it was like I saw that scene for the first time and the emotion really hit me.

As for non-movies, I gotta go with the video game "Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic". It had a generally more serious tone than the movies and let me straddle the line between the light and dark side. I also love the combat system, which falls in the same family as Neverwinter Nights and Baldur's Gate. I enjoyed my time with this game so much, in fact, that I'd easily say it has been my best experience with any form of the Star Wars IP, including the movies.

I think my favorite movie is still The Empire Strikes Back, but I think I only really like it because I know Return of the Jedi follows it. If Empire was the last movie and I was left to guess what happened to all the characters, I probably wouldn't want to watch it again. Or if I thought Return was a weak follow-up, I don't think I'd be able to invest in Empire.

Actually, sometimes I kind of just like to view Empire and Return as one story. But then I want to include Shadows of the Empire in there, too, and that complicates things...

My favorite non-movie is probably the LEGO Star Wars video game series, and out of that, I probably like the Original Trilogy one better because there's no pod race level. I really like deflecting lasers with lightsabers, and playing as General Grievous with all his sabers is powerful.

I haven't gotten to play The Force Awakens, but I assume it's about the same.

I'd say my favourite movie would probably be Return of The Jedi. I honestly can't remember which order I originally watched the movies in, that data has been lost to the mist of time, but I'm pretty sure Jedi is the one I watched the most as a kid. It's certainly the one I have the most recollection of watching, so the nostalgia level is pretty high. My main memory of Empire, as a kid, is being really grossed out by the ton-ton guts, and not being able to eat spaghetti for a line time after that.

As for non-movie stuff. Hmm. Maybe the first Thrawn book, which I listened to on Audible. Haven't listened to the others yet. I like the idea of a good lightsabre game but really haven't played much in the way of Star Wars games. I do have Knights of the Old Republic on my phone. No lightsabres yet, though. Really should get back in and play some more of that.

Star Wars Holiday Special.

AdamCollings wrote:My main memory of Empire, as a kid, is being really grossed out by the ton-ton guts, and not being able to eat spaghetti for a line time after that.

Oh man, it totally DOES look like spaghetti, doesn't it?

Mmm... Spaghetti... Ton-ton...

...I wonder what it would be like to sleep in spaghetti?

Paeter wrote:...I wonder what it would be like to sleep in spaghetti?

Squishy, and well, either warm or cold. Sleeping in cold spaghetti would be horrible.

Specifically, it was tinned spaghetti that I was turned off. I don't know if you even have that in America. It's totally different to "proper spaghetti"

jorowi wrote:Star Wars Holiday Special.

I really should try to watch the rest of that some day. I can never manage to get past the half hour of wookies grunting at each other.

AdamCollings wrote:

Paeter wrote:...I wonder what it would be like to sleep in spaghetti?

Squishy, and well, either warm or cold. Sleeping in cold spaghetti would be horrible.

Specifically, it was tinned spaghetti that I was turned off. I don't know if you even have that in America. It's totally different to "proper spaghetti"

It's called SPaghettios, baby!

Oh my gosh U.S. 80's kids. Here's a blast from the canyons of your mind:

AdamCollings wrote:

jorowi wrote:Star Wars Holiday Special.

I really should try to watch the rest of that some day. I can never manage to get past the half hour of wookies grunting at each other.

It took me a couple tries. One of the dance numbers kept me diving for the remote, but eventually I made it through. It's totally worth it to hear Carrie Fischer sing at the end.

Empire is actually my favorite but only because of what we already know about our space-faring troupe of heroes and what we know comes in Jedi.

It could stand on its own (with a few tweaks) but it gets its strength from the two surrounding it.

My favorite movie has to be the original Star Wars, and definitely not the Special Edition. It's the one I've seen the most and still evokes the strongest desire to be part of that world. Episode 7 The Force Awakens is the strongest of the lot in terms of story and character construction; it's positively Shakespearean in its use of literary device.

Of the non-movie stuff, I've definitely spent the most time with the WEG Star Wars d6 RPG. I still come back to those books. The Brian Daley Han Solo books and Foster's "Splinter of the Mind's Eye" rank high, but maybe because they were the only books we had for so long. I played the absolute fire out of Episode 1: Pod Racer for the N64, back when I still had time for video games.

mindspike wrote:I've definitely spent the most time with the WEG Star Wars d6 RPG.

I played some of that! Very cool, but my character concept was a little ahead of its time. I wanted to be a dark Jedi (I don't know if "Sith" was a known term at the time) with a light saber "shield" created by mounting a small light saber on a motor that would spin it around super fast. Kind of like what General Grievous did in Attack Of The Clones.

My GM was like, "let's not go overboard with light saber applications. I want to keep the concept pure."

Guess he was more of a Star Wars purist than Lucas!

My favorite SW movie is part III Revenge of the Sith. It evokes strong emotions in me, it reminds me of the Fall, how the one who is supposed to be the Promised One, gives in to the dark side and falls into the clutches of hell due to his own sinful choices. Very garden of Eden, but also very relatable on a personal level. Inspite of some pretty horrible acting in the prequels, Lucas's vision gets me every time. Mostly because I'm convinced that many if not most of us would actually become Darth Vader and not Luke Skywalker, were we ever to be a Jedi in the SW universe.

Anyway, favorite SW non-movie, hmmm, hard to choose. There's the absolutely awesome comic trilogy Dawn of the Jedi, about the origins of the Jedi, 25000 years before the movies. There's the KOTOR comic series which is great fun. And there are the thrilling audiobooks Darth Plagueis and Darth Bane - complete with music and light saber swooshes - which I reviewed on the podcast.