Ya'know, everybody's entitled to their own opinions....
...But your opinions are just WRONG!!!
Heh heh.
OK, my ranking (excluding Ep3, which I plan to see tonight)
The Empire Strikes Back
A New Hope
Attack of the Clones
Return of the Jedi
The Phantom Menace.
None of the later films brought the sense of magic that the first one did. It will always stand out head and shoulders above the rest in my memory. But I thought Empire told the best story.
It's hard for me to rank anything below Jedi, because for so many years there was so much I hated about it. I hated Endor. I hated all the battle scenes both on and off-plant. I hated the re-imaging of Han Solo as someone he wasn't in the first two movies, when he had been my favorite character in those two. And I really, really, loathed the Ewoks. Lucas made my opinion of the film worse in his special edition, when he added a huge party at the capital as if the war was won. Come on! You killed Vader and the Emperor and you made friends with a bunch of wittle Teddy Bears. There is still a huge empire out there. You think the Imperial Government is going to just roll over on the captial? You think there aren't a few military commanders who think they should be the next Emperor? I always thought the war would drag on for many more years. (And I enjoyed Zahn's novels because he agreed with me.
)
But, the Jabba scenes were excellent (OK, I mostly mean the Leia scenes) , Han was still Han early in the movie, and the confrontation between Luke, Darth, and the Emperor was outstanding. The only good thing about Phantom Menace was the outstanding final lightsaber battle with Darth Maul and the two Jedi, and one sequence does not a movie make. So Phanton Menace takes bottom honors.
I think I liked Attack of the Clones a lot better than most people.
-S'Cipio