Star Wars Season Premieres Ranked
Yesterday the series premiere for Andor dropped on Disney+. That makes it the fifth live action Star Wars season premiere. So today I thought I would rank all five Star Wars season premieres. Let’s get started!
5. Chapter 1: Stranger in A Strange Land (The Book of Boba Fett): An episode that was heavily rumored and speculated to have a bunch of twists and turns. Because they didn’t send out an early access to anybody, not even some of the top reviews got to see this episode early. And this episode didn’t have anything interesting to talk about whatsoever. And honestly I dislike this episode enough more now that we’ve the entire season where the things set up in this episode don’t really go anywhere. So you are left with an episode that if the rest of the season fulfilled what this episode set up then I might like this episode more. But as is, it’s an episode that doesn’t have much to talk about. It's not all that interesting of an episode. So you are left with a pretty generic, forgettable, and bland start not a very good show.
4. Part I (Obi-Wan Kenobi): This episode was very disappointing to me because I wanted to love this episode, I wanted this episode to be a great start to this show. And while it was great to see more of Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi, he just nails this character and he’s just as good as he was in the prequels. And I think bringing in some of the characters from the tv shows and books into live action form just fleshes out everything. It’s interesting to see Inquisitors in live action form. But I do think this episode does make some mistakes, casting Flea in Star Wars makes no sense, Moses Ingram feels really miscast in the role she doesn’t give off this evil sith vibe at all. Where we see Kenobi at the beginning of this episode feels very familiar, it reminded me of Rey in The Force Awakens. So I wanted to love this episode, and there are things to love in this episode but the episode as a whole isn’t the best.
3. Kassa (Andor): Now I do think this is a good episode, that had good things in it but just didn’t excite the way the top two episodes did. And one of the things that I think both Kenobi episode 1 and Andor episode 1 struggled with was having a bit too slow of a first episode. But what I think puts Andor above is that it’s more interesting. Andor I thought did a much better job of establishing the tone and the vibe for the season. And that it was something different, it was a much darker show then what we are used to with these Star Wars shows. But like I said, I find the episode to be a bit too slow for my liking and overall it’s just not as exciting as I would have hoped. And that excitement piece that I mentioned, I really don’t have a good reason for that, and what I’m specifically talking about.
2. Chapter 1: The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian Season 1): A very good start to one of the most cultural phenomena shows of the last five years. Where very early on you understand that this is a show that is like a western in Star Wars, it doesn’t follow the normal quick moving pacing of the movies. And that’s just something so new and different, so many Star Wars movies rely on The Skywalker Saga, Jedis, and Siths to make it great but not this episode. They quickly established The Mandalorian as a great character that is interesting and one you want to learn more about. And of course the final reveal of Baby Yoda just launched this character to bring this global phoenmia that you don’t get very often with a single character. Plus the score is just great, it’s one of the best Star Wars scores out there.
1. Chapter 9: The Marshal (The Mandalorian Season 2): For me of the live action Star Wars seasons, this one is my favorite and it is also my favorite season premiere. Where since season 1 did all of the set-up and establishing who The Mandalorian and Baby Yoda are as characters this episode can just get straight to the adventure. Timothy Olyphant is an actor that I enjoy so seeing him in the Star Wars universe is really fun. And I do like his character, he’s presented as somebody who might betray Mando but doesn't, he’s a man of his word. It is a top notch production with the visuals and music, the fact that we can do stuff like this on television is really really incredible just how far tv has come over the years.
There you have it, my ranking of the five Star Wars season premieres. Which of these episodes was your favorite? Also, through-out my time on my blog I’ve done a handful of Star Wars related rankings and reviews, so you can go check those out if you are interested. And starting in February I have a very exciting Star Wars series starting. Thanks for reading!
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