Among most Star Wars fans (and the entire human population), the general consensus is that the Star Wars prequels aren't great — or even good.
The original trilogy, on the other hand? Those are timeless classics.
Too bad it does little to explain why DVD.com (the Netflix-owned site for those still using the company's DVD rental services) is reporting that the prequel trilogy has been rented far more than the original films through its service. What gives?
The blog post doesn't go into specifics. It simply lists the most rented Star Wars film to the least rented, along the way, chiming in that rental numbers don't equate to which film is best.
That much is obvious upon looking at the most rented Star Wars movie from Netflix, which just so happens to be Revenge of the Sith. Sure, Revenge of the Sith isn't too awful. It has some cool moments and a few nice lightsaber fights. Plus, we get to see the creation of the Empire and Anakin's transformation into Darth Vader. As far as the prequels go, you could do much, much worse.
However, it still baffles the mind that Revenge of the Sith beats out the original Star Wars, which clocks in at number two. One would think the film that started it all would be on top, but you would be mistaken.
That leads us to the third and fourth entries on the list: Attack of the Clones and The Phantom Menace, respectively. By far, these are the two worst films of the entire saga. Much has been written on how The Phantom Menace takes everything great about Star Wars and tosses it out the airlock, but Attack of the Clones is arguably even worse. It's a confusing CGI snoozefest where nothing quite makes sense, and a romantic subplot between Anakin and Padme makes you want to bash your head against the wall.
How on God's green Earth is it possible that what is widely considered the best film of the saga, The Empire Strikes Back, ranks second-to-last, with Return of the Jedi taking the final spot?
We may never know for sure. The folks at Netflix didn't reveal any exact numbers, but we can only assume it may have something to do with a generational gap. Perhaps older viewers, those who grew up with the original films, aren't as prone to signing up for Netflix as the younger generation, who grew up with the prequel trilogy.
No doubt, over the grand history of movie rentals, the original trilogy would far surpass that of the prequels. They are better and have been around for much longer. However, these rankings simply come from Netflix's DVD rental services and don't include other rental services or decades worth of VHS rentals. That's at least somewhat comforting.
