So here you have it. DestructoMaximo’s top 10 movies of all time. Ever. Without question.

When you’re finished playing video games you could always play
free online poker with your friends at www.partypoker.com. If you’re lucky you could earn enough cash for a PS3.

10. Goodfellas

Martin Scorsese’s eternal masterpiece is Goodfellas even more so than Casino which is almost achieves the classic status as Goodfellas.  Here we find the old gang of De Niro, Liotta, and Pesci ripping it up in New Jersey, stealing trucks with loaded with cigarettes and selling them on the street, and then giving some to police officers to buy them off.  They only get in trouble when the FBI gets involved.  Even when they do get in trouble though, they are usually let off easy because their lawyers know all the judges, or they stay for minimal time “in prison” which for them is really a nice decorated place “to get away from their lives”.  Anyone who has seen this movie remembers all the antics of the characters like Pecsi playing loose with his gun much to the demise of a young fella who just wanted to fit in and Liotta’s character coming home crunked in the early hours of the morning to his wife and mother.  Again, with a refined sense of humor this is seen as the stuff of classic cinema sensibilities.

9.  The Life of Brian

I want to start out by saying it is not obligatory to include a Monty Python film on a nerd site, this movie deserves to be here. What if you were born on the same day as Jesus, right next door, and were constantly mistaken for the messiah? The very idea of having to spend your life in the shadow of Jesus is hilarious and sad. Have Monty Python tackle the subject and you have comedic perfection. After all, “Life’s a piece of shit, when you look at it!”

8. A Beautiful Mind

If any of you have read this (looooong) book, you know what a feat it was to get it turned into a movie. Quite frankly, I can’t come close to understanding how this was pitched to a studio. “Um, we have this antisocial genius who is an expert on game theory. He was a recluse for years due to crippling mental illness, and oh, he won the Nobel Prize in economics. Can we turn his life story into a movie?” John Nash is absolutely a genius, if you’ve read any of his work on game theory you know that already. His recent outspokenness on how Keynesian economics has destroyed the fabric of the US and how we should revert back to the gold standard brought him back into the intellectual mainstream and put this movie back on my top 10 list. Read the book, read his papers, then watch the movie (if you haven’t done the first two, do them and watch it again).

7. Caddy Shack

Caddy Shack is the most classic comedy ever made in my eyes.  This movie was way ahead of it’s time in terms of it’s sadistic and absurd sense of humor.  Betting on whether the nerd jock was going to pick his nose, throwing the life guard on duty into the country club pool where the caddy’s were only allowed 15 minutes to swim; these were ideas that neglected the social tide the late 20th century.  Released in 1980, this film would become a cult classic for everyone who appreciated their sense of humor with a lack of political correctness.  Who better to star in this type of film than Rodney Dangerfield, Chevy Chase, and most importantly Ted Knight who put on one of the most hilarious authoritarian character pieces in movie history.  This is a must see if you like your humor as absurd as possible.

6. Godfather

When family is involved, everything is personal. When my little brother was sniped with a bb gun by the neighborhood bully, I reluctantly went to his door, pulled him out of the house, and told him if he ever bothered my brother again I would make his life unpleasant. That night I crawled into their yard ninja style and shut their power off. In the Godfather, Michael returns from the war intent on living a normal life. His father runs the most influential mafia family in the states, and is intent on having Michael take over the family business. Much like I was happy not interacting with my asswipe bully neighbor, it took the pride-filled defense of my family to get me involved. When Michael’s father was gunned down after refusing to put a hand into the drug racket, Michael had no choice but to take the situation into his own hands and involve himself in the family in order to avenge the attack on his dad. Sometimes you need to readjust your moral scale in order to wage war against the greater of two evils.

5. E.T.

What’s the first thing you think of when you see Reese’s Pieces (ooh, a piece of candy!)? Or when your ancient grandfather points his shaky finger at something he’s cranky about (ouch)? How great was it when you first heard a pint-sized Drew Barrymore utter the words “penisbreath?” This movie made every boy (and probably girl) from my generation ride their bikes (ah, memories of my awesome star wars huffy) off of home made ramps imagining cruising weightlessly across the moon. Aside from this awesomeness, the movie also taught us not to fear aliens, lessons about racism, that feds should be hated (a point reinforced years later when my freaker friends had their towers confiscated, shutting down our BBS), and that sometimes your parents aren’t perfect. In short, E.T. is awesome. A collector’s edition of ET dressed up in a sundress greets you as you walk into my house.

4. Raiders of the Lost Ark

This movie invented the adventurer stereotype, making all re-watchings pale in comparison to that first time in the theater. Adventure bound history nerd, Indy, is hired by the government to find the ark of the covenant…the literal holy grail of archeologists. He has an obligatory arch nemesis who is content to let Indy do all of the footwork so he can steal the ark. If this weren’t enough, there is also a band of Nazis he gets to foil on the way to the ark. Did I mention a hot lady who starts off hating him until the sexual tension boils over? We could replace the ark with the destruction of the Deathstar, the Nazi’s with the Empire, The nemesis with Jaba (or Fett, really), and the leggy blonde with the rebel princess. Whatever, the equation works, the direction works, and Ford works Han without the MF.

3. Fellowship of the Ring

Long ago ZM and I used to run around in the woods located behind each others’ houses. Each were deemed Mirkwood, and we often had to fight dragons, orcs, and spiders. These novels were, and quite possibly still are, one of the greatest series of books ever written. When I first heard they were being made into live action movies I was a bit nervous, but what Peter Jackson did was nothing short of miraculous. Each scene had the perfect feeling. The Shire was happy and cheerful, Rivendell was magical and foreign, and everything felt and looked exactly as it should. Peter Jackson was able to do something Lucas could only dream of, making a movie with CGI feel real. Lucas’s graphics are corny and cartoonish, while Jackson only uses them to enhance the scene, make things look more epic, and draw you further into the picture he is painting. Quit oppositely Lucas pushes the viewer away. Now there are a few scenes I take issue with, the shield skateboard in Two Towers, and sliding down the oliphant’s trunk as it dies in Return of the King, but the rest of the movies are so great that I have chosen to overlook them. Also interestingly I’m not scared of the prequel to this movie, I’m sure Jackson will best Lucas in that respect as well.

2. Empire

“No, there is another.” With these words, spoken by Yoda to Obi-Wan immediately after sending Luke off on a death mission and telling him to sacrifice his friends for the sake of their cause, I was transformed into something new. Why would Yoda, a good guy in my 8 year old mind, tell Luke to let the other good guys die Was Lando a good guy? My boys were just ambushed by the Empire in Bespin! Was Boba Fett bad, or just trying to do the job he was hired to do? It seemed as if no one was all good, and no one was all bad. Even Luke had much anger in him, much to learn he still has as he throws away the rest of his training…at least we know Vader is definitely all bad. For the first time in my young life there was a gray area. Before Empire there were good guys and bad guys. Friends and enemies. Autobots and Decepticons. Professor X and Magneto. You get the point. Now there was something new, people were more complicated. I started to like Han more than Luke because of his relative badness. I went through the awkwardness of puberty for 20 years, but when we learned that Luke was Vader’s son, I knew it had taken me 2 hours to become a man. I went into the kitchen and gave my dad a hug, and then I checked to see if his arm was mechanical.

1. Braveheart

Braveheart is the first and only movie I have openly cried watching with my friends as an adult. It was ok, they were crying too. We didn’t cry when young William’s father was hauled back dead from battle, or when his wife’s throat was slit by the English in the middle of the village. Those events made us William Wallace. They filled us with all of the raw rage, power, and FTM do-or-die that pumped through William Wallace’s veins as he trashed (and mooned) the English in epic bloody broadsword wielding battles. Like watching a football game we all roared at the TV during those fights. We all high-fived when he finally got to toss the beans to Princess Isabelle. But it was the unexpected, heart wrenchingly defiant scream of FREEDOM as he is being publicly disemboweled that we all noticed the streams of tears on each other’s faces. I am 7/8 Swede and 1/8 Scott, that 1/8 was very proud by the end of this movie…burn it.

Related Articles: Top 10 Problems with Modern Movies

10. Too many re-makes

How many times can you re-make Psycho? What can you possibly gain by re-making a movie that is almost perfect to begin with? The answer is “nothing”. Has there ever been a re-make of a good movie that was better than the original? The Invasion? No. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? Ha. Don’t make me laugh. Re-makes almost always suck, and the ones that don’t usually aren’t good enough to justify doing it in the first place. Here’s an idea: Why not write a whole new movie instead? Do you see the re-make concept in other forms of media? Has any author ever re-wrote Dune? Or what about Sirens of Titan? Of course not, because real writers would rather create something of their own, rather than ruin something that someone else wrote.

9. No mystery

When I say there’s no mystery in modern movies, I don’t mean that there’s not enough crime thrillers out there. I mean that modern day directors have no sense of mystery when they make new movies. The classic example is Steven Spielberg’s classic movie Jaws. We don’t see the shark until the last half hour of the movie. Do you think modern directors have the patience to do something like that today? If they ever re-make Jaws (which I’m sure someone will do eventually) I’d bet money that we would see a big CGI shark in the very first scene of the movie. This was a concept that George Lucas used to understand also, like when we never see the Wompa creature in the original version of Empire, but of course in the special edition of the movie we get to see the entire beast, and after we finally do see it something is lost.

8. No Patience

There doesn’t seem to be any pacing anymore in modern day movies. Its nonstop action from beginning to end. There’s no build up. Alfred Hitchcock once said that a bomb under a table goes off, and that’s surprise. But when we know the bomb is under the table but we don’t know when it will go off, that’s suspense. Modern movies depend on surprise. Remember the Star Wars: A New Hope? Nothing happened for the first 30 minutes of the movie! Compare that to The Phantom Menace. Right in the beginning of the movie we see the two Jedi knights using almost every force power that we’ll ever see in throughout entire prequel trilogy. In a sense, after the first fifteen minutes of the movie there’s nothing left to see. I don’t think that it’s all Hollywood’s fault though. I just don’t think that there’s any way that a modern audience would be able to sit through a movie that moved as slow as the original Star Wars.

7. Too predictable

The vast majority of movies that come out today are about as a predictable as a new Indie band. The last time a new movie surprised me was the latest Bourne movie. Other than that you can almost tell what’s going to happen before you see the movie. If that wasn’t bad enough, nowadays the previews and commercials give away the entire movie before you even see it anyway. Remember What Lies Beneath? The previews told you that Harrison Ford was the bad guy before you even saw the movie! I can’t tell you how surprised I would have been when he turned out to be the bad guy if I hadn’t known it before I even saw the movie. In the trailers for Cast Away we almost saw the entire movie play out before it was even released. Again, this is apparently what modern audiences want though. They don’t like surprises. That’s why people like McDonald’s. There’s no surprises. You know exactly what it’s going to taste like before you even order. Everybody knows the menu so nobody’s is surprised.

6. Bad Actors

Ten or twenty years ago who didn’t want to see the latest Harrison Ford movie? Every movie he was in turned out to be great. Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Bladerunner, and The Fugitive were all great movies, but he was also able to turn otherwise mediocre movies like Patriot Games and Airforce One into good movies as well. We don’t have too many great actors today. It seems like looks, rather than ability, are the reason that most actors and actresses are cast today. Ashton Kutcher, Hayden Christensen, Keanu Reeves, Halle Berry, and Jennifer Lopez are all great examples of modern day actors with zero talent. I’m just glad that movies like Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Poltergeist were cast in the 70s and 80s instead of today.

5. Bad Writing

For the most part the writing in modern day movies takes a back seat to the special effects, and it shows. Remember in Episode 2: Attack of the Clones when Anakin says to Princess Amidala “I don’t like sand. It’s coarse and rough and irritating, and it gets everywhere. Not like here. Here everything’s soft… and smooth…” Who wrote this garbage? This was possibly the worst dialog in any movie I’ve ever seen. Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher must feel embarrassed for these two actors. Bad writing isn’t limited to the Star Wars prequel trilogy though, you see it in any Jennifer Lopez movie, in any Vin Diesel movie, and pretty much 99% of the crap that you’ll see in theaters today.

4. No originality

When’s the last time you saw a good movie that wasn’t based on a short story, a novel or even a comic book? Are the writers in Hollywood the only ones who don’t come up with their own ideas? Its almost like the writers in Hollywood are failed writers from other mediums who couldn’t get their own stuff published so they went into a field where they could ape other people’s stuff and it would be alright. Every movie is a sequel, or a re-make or based on some other work like a novel. Too bad we don’t see good original ideas in new movies anymore like E.T. or Back to the Future.

3. Too much emphasis on special effects

This one almost goes without saying. Can we please have a new movie where something doesn’t have to blow up every five minutes? Its not that I have a problem with special effects per se, but I do have a problem when they are the main focus of the movie instead of the story line. Sometimes it seems like Hollywood writers are writing scripts to try out bigger and bigger special effects, rather than using the special effects to tell the story that they wrote. This is one of the biggest reasons why most modern day movies are crap.

2. No imagination

Where’s the imagination in today’s movies? Has any modern day movie been able to capture the sense of wonder you had when you first saw Close Encounters of the Third Kind? Has there been a movie released in the last 5-10 years that was as imaginative as Flight of the Navigator, or Dark Crystal? With a few notable exceptions (Pan’s Labyrinth) the answer is “no”. As stated earlier, the no-talent writers and directors of today would much rather focus on making more and more outrageous special effects than trying to come up with an imaginative story.

1. Too much CGI

Does everything have to be computer animated these days? In the first 15 minutes of the new Indiana Jones movie we see a frightened prairie dog with computer generated animated expressions. At this point the movie already doesn’t “feel” like an Indiana Jones movie. Was there really a need to computer animate a prairie dog? Is it so hard to get footage of a real prairie dog? Its not like you’re computer animating a rare or mythical beast like a dragon. It’s a prairie dog! Does everything need to be computer animated? The same can be said of the new Star Wars movies. Why were some of the Clone Troopers computer animated? And why does everyone use CGI when it looks like shit anyway? Give me costumes and puppets any day, at least they look halfway decent unlike the CGI garbage we see in movies today.

10. ET

What’s the first thing you think of when you see Reese’s Pieces (ooh, a piece of candy!)? Or when your ancient grandfather points his shaky finger at something he’s cranky about (ouch)? How great was it when you first heard a pint-sized Drew Barrymore utter the words “penisbreath?” This movie made every boy (and probably girl) from my generation ride their bikes (ah, memories of my awesome starwars huffy) off of home made ramps imagining cruising weightlessly across the moon. Aside from this awesomeness, the movie als taught us not to fear aliens, lessons about racism, that feds should be hated (a point reinforced years later when my freaker friends had their towers confiscated, shutting down our BBS), and that sometimes your parents aren’t perfect. In short, E.T. is awesome. A collector’s edition of ET dressed up in a sundress greets you as you walk into my house.

9. Blade Runner

I don’t think I can say that I’ve ever been disappointed by a Harrison Ford movie. Okay, maybe Hollywood Homicide. That was pretty bad. And then there was the new Indiana Jones movie. Let me back track…its my fookin’ blog….really I can do anything I want! While the aforementioned movies might have been bad, most of the Harrison movies that came out before the 2000′s were great, and Blade Runner is obviously no exception. This movie is a true classic, based on the novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sleep” by none other than Philip K. Dick himself. Much like science fiction books at the time, Blade Runner was the classic thinking man’s movie. It attempted to tackle the big questions that science fiction authors, like Isaac Asimov, have grappled with for a long time. It was a huge movie that asked questions like “What are the implications of building intelligent machines?” and “What does it mean to really be human?” Combine this with awesome special effects and a compelling story, and you have the makings of one of the best science fiction movies ever made.

8. Aliens

Unlike in mainstream movies, oftentimes in science fiction a sequel will surpass its predcessor. Empire Strikes Back is clearly a better movie than A New Hope, Wrath of Khan was better than Star Trek the Motion Picture, and Aliens continues that trend as it was a much better movie than Alien. As Weaver stated in an interview: “Aliens made the first Alien look like a cucumber sandwich.” Although I’m not sure what her problem is with cucumbers, I have to agree. Aliens was definitely a much better movie than the first one (not taking anything away from the first movie), so much so that it makes our top 10 science fiction movies of all time list. The story this time around takes place nearly sixty years after the conclusion of Alien, Ellen Ripley and Jonesy the cat are still quite happily sleeping away in their cryo-freeze compartment aboard the shuttle after having sent the first alien out the airlock. The film opens with a salvage crew opening up the shuttle and finding her and the cat. After she’s awoken, she learns that she’s been floating around for fifty seven years and the company she works for isn’t very sympathetic to her cause, basically blackballing her. Unbeknownst to her, the “company” sends someone out to investigate her story and not too long thereafter nobody from the planetoid is heard from again. This of course prompts the company to send the space marines and Ripley as an advisor to find out what happened to the terraformers, and what follows from there is one of the best and most intense Sci-Fi action thrillers to have ever been made.

7. Terminator 2

Terminator 2: Judgement Day was the follow up to Terminator, and once again it starred Arnold Schwarzenegger, although this time he plays a replica of the original Terminator model T-800 which dominated the first movie. Although the story is unimaginative, this is one of those movies that didn’t really need a groundbreaking story to be good. In a future, war-ravaged Los Angeles, human rebels led by an adult John Connor do battle with silvery, skeletal robots. Two “intelligent machines” have been dispatched to the past, one to protect the young Connor, the other to kill him. On late 20th-century Earth, the young John Connor finds himself pursued by two androids. The machine sent to kill him (T-1000) is a newer model than the one sent to save him (which is the T-800), and its one of the best movie villains of all time. It takes on the appearance of a young policeman – the first human it dispatches after arriving on Earth. This “bad” Terminator sent by the machines is far more sophisticated than Arnold’s T-800, constructed from liquid steel so that it can adopt the appearance of anyone or anything it comes in contact with. The film is more or less the same as its predecessor, except that this time around the effects are more spectacular. The script’s good-natured wit is undercut by the sentimentality of Arnold’s Terminator becoming a caring cyborg, and although he is the nominal star of Terminator 2: Judgement Day, the show is stolen by the extraordinary ground-breaking special effects, particularly the “morphing” in which the liquid metal T-1000 transforms itself into a multitude of organic and inorganic forms.

6. Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Close Encounters of the Third Kind, a Stephen Spielberg classic, is more than worthy of it’s weight in alien gold as one of Old-Wizard’s top 10 Sci-Fi classics. Taking place in a time when McDonalds had only served 24 billion, Close Encounters is one of the rare movies whose storyline centers around a benevolent alien/human association. Unlike most sci-fi movies of its time, the agenda of the alien visitors in Close Encounters didn’t involve the mass destruction of humans or the desire to take over the planet. Instead it seemed like all that these intergalactic guests wanted to do was say “hello”, play a few tunes, give back the hundreds of abductees they borrowed and ..well…maybe take Richard Dreyfus back to outer space with them as a souvenir; but who cares, they didn’t destroy any humans or blow up the Earth. It was the least we could do. Although one must question the intelligence of a species which traveled thousands of light years through the vastness of space, plucked a squadron of torpedo bombers out of the sky only to drop them into the Mexican desert 30 years later, disappeared a freighter from the middle of the ocean and proceeded to drop it in into the Gobi desert in Mongolia, sang to an entire population of remote town in India and implanted images of Devil’s tower in Wyoming into a bunch of random humans only to kidnap Richard Dreyfus.

5. Back to the Future Part 2

When asked what the best movie of the Back to the Future Trilogy is, most fans will answer “Part 1″. After all, Part 2 is nothing but a rehash of the first movie, and Part 3 barely had any time traveling. What these people fail to realize is just how unique the second installment of the Back to the Future Trilogy really is. As the movie was originally conceived, it would have been nothing more than a simple rehash of the the first movie, as old Biff was originally going to bring the sports almanac back to 1965 to give it to his younger self. But then the movie’s writers stumbled upon a brilliant idea: have the old Biff deliver the almanac back to the same day in 1955 that the first movie took place. This idea was simply genius, and turned what could have been an average sequel into a great movie. In what other movie sequel do you literally go back to the original movie during the new one?The eighties were a magic time for movie making, and Back to the Future Part 2 was made at a time when special effects were created to advance a story, as opposed to today where the story is written in order to facilitate more and more outrageous special effects. But that’s not to say the movie didn’t have great special effects. Anyone who saw this movie when it first came out who says they didn’t want a hover board is simply lying. Another great thing about eighties movies is that they didn’t have to make any scientific sense. Can you really imagine a movie being made today where the heroes travel back in time in a De Lorean? This is what made the eighties so great in terms of both movies and video games. In Timeline, for instance we are bored with all the endless scientific techno-babble which aims at making time travel seem plausible to a “modern” audience. The seemingly endless trend of making movies more and more realistic has robbed modern audiences of the sense of fantasy and whimsy which older audiences still remember and look back upon with a sense of nostalgia. Perhaps if we had known what movie making would be like in the future, we wouldn’t have wanted to go there so bad.

4. Planet of the Apes

Planet of the Apes was a groundbreaking movie that illustrates just how bad it would suck to crash your spaceship on a future earth, only to discover it’s now governed by a class system of monochromatically dressed talking apes with a penchant for hunting, caging and conducting torturous scientific experiments on lowly mute humans before killing them. There’s nothing worse than breaking down on the wrong side of time and utopia. But all monkey business aside, this movie is a true Sci-Fi classic complete with social commentary, caged romance amongst humans and one of the most renowned surprise movie endings in history. And how great was Nova? Possibly the perfect girl, she’s a hot, scantily clad, mute woman who will follow you around anywhere you go and do anything you want. She’s every science fiction nerd’s wet dream. And although it can always be slightly disconcerting to observe a couple of chimpanzee scientists as they discuss the finer points of human castration, it’s well worth the watch and well deserving of it’s placement on the Old-Wizard best Sci-Fi movie list.

3. Strek Trek: Wrath of Khan

KHAAAN!!!! Undoubtedly the greatest Star Trek movie ever made, Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan is top-notch filming making. It has heroic characters, a nasty villain and a sweeping adventure that is both engaging and entertaining. Wrath of Khan is a sequel to the “Space Seed” episode from the original 1967 show, in which Kirk had banished the evil Khan to the edge of the universe. Now Khan is back and looking for revenge, via a device capable of reversing creation dubbed “Project Genesis”. Project Genesis is a device that reorganizes molecular matter on a sub-atomic level, turning barren environments into life-sustaining ones. Described by Spock as “life from lifelessness,” it was perfectly named after the first book of the Bible. To put it in the words of Dr. McCoy, “According to myth, the Earth was created in 6 days. Now, watch out. Here comes Genesis. We’ll do it for you in 6 minutes.” Of course, when used on an inhabited planet, it has the opposite effect, and thus our villain wants nothing more than to get his hands on it. In the process we get one of the best ship to ship battles in science fiction history when the USS Enterprise, commanded by none other than Captain James T. Kirk takes on Khan in the stolen Federation vessel the USS Reliant. Not only is the story great, but the special effects are also well-done. In this age of CGI it is refreshing to see the ingenuity and creativity of old-style model effects being used so effectively. In short, this is a great movie, and the best science fiction movie without “Star Wars” in its title, which leads us to our number two movie of all time…

2. Star Wars: A New Hope

This comes with a few stipulations; first it only applies before the creation of the new movies, which effectively ruined an otherwise perfect creation. To this day I can’t watch any of the old Star Wars movies because of them, why George Lucas would choose to make those travesties is beyond my comprehension. Was it money? I doubt that, he has a ranch and lots of money from merchandising the old movies. It couldn’t be fame, I mean who doesn’t know George Lucas? I was perfectly happy with the three movies just as they were, the special effects were just bad enough to be absolutely amazing. All those new fancy computer graphics really took the personality right out of the new movies. Phantom might as well have been a cartoon it was so cheesy. Now I know what you’re saying, what about Natalie Portman and Samuel L. Jackson? I agree. I love both them, each in very different ways, but they, being great actors, are actually a testament to how terrible the movies are. Even they can’t save the train wreck that is the prequel trilogy. So before the release of the prequels this was a great movie. Now its just a reminder of what was…

1. Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

“No, there is another.” With these words, spoken by Yoda to Obi Wan immediately after sending Luke off on a death mission and telling him to sacrifice his friends for the sake of their cause, I was transformed into something new. Why would Yoda, a good guy in my 8 year old mind, tell Luke to let the other good guys die? Was Lando a good guy? My boys were just ambushed by the Empire in Bespin! Was Boba Fett bad, or just trying to do the job he was hired to do? It seemed as if no one was all good, and no one was all bad. Even Luke had much anger in him, much to learn he still has as he throws away the rest of his training…at least we know Vader is definitely all bad. For the first time in my young life there was a gray area. Before Empire there were good guys and bad guys. Friends and enemies. Autobots and Decepticons. Professor X and Magneto.  You get the point. Now there was something new, people were more complicated. I started to like Han more than Luke because of his relative badness. I went through the awkwardness of puberty for 20 years, but when we learned that Luke was Vader’s son, I knew it had taken me 2 hours to become a man. I went into the kitchen and gave my dad a hug, and then I checked to see if his arm was mechanical.

20. Wicket

We meet Wicket in “Return of the Jedi” on the forest moon of Endor. Wicket is certainly one of the most lovable creatures in the Star Wars series from the first moment we see him when he is afraid of Leia trying to give him food. Leia who had been knocked off a speeder is left alone on the forest moon of Endor, only to find the moon’s indigenous species hiding in the trees. Wicket approaches her first with an arrow, making you wonder what this little creature could actually do for damage. After this bashful sequence with each other, Wicket warms up to Leia plopping himself on the branch she is on, and eats the food she is offering him. He ends up saving the rest of the rebel alliance from becoming food for the other Ewoks when he takes Leia back to their village. Wicket comes across as the leader of his specific Ewok group at times, and at other times, a clumsy novice at organization and war craft. We all remember when he tried to knock a storm trooper off his transporter with a rock tied to a rope, only to swing it in his own face! Ouch…We also remember the sonorous noise he made when trying to quietly walk around trespassed areas. These characteristics make Wicket into a remembered character in the Star Wars series and one of the most hotly purchased action figures in the Star Wars toy market. Trying to have fuzzy little creatures declare war on species 4 times their size and far more technologically advanced proved to be an ingenious paradox in Return of the Jedi, that made for laughter along with sympathy at the site of these David and Goliath scenes.

19. Wuher “The Bartender”

Wuher was “The Bartender” who worked on Tatooine who we meet when Luke and Obi-Wan look to have a couple minutes of repose in the local slimy bar. This bar was full of the worst of the planetary thugs smoking their outer space haze and drinking only the most average alcohol from Wuher. Wuher had a strong command of his bar which we see when Luke and Obi try to enter into the bar with R2D2 and C3PO. We all remember the fastidious roar of Wuher when he says “Hey! We don’t serve their kind here!”, referring to his inexorable rules of having no droids in his bar. Even the Jedi and the Jedi in training follow the rules of the supreme bartender. Wuher, also showed a blithe placidity, when he witnessed a fight between Luke and a Patron where the Patron carpingly bothered Luke by saying “I don’t like you!”, “He doesn’t like you!” “NOBODY LIKES YOU!” eventually much to the dismay and life of the patron. All this happened without any attrition to Wuher. After the fight scene, Wuher continues making drinks and the bar follows suit in their voluptuous activities. On that same day, Han kills a bounty hunter who is after him in Wuher’s bar, without the slightest disturbance in the mood of the bar. Wuher owned this bar. People would face threats argue and fight throughout the long hours of the bar’s work week. For Wuher, there was only one rule for his bar. NO DROIDS ALLOWED!

18. Chewbacca

Chewbacca is always a favorite among younger Star Wars fans. He’s not for us. Throughout the movies he’s often moaning at the smallest of perceived slights, and crying at the tasks handed to him by Han. Nonetheless, Chewbacca defines much of what Star Wars is about; A character of pure imagination with more hair than a girl from Woodstock and more personality than a late night TV show host. In other words, an always unique character that would be remembered for a long time to come. Chewbacca is always a main character throughout the Star Wars series, most of the time as the sidekick of Han Solo. While Chewbacca seems to bitch at everything that Han wants him to do, he eventually finishes his tasks set to him. Chewbacca while not being the most efficient of Star Wars creatures, makes up for his laziness in his momentary anger where he’s always willing to defend his master to the death, and even pick up the broken parts of an annoying droid, exemplifying a big inner heart to match the actual physical size of this beast. Chewbacca’s trademark roar has been parodied by everything in modern TV culture from Peter in “Family Guy”, to the late infamous “Tourettes Guy” which you can find on Youtube when in need of a laugh at the expense of others. Love him or loathe him, Star Wars would not be Star Wars without Chewbacca. For a time, he is everyone’s favorite character, until the time when one has to prove his Star Wars nerdhood by appreciating much smaller, lesser-known characters, like Wuhr the bartender.

17. Porkins “Red Six”

Porkins, also known as “Belly Runner”, and “Piggy”, was the hefty hero of A New Hope shadowing Luke and Wedge in the dogfight near the first Death Star. We only witness the brave heavyweight in a small section of A New Hope as his valence led him to stay in the battle at the Death Star even when his ship’s stabilizers were damaged and his shields were about to break. There is often speculation concerning other reasons for his Y-Wing’s failure in battle revolving around his being too heavy for the craft itself. Fat jokes aside, Porkins knew his ship couldn’t stand any more damage but stayed in the battle anyways, proving his dauntless fortitude in the face of death. Porkins is most well known to the Star Wars nerd for his persistence in battle, solidified in the dictum often mistakenly attributed to him, “Stay on target…Stay on target…”. Unfortunately, Porkins became the target of a gunner on the Death Star and was the first of the many pilots in the rebel alliance to suffer at the hands of the Empire in the final battle of A New Hope. We at Old-Wizard salute Porkins for his intrepidness and would never stereotype the quality of character of someone who is obese after witnessing Porkins in this Star Wars installment.

16. Greedo

Greedo, like Boba Fett, was a bounty hunter after Han Solo’s life who we meet for approximately 1 minute in A New Hope. So why is he in our top 20 list of Star Wars characters of all time? Is it because he looks like squalid space alien that would best serve as the worst Halloween costume on the block? No. Is it because his suction cup fingers prove once again to be an overpowering afflatus on the Star Wars maker’s parts? Wrong again. Greedo is in our list because he is the first character to make Han Solo look cool. We all remember Greedo telling Han to pay up…or else, much to Hans chagrin, and eventually to Greedo’s life as Han pulls out his blaster from underneath the table and shoots Greedo causing a state of calamity, just for a moment (remember, we’re in Wuher’s bar now where this stuff happens all the time). Greedo gives Han his first appearance as a swarthy outer space thug who would not put up with all the bounty hunters after his life. Han will eventually pay Jabba, but if you try to rush him, you’ll suffer Greedo’s fate. Much controversy would follow this scene as we see from the 1997 re-release of the film where Greedo shoots a missed shot at Han first, much to the dismay of Star Wars nerds around the world. Cries of “sell out” could be heard on Star Wars message boards across the web. The SW nerds liked their Han as he was, which means a once licentious thug who would slowly become much more affable and good natured throughout the series. Greedo was the character to start Han’s development from his abject roots.

15. Uncle Owen

Uncle Owen, or Owen Lars, which we never hear him named, was Luke’s foster father. Owen was a highly important moisture farmer on Tatooine who we meet from the beginning of episode 4 before the Empire destroys the area in hopes of finding information stored in the brave little R2 unit. Uncle Owen did not approve much of Luke’s lifestyle, from his want to see other planets, to his more simple wants of “going to the Tashi station to pick up power converters”. Of course, we know that Owen was just looking out for his wide-eyed nephew, trying to keep him from getting into too much danger with the knowledge of old Ben Kenobi around the corner and a recent outerspace war occurring just some years ago involving some of his own family. Owen was stern and efficient, having his mind on the quality of farming seasons over and above any puerile desires for galactic adventure games that may have been in his own blood. No viewers of Star Wars ever liked Uncle Owen because he reminded them of their own parent’s authority. What type of contumacy must have evolved in anyone who was stopped from picking up power converters is unquestionably certain. Luke however, needed to be raised somewhere, for sometime, in the confines of solitude and repose, so he could eventually become the Jedi he became. With this in mind, Uncle Owen has to be on the top 20 list regardless of Star Wars fans obstinacy for authority.

14. Admiral Akbar

Admiral Akbar was another impressive character only possible in the imagination of Lucas and the Star Wars creators. We first meet this heroic fish in “Return of the Jedi” as the commander of the allied forces in their fight to extirpate the almost-rebuilt Death Star. Akbar embodied the leadership qualities and spirited rhetoric of a Winston Churchill, while maintaining a uniqueness only reserved to a “fish out of the water”. Akbar is clearly most popular in the obsessive Star Wars fan circles, especially with his unforgettable quotes throughout Return of Jedi like “Our cruisers can’t repel firepower of that magnitude!” said with the type of urgency that made viewers believe that they were in the battle themselves. Akbar, while seeming overtly intense in the actual battle itself, proved to be equally placid in times before and after the battle where we witness the erudite fish in modes of absolute philosophical repose. Admiral Akbar, like many characters in the Star Wars series epitomized someone that everyone could aspire too, regardless of species and respitory systems. He would go on to have his fame augmented in subsequent novels in the Star Wars series, but more than anywhere, Akbar was first and foremost known for his quality of character shown in The Return of the Jedi. “All craft, prepare to jump into hyperspace on my mark!”

13. C-3PO

C-3PO was always conspicuously homoerotic (not that there’s anything wrong with that!). C-3PO was also excessively worrisome and carping at times. But C-3PO was more tolerably annoying, and even sometimes more welcomingly annoying, than the kind of annoying that embodied playing Dreamcast for example. Many Star Wars fans love to hate 3PO, but they often forget the intellectual and technical skill of this protocol droid who knew “over 6 million forms of communication” and served over 40 masters in all discursive tasks put to him. Even with all of 3PO’s technical proficiencies, he never boasted himself as highly important, often being heard by his masters as saying “I do not overrate my importance! I daresay I am the most humble droid I know!”. Surely, what one of us, who knew over 6 million languages, would not be overtly prideful of this exorbitant skill. Some of the more entertaining dialogues throughout Star Wars came from 3PO and R2-D2, where all we knew of what R2-D2 was saying were 3PO’s interpretations. What we gathered from the substance of their conversations was mostly R2-D2 making fun of 3P0, much to 3PO’s chagrin, as he was commonly taken back by R2-D2′s apparent impertinence. Love him or hate him, C-3PO was absolutely an essential figure throughout Star Wars, even if his character played the role of someone you would commonly be piqued by in real life. Star Wars could never limit itself to ideal characters, making Star Wars ascend beyond what’s normally understood as “ideal”. Accept that the world will be full of 3PO’s, and you’ll start to see their importance too.

12. Jabba the Hutt

What a character Jabba the Hutt was. Only in the imagination of George Lukas could something so bawdy and amorphous manifest itself. This slimy massive behemoth of Tatooine was the king of the desert, offering rich bounties to all those who wanted to make money by capturing debtors of Jabba’s. Jabba could barely move, could barely talk with out drooling, and was about as attractive as Rosie O’Donnel. Nonetheless, Jabba commanded a respect like no other, running a successful black market establishment with visiting players as cool and surreptitious as Boba Fett and Han Solo. When Jabba spoke, everyone became silent. His sonorous voice echoed over the chambers of his palace, keeping the slaves and gamblers in line, demonstrating who the real count of Tatooine was. It was quite a scene seeing Leia ineluctably chained to the tumultuous beast. It was an even more somber scene when she strangled him to death with her own fetters, making the rats and low life of the palace cry for the resurrection of their master. Jabba the Hutt is what happens when you have creator with an imagination as vast as the infinite universe. No one could dream up this type of character until it was actually seen in reality. Jabba is a testament to the perennial uniqueness of the Star Wars saga.

11. R2-D2

Unless you have been living underneath a rock for the past thirty some odd years, you have heard this voice broadcast to you by some sort of medium, and it sounds rather familiar. The beep-birk-bonk-sqwark-beep-ding is the noise that R2-D2 makes throughout his career in the Star Wars movies. R2-D2 is the most popular Droid in the Star Wars Saga. The reason being you may ask? Is it his lovable character that draws people in? His often rambunctious escapades with C-3PO? All very good guesses. But it’s probably just because he is a lucky little robot that hasn’t gotten blasted by Storm Troopers or bashed into bytes by Wookies. Give the bot some credit though. R2 has been through a lot in the series. Traveling from planet to planet on the outside of a fighter ship is taxing on the clear coat. But R2 often manages to take a lickin’ and keep on kickin’. Or should I say shockin’? It always tickles Star Wars fans when he extends his prod-device arm and shocks critters.R2 served as a good friend to C-3PO, having helped to rebuild him several times, and probably having to continually wax that golden case C-3PO sports. Even though he can be made into interpretive trash can art when he is decommissioned, R2 has saved Han Solo and the Millennium Falcon so many times that it is doubtful he would receive anything less than a full Rebel military funeral. It can be quite moving when the Wookie’s belt out the tune of “Taps” to the setting Endor sun. R2 has helped make Star Wars into what Star Wars really is…one of the greatest sci-fi movie series ever created. The spirit of R2-D2 will live long and prosper (I know, wrong franchise) far into the future because of his impact in saving the galaxy.

5. Dex

I honestly don’t know if I even really have to explain our #5 worst Star Wars character of all time. The scene in Dex’s diner in Episode II: Attack of the Clones is a perfect example of how lazy of a story teller George Lucas has become ever since The Empire Strikes Back. Basically, Lucas needed to find a way for Obi-Wan to find the planet Kamino, even though the Jedi Archives themselves couldn’t find it. So the obvious answer, of course, would be to ask a short order cook at a 1950’s Earth Diner. How this repulsive creature could know that the saber dart that Obi-Wan retrieved from a bounty hunter must have come from the planet Kamino (one of fifty MILLION planets in the Star Wars universe) just by looking at it is beyond me. And Dex’s line after he “figures out” which planet this dart was made on is even more ridiculous. “I should think you Jedi would have more respect for the difference between knowledge and wisdom.” What? What the hell does that even mean? And why did Obi-Wan consult a cook at a diner to get this “wisdom” anyway? Isn’t there a better source of information on Coruscant than a diner? This is the capital of a galaxy wide empire. There must libraries, universities, and countless other places to get information from. Why a diner? Yeah, its cool that Lucas wanted to give a shout out to American Graffiti in a STAR WARS movie, but couldn’t he have found a more subtle way that this? And considering the fact that the entire prequel trilogy is pretty much nothing more than a six hour long shout out to the original trilogy anyway, I’d say the shout outs have gone a little too far at this point.

4. Yaddle

Was there really any need to add a female version of Yoda into the prequel trilogy? Not only that, but does she also have to be a Jedi Master on the Jedi council along with Yoda? What George Lucas has done with the prequel trilogy is to make each character in the original trilogy a cliche of themselves. Any member of Yoda’s species we see has to be a powerful Jedi, just because in the original movies Yoda is a powerful Jedi. (in the same line of thought, any bounty hunters we encounter in the new movies would have to be like Boba Fett, but more on that later). We see this theme again and again in the prequel trilogy. I could have gone the rest of my life never seeing another member of Yoda’s race. When I was a kid one of the coolest things about Yoda was that he was unique. Yeah, deep down I knew there must have been more of his species out there in the galaxy, but it still didn’t mean I ever wanted to see another member of it in a Star Wars movie. I liked the mystery a whole hell of a lot more. Sometimes I imagined that he was the last of his race. Other times I imagined that maybe he was once a human, but after 900 years of using the force he became a twisted little green creature. Either way, it was a nice little mystery. But, as would happen many more times to many more of my favorite Star Wars characters, in the new movies, any sense of mystery Yoda might have held for me though disappeared immediately after seeing Yaddle in the Phantom Menace.

3. General Grievous

Where to start with General Grievous? It was really hard to place General Grievous at #3 on our list. Everything was telling me to put him at number one. The only thing stopping me was that by the time General Grievous made his appearance it the Star Wars saga in Episode III: Revenge of Sith, all hope had already been lost for the prequel trilogy. This alone saves General Grievous from otherwise dominating our number one spot as the worst Star Wars character of all time. The villain of a movie is usually supposed to inspire some fear in you, as the movie goer. Darth Vader and the Emperor, and even Grand Moff Tarkin accomplish this feat rather well in the original trilogy. Unfortunately the same cannot be said of General Grievous. Sure, he looks scary…At first. But then he starts hacking and wheezing and any sense of dread you might have had soon vanishes. As a matter of fact, during the scenes in which he is on the screen for longer periods of time, the dread quickly turns into annoyance. You just want him to shut up. Its like watching a movie while sitting next to someone with a really bad cough. As if a coughing robot weren’t dumb enough, the guy is basically a professional Jedi assassin. What? Is it really that easy to kill a Jedi? You just need to hire a robot with a really bad cough? Why the hell was the emperor so afraid of Luke becoming a Jedi in the original trilogy? Shouldn’t he have been more afraid of someone building another robot with Asthma? This guy has a collection of lightsabers from all the Jedi he killed. Throughout the entire prequel trilogy our reverence for the Jedi knights, reverence that was built to epic proportions by the time we saw Luke take down all of Jabba’s henchmen almost single-handedly in the Return of the Jedi, has slowly evaporated. In Episode II we see Jedi falling by the hundreds on Geonosis at the hands of battle droids, we see a bounty hunter casually shoot one down of a balcony, and now we find out an Asthmatic robot has been killing them one by one and collecting their lightsabers. Where will it end?

2. Jango Fett

How many lives were ruined when it was revealed in Episode 2: The Attack of the Clones that Boba Fett was in fact the clone of Jango Fett, and not only that, he was raised as his son? Boba Fett was in like three scenes in the original trilogy, and had maybe two lines. Why was he even included in the prequel trilogy at all? Couldn’t George Lucas have come up with a new bounty hunter? The only reason I can come up with is because Boba Fett’s action figures fly off the shelves. It’s like George Lucas had to find a way to fit every character from the original trilogy into the new movies. (C-3PO, R2-D2, Jabba the Hutt, even Chewbacca made an appearance in Episode 3!) Boba Fett himself was cool before we knew what he looked like and where he came from, and now that we know, he’s lost all of his original appeal (especially after we see what an annoying brat he was as a kid). Jango Fett’s inclusion in the prequel trilogy in and of itself would be enough to warrant his place on his list, but to make matters worse it is with Jango Fett that all of our ideas we had about how bad ass the Jedi Knights were when we were kids were shattered. During the Coliseum battle between the Jedi and the droids on the planet Geonosis, a Jedi knight lands on the balcony with Count Dooku and Jango Fett. Jango simply pulls out his blaster and shoots the Jedi in the chest, after which he falls off the balcony to his death. I’m sorry, but I simply refuse to believe that a Jedi knight (remember these are the guys who spend their free time deflecting laser blasts with their lightsabers) could possibly be dispatched this easily. And how humiliating would it be for a Jedi knight to die at the hands of a lowly bounty hunter like that after a lifetime of training? Let’s face it, the only reason Jango was able to dispatch a Jedi so easily is because he is “cool” ( and the only reason he is cool because he was the progenitor of Boba Fett). In putting Jango Fett in the prequel trilogy, George Lucas made both Boba Fett and Jedi Knights less cool.

1. Jar Jar Binks

Jar Jar Binks was the worst character in all of Star Wars lore, and it’s fitting that like the other four characters on this list he came from the new series. The character of Jar Jar Binks was unbecomingly puerile, coming across as annoying to anyone above the age of 3. His voice was grating, his lines were superfluous, and the way he walked was vexing. Every time Binks came on the screen, the viewer was overcome with a sense of embarrassment that they had to watch this character who was supposed to be comic relief, but failed in all instances. While trying to adapt the Star Wars enterprise to a younger market, they lost their core audience who first fell in love with episodes 4-6 for their mettle and rigor in production. While C3PO was explicitly annoying, Jar Jar Binks would try to cajole the audience into placid acceptance. Jar Jar Binks was supposed to be accepted as a “fun” and “laughable”. Instead, he came across as the ultimate sell out move by George Lukas who was obviously trying to adapt to an audience he thought was dumb enough to fall for the lackluster comedic appeal of Binks. His clumsiness is never entertaining. One wonders how he survived past episode 1 into Episodes 2 and 3. The Star Wars series won its success from its unabashed forays into aggrandized space war themes. It’s toughness made the viewer believe in what he was watching. That Lucas thought the series would improve by adding this unctuous and mawkishly cute character was beyond fans of the original Star War series. Clearly, Lucas was taking the Star Wars series to a place the original fans wanted nothing to do with.

With the coolness of the trailer, as well as the title character, I thought there was no way this movie could possibly go wrong. Boy was I wrong. Leaving the theater after the movie the only thing I could think about was how mad I was that I’d spent ten bucks to watch that crap. For non-comic book fans, this movie was a tedious, incoherent bore. For comic book fans it is simply an atrocity.

Easily one of the worst comic book inspired movies ever made (right up there with the first Fantastic Four movie and Batman Forever) Rise of the Silver Surfer is 89 minutes of tedium. The movie, like its predecessor, seemed needlessly rushed. Why not make this a 2 hour plus movie and take the time to slowly and thoroughly introduce the characters, especially for the myriads of movie-goers who have no clue about the origin of the Fantastic Four, or who are clueless about who the Silver Surfer is?

The main reason the movie won’t sit well with fans of the comics is the numerous pointless changes the producers make to the comic book storyline. Why is Sue the one that helps the Surfer decide to save humanity instead of Alicia? One of the coolest parts of the comics was when the surfer beat up the Thing and stole his blind girlfriend right out from under him. Alicia seems to have “a thing” for bizarre looking characters. She is the only character in comicdom (or anywhere for that matter) who would leave a giant rock man for a silvery bald space surfer. It also created some great tension between the surfer and the Thing, who would later have to team up to find a way to stop Galactus.

And don’t even get me started on Doctor Doom. Here’s a villain who wears a mask because his face is damaged (one scar) and in the comics we only see his real face twice. Twice in almost 50 years! But in this movie we see him without his mask more than we see him with it! And no longer is Doom the dictator of Latveria, but a billionaire industrialist (Lex Luthor?). Do these people know what movie they’re making?

The Silver Surfer was portrayed as being much weaker than he is in the comics. Why the hell are his powers tied to his surfboard? Where does this concept come from? Just read Silver Surfer vol. 3, issue #1 if you want proof that his powers aren’t tied to his board. In that issue his board is damaged and the surfer is able to repair it. He has even been shown to re-create his board after it is completely destroyed! He can remotely convert his board to energy, he can recall it to himself, hell, with the power cosmic the surfer can do pretty much anything. Its sad to see him in a movie where the writers have little or no understanding of the character or his abilities. If they didn’t want to read the comics, a simple wikipedia search or a five minute interview with a fan could have told them everything they needed to know about the surfer. Enough to make a bad ass movie.

In any event, another issue with the movie is Galactus, or rather, the absence of Galactus. I realize that the producers felt that Galactus was a little too “cartoonish” to be included in a modern day, cutting edge movie, but isn’t that the main problem with movies these days? What happened to a little imagination? Why does everything have to be so realistic these days? Gone are the golden days of the movies (namely the eighties), where one could time through travel in a Delorian, or fly into space in homemade spacecraft built out of a seat from an amusement park ride, a washing machine window and a television. Nowadays every movie has to be “realistic” with corresponding “scientific” explanations as to why one can travel in time, or through space. No longer is it acceptable to have a giant space man in a purple suit flying around in space eating planets. Its simply not realistic enough. Hence, we are left with a vague cloud with an object the shape of Galactus’s helmet as the final bad guy in the movie. And just how is the surfer able to stop the world devourer anyway? He flew into him? What?

Let me just say, the Silver Surfer and Galactus are two of the greatest characters that the incredible team of Jack Kirby and Stan Lee ever came up with together. The noble hero who was forced to serve a giant, purple clad, planet-munching space traveler by leading him to countless other inhabited worlds to feed on in order to keep him from eating his own planet (where the love of his life, Shalla Bal lived as empress). This movie completely ruined the chance the bring these characters to life and tell the story of how the super powerful Silver Surfer is moved into sparing a planet simply because of the heroes who help him find the nobility he has lost in the ages that he had traveled from planet to planet seeking out his master’s next meal. With all that said, the movie is worth seeing if only to see the surfer snuff out Johnny Storm and drop him into the earth’s atmosphere from outer space.

Our Rating: