Live Action Star Wars Shows Ranked

Live Action Star Wars Shows Ranked

Star Wars: Skeleton Crew has finished all eight of its episodes. That means it’s time for another Star Wars tv show ranking. Today, I’m going to be ranking all seven live action Star Wars shows. Let’s get started!

7. The Book of Boba Fett: This is one that I was very excited about after the end of The Mandalorian Season 2. It gave us a nice tease for that show. The idea of doing a Boba Fett tv show that’s pulling inspiration from The Godfather, sounds awesome. I love it when Star Wars finds something new and different to do. It keeps things interesting and fresh. Unfortunately, the show didn’t live up to it. Lucasfilm had been trying to get a Boba Fett project made for years. Josh Trank and James Mangold were both attached at one point in time. After Solo: A Star Wars Story bombed at the box office, Lucasfilm converted a couple of their movies into tv shows. It’s clear they didn’t have enough plot for a seven episode season. The first couple of episodes set up some conflicts with the people and Boba Fett’s backstory after Return of the Jedi. That doesn’t really go anywhere, that’s frustrating to me. We spent so much time with those characters and it went nowhere by the end. Then we go off and do two episodes of The Mandalorian. Boba Fett is barely even a character in those episodes. Episode six you have Luke Skywalker and Ahsoka Tano showing up, it feels more like the Star Wars the episode rather than an episode of this show. Then they have this surprise reveal about Cad Bane being the main villain. There’s some interesting ideas in here that maybe they could have tied into The Mandalorian season three. But I don’t think they had enough plot to carry a seven episode long season. This is a big disappointment and the worst live action Star Wars show that we’ve gotten. 

6. The Acolyte: This was one of the hot topic tv shows of last year. There was so much toxic discourse surrounding this show. My thoughts on the show aren’t in any way related to that discourse. I just don’t think this is a very good show that made a lot of mistakes. This is all so frustrating because I feel there’s great ideas in here. I was so excited when they first announced this show. But the trailers didn’t really do anything for me. So my overall excitement for this show went down. The basic idea of doing a murder mystery thriller set 100 years before The Phantom Menace sounds awesome. As I just mentioned, I like it when Star Wars pulls in outside inspiration. When the show is focused on that, I think it works really well. It’s engaging and you want to see what’s going to happen next. Besides that, I don’t think the show as a whole worked. The big problem here, I don’t feel the need to deconstruct the Jedi in this show. I’m a defender of The Last Jedi, I think it works with Luke in that movie. One of the advantages of telling this story 100 years before The Phantom Menace is you can explore the Jedi in a different time period. You can show that as the guardians of peace and these noble heroes. They decided to deconstruct the Jedi and these characters. Since this is our first time meeting them, we don’t care about them. It’s frustrating when that seems to be Lucasfilm’s one trick pony. That was so frustrating to me and so unnecessary in this show. Episode three of this show has these witches that treat Jedi as the villains. The way it’s portrayed on screen, it makes you feel sick to your stomach. It’s so distasteful. This show has a $180 million budget but all of the locations in the show look so drab and bland. I don’t get why this show had that big of a budget if the show just looks like this. I didn’t hate this show the way that some people did. The pieces of the show didn’t come together in a way that made for a good show. The show we got was totally bland and forgettable. 

5. Kenobi: This might be the most disappointing tv show that Star Wars has done. I was so excited for this show. The idea of an Obi-Wan Kenobi tv show sounded great. He’s a great character played by a great actor in Ewan McGregor. Darth Vader is one of the great villains. I was excited to hear that he was coming back. With modern technology that could let Vader be a physical threat in action sequences. The trailers we got for the show captured the right magic and vibe that I wanted from this show. Unfortunately, this show did not come together in a way that made it great. This is one of the more polarizing shows. There’s several people like me that were disappointed by the show. People like my dad and others on the internet loved this show. Like The Book of Boba Fett this show would have worked better as a movie. This show is six episodes long. They repeat plot beats in just that amount of time. In episodes one and three, Leia gets kidnapped. Episodes two and four are about Kenobi rescuing Leia. With only six episodes that’s a problem. It feels like lazy writing. The entire show has lazy writing. The only reason why Kenobi is put into situations is because the plot needs them to. But there’s ways for them to easily avoid this, but that can’t happen because the show wouldn’t progress. That’s frustrating when you’re watching a show like this with a $150 million budget. Also, the Reva character wasn't very good. I like the basic idea of the character. There’s ideas in there that I appreciate. The character as a whole and where they go with her was predictable and uninteresting. This is one of the most frustrating and disappointing things that Star Wars has ever done. I wanted to love this show, I wish I could rank it higher. I don’t think it’s a great show and it’s deeply flawed. 

4. Ahsoka: Star Wars: The Clone Wars was a tv show I watched all of the time as a kid. Getting a show focused on Ahsoka and tieing in Hayden Christensen and wearing The Clone Wars armor was great. The nostalgia side of my brain was very excited about many many elements of this show. It also just feels like classic Star Wars. One of the good things about these Disney+ shows is they pull in outside inspiration for the shows. The Mandalorian has a lot of western elements in it. Andor has this spy espionage feel to the entire thing. It also means that at points we can lose that classic Star Wars feeling. Ahsoka provided that for me. You get Jedi with lightsabers doing all sorts of cool things. It’s very much a story about good vs evil, Jedi vs Sith. All of that I really enjoyed and made for a very solid Star Wars show. Our villains of the season are great. I haven’t watched Rebels or read any of the Star Wars books. This was my introduction to Thrawn and I just loved the character. On paper, he feels very much like your typical Star Wars villain. But he’s much more of a manipulative mastermind than Darth Vader, The Emperor, Kylo Ren, etc. I loved the threat that he provided for Ahsoka and these heroes. Ray Stevenson (RIP) as one of our Sith, who is a great Star Wars villain. He’s this evil person that gets in on the action with Ahsoka. But his worldview on everything is so different and it provides him with this different type of villain. I don’t think they gave a strong character arc for Ahsoka herself. That’s the big thing holding this show back for me. I was more invested in all of the side characters rather than Ahsoka herself. When she’s the lead of the show, that’s kind of a problem. Overall, a solid Star Wars show. I’m excited to see where they take things in season two. 

3. Star Wars: Skeleton Crew: I’m sort of shocked that this show is this high on this list. I was curious about this show with a certain level of excitement. But I didn’t find the trailers to be very good. I was excited about doing The Goonies in the world of Star Wars, that fits Star Wars but it’s something that we’ve never done before. I watched the show week to week whenever a new episode dropped and I really liked it. There was a lot about this show that kept me invested week to week. It is a fun adventure that really does feel like The Goonies and Amblin productions from the ‘80s. Every week you’re wondering what new adventure and trouble our characters are going to get in. You’re wanting to watch each episode to see and experience that. The show does deliver that fun, it captures that right vibe and feel for it. The kids are fun and charming. They have a personality trait about them or a skill that makes them stand out. The big stand out for me was Jude Law as Jod. I really liked what they did with him in the show. They set him up at the beginning to be a Han Solo type character. But where they take his character throughout the show was very interesting and it built mystery surrounding him. You wanted to see what was going to happen next, you were curious as to what new piece of information that you were going to learn about him week to week. The other thing that really kept me invested was the mystery surrounding the planet. They set up a series of mysteries about that planet that you wanted answered. Those mysteries were the reasons why it was making it harder for our characters to get home. Week to week, I was excited for the new episode. It worked great watching it week to week, but I also think it works as a being able tv show. This show fits more into the tv show format then some of the shows farther down on this list. I do think the season as a whole left a few too many elements dangling. I wish they added a couple scenes at the end of the episode to reveal what happened to certain characters. They probably have plans for season two, hopefully we get an announcement here soon. Overall, I really dug this show and if you didn’t watch the show please go and watch it. It’s really good and a lot of fun. 

2. The Mandalorian: The first ever tv show in Disney+. This show’s excitement for this has been in an interesting place. This show was a beloved and massive hit when it started. Baby Yoda became this internet legend instantly. After the disappointment of The Rise of Skywalker. People viewed the show as a nice return to form for Star Wars and they thought it was great. Season two had a lot of hype going into it. Once again, another incredibly successful season of the show. Lots of great cameos in there, a fantastic season finale. Season three comes out and disappoints a lot of people. I do think that it’s easily the weakest season of the show. However, I don’t think it’s as bad as people make it out to be. It’s still enjoyable Star Wars to me, not great Star Wars. But it’s fun and enjoyable Star Wars. I would rank it higher than the bottom three shows on this list. Seasons one and two of this show are pretty fantastic. George Lucas pulled inspiration from westerns when he created Star Wars back in the ‘70s. Clearly, that’s what they were doing with this show. It feels very much like a western in the world of Star Wars. At the time, it was the type of story that Star Wars fans wanted. We had nine films focused on Skywalker with lightsabers. Season one was detached from all of that focused on The Mandalorian and his relationship with Baby Yoda. It was fine when it was episodic. You had these episodes that were focused on the threat of the season. But you also had plenty of episodes that were just about mini adventures with The Mandalorian and I’m fine with that. Season two I think is even better. I just loved what they did there. They gave Mando a great character arc that led up to an emotionally satisfying conclusion. I don’t mind that it was a cameo in the season with a lot of fan favorite Star Wars characters showing up. It provided a great experience that was very fun. I do think some of the other Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni shows being big disappointments have kind of hurt my overall experience on the show. For a while this was #1. But it’s still a very good show that has a lot of fun to be had. 

1. Andor: This might be the most highly praised tv show that Disney+ has done. If that’s the case, then it’s done for good reason. There’s a lot about this show that makes it fantastic and one of the best tv shows currently on tv. I think what makes this show great is you have Dan Gilroy behind the camera as the showrunner. He wrote the original Jason Bourne trilogy with Matt Damon. He brings that spy espionage thriller aspect to this show. And that genre fits very nicely to what Star Wars when done right it can be very good. In a lot of ways, this show is more so about the Republic fighting the Empire. I think if the show was marketed as that, not a show starring Cassian Andor it would be more watched. It tells this gripping and thrilling adventure that keeps you guessing as to what’s going to happen next. This show does the best job of pulling outside inspiration into the world of Star Wars and making something great out of it. I do think season one got better in the back half. I thought the structure of the first half was a bit odd. It took a while for the show to fully find its footing. Once Andor heads to prison and meets Andy Serkis’ character, this show completely won me over. The prison arc of this season is the best stretch of episodes that Star Wars has ever done. What they do with Serkis’ character, he just says this one line about why he can’t escape the prison is heartbreaking. There’s emotional beats in this movie that I wasn’t expecting because the Star Wars shows hadn’t previously evoked those types of emotions from you. Another thing that just elevates this show above the rest is they actually built sets. You can tell they built the sets, its environments feel bigger and more massive than the stuff we see on The Mandalorian or Kenobi. They didn’t use that same technology. It makes the show have a grounded feel even though it’s a Star Wars set in a very fantastical world. There’s just all of these different elements in the show that make it stand out from anything else that Disney Star Wars has done. This is a fantastic piece of television. I’m very excited for season two in just a couple of months.