Star Wars Movies Ranked Worst To Best By Rotten Tomatoes Scores

There's little that can be said about A New Hope that hasn't been said already; it's the movie that won over an entire generation, the one that started it all, and the only thing surprising about the critical response to the film is that not all critics were completely enthralled.

Take, for example, the review penned all the way back in 1977 by Helen Frizell of the Sydney Morning Herald. "Oh, the astronomical audiences; oh, the mundane story; oh, the over-cute little robots (one fat, one thin); oh, the vapid actors, the galactic shootouts; oh, the brilliant technology and oh, the boredom of it all," she wrote. "George Lucas, who directed Star Wars, wrote the film. He is no Asimov, Bradbury or Le Guin, no master of imagination or language."

Yeesh. It's a bit shocking to see such a beloved film written about so dismissively, but even upon its initial release, Frizell was in the distinct minority. Most reviews were quite in line with the reactions of the fans who rightly proclaimed the movie, then simply titled Star Wars, an instant classic. "This is one film that exceeds its tremendous pre-release ballyhoo," wrote Dale Pollock of the Santa Cruz Sentinel in another contemporary review. "Few films have ever been this much fun to watch... it conquers our dreams, lights up our hopes, and leads us down the path to the future."

Indeed it did. 37 years later, the film would be, in a sense, reimagined for a modern sequel that it may surprise you to know was just as critically adored.