Dir: George Lucas, Irvin Kirshner, Richard Marquand (1977-83) 9*

These are the original three, though I really only think The Empire Strikes Back was a very good SciFi film; ironically, it was the one whose screenplay was co-written by a SF author, Leigh Brackett. That was the one that introduced Yoda, the land walkers, the ice planet. The first was good, but little more than a western in space. The special effects increased technically with each film, so that in Return of the Jedi we had a full-on space war raging with hundreds of space ships. I can't get used to the "new" titles (A New Hope?) and re-sequencing, so now the "original" three are 4-6, the "new" three are 1-3... Doh! Did Homer work on these? The casting of James Earl Jones as Darth Vader, and Alec Guinness as Jedi knight Obi-won (he admitted the dialogue "was inane") was a brilliant coup, most of the rest are either sleepwalking (Mark Hamill) or overacting (Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher). Still, a lot of fun, if a bit flippant at times. Nearly all technical, but 7 Oscars total