This whole commercial franchise really is a mess. It's difficult to appreciate anything beyond the first three because the storytelling is among some of the worst I've ever witnessed, anywhere. I'm talking Sonic the Hedgehog fanfiction levels of godawfulness.
1.) The Empire Strikes Back - pretty much the only one that can be considered to have its own actually good actual story in-and-of-itself.
2.) A New Hope - a mind bogglingly impressive straight forward action romp with smart character building, expert plot pacing, and some simple world building for good measure.
3.) Return of the Jedi - a meandering plot that devolves into a sudden an inexplicable rehash of the first movie holds this one back. Everything else is outstanding.
4.) Rogue One - or Star Wars with balls, as I refer to it. Somebody read my mind and portrayed a grittier rebellion but kept the Empire the same old cartoon villains. Nonexistent characterization of the cast (with a couple of exceptions) hold it back, but a suspenseful plot and the second best space battle in the series make it shine.
Literally everything else is total garbage. Complete trash. Utter bunk. Absolute poo-poo. I could torture us with a three hour comprehensive write up of everything that's wrong with the prequels (which is everything) but we have Red Letter Media for that. I mean, sure you could just watch the prequels but who would want to subject themselves to that torture more than once?
The Farce Awakens and The Last Jedi are lazy cynical cash grabs with incompetent storytelling on par with the prequels.
