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MFF Special: Random Data and the ‘Star Wars’ Universe

May 4, 2018
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Paul Shipper does some legit work

With the fourth upon us, I felt it was necessary to do a deep dive into the nine Star Wars films in an effort to give you some random data. This data won’t change the galaxy, but if you’ve been reading my stuff for some time you know that I love compiling random data and sharing it with the world. The following covers lightsaber screentime, the evolution of the prequels, and if the amount of time spent in space affects critical/audience reaction.

  • Time in space = If you step outside you will most certainly die horribly.
  • Time on land/terrestrial planet = If you step outside you will be welcomed with glorious oxygen.

Here is the amount of time the nine movies spent in space and on land.

  1. Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace – 22 (space)/ 104 (land) – minutes
  2. Star Wars: Episode II – The Attack of the Clones – 8 / 123
  3. Star Wars: Episode III – The Revenge of the Sith – 33 / 102
  4. Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope – 65 / 53
  5. Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back – 29 / 94
  6. Star Wars: Episode VI – The Return of the Jedi – 40 / 85
  7. Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens – 33 / 95
  8. Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi – 74 / 68
  9. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story – 27 / 99

Quick note: There is no causation/correlation here. However, I think the results are neat because there are some patterns that emerge. Also, I was surprised at how little time the prequels spent in space.

Interesting Facts:

  1. The movies with the highest Tomatometer rating and IMDb User Scores in the three trilogies (Empire Strikes Back, Revenge of the Sith, The Force Awakens) spend roughly 25% of their time in space.
  2. A New Hope and The Last Jedi spend more time in space (than on a planet) and they have a higher combined Tomatometer average (92%) than the movies that spend more time on land (78.8%). Also, Luke drinks gross milk in both movies
  3. The two films (Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones) that feature the least amount of “space-time” have the lowest Tomatometer scores (55%, 66%). It’s kinda bonkers that Attack of the Clones only spends eight minutes in space.

The gladiator battle in Attack of the Clones was kind of cool.

I also found out some cool data points on lightsaber usage 

  1. Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace – 8 minutes
  2. Star Wars: Episode II – The Attack of the Clones – 14 minutes
  3. Star Wars: Episode III – The Revenge of the Sith – 21 minutes
  4. Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope – 5 minutes
  5. Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back – 5 minutes
  6. Star Wars: Episode VI – The Return of the Jedi – 7 minutes
  7. Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens – 5 minutes
  8. Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi – 4.75 minutes
  9. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story – 33 seconds

Revenge of the Sith went big with its lightsaber battles and has the highest critic/audience score of the prequels

Quick note: Ed Mahon (Flipsidepa) did some solid work compiling the lightsaber time of the first six films. I counted the rest of the time

  1. Revenge of the Sith features the most lightsaber usage of any of the prequels and has the highest Tomatometer score (79%). Return of the Jedi features the most lightsaber usage in the original trilogy and has the lowest Tomatometer score (80%)
  2. The four lowest-rated movies (Phantom, Clones, Sith, Return) feature the most lightsaber screen time. I know the prequels are responsible for this stat but it is still surprising that the more you show a lightsaber the lower the critical score.

Prequel Data 

  1. The good news for Solo is the Tomatometer scores  and IMDb User Scores for the four prequels have risen with each installment (55%, 66%, 79%, 85% and 6.5, 6.6, 7.6, 7.8))
  2. The bad news for Solo is the prequels have a much lower Tomatometer average (71.25) and IMDb User Score (7.125) than the non-prequel movies (90.2% / 8.2)

I am really excited for Solo

Random Data that involves Han Solo

  1. The five movies that feature a variation of a “Death Star/Planet” have a higher Tomatometer average (86%) than the movies that don’t feature giant planet killers (76.5%)
  2. Star Wars movies that feature sea/lake/water beasts (New Hope, Phantom Menace, Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi) have a higher Tomatometer average (83.25%) than the movies that feature very large monsters (Attack of the Clones, Return of the Jedi, Empire Strikes Back) that try to eat our heroes (80%). I wrote this because of the massive tentacle thing in the Solo trailer.
  3. Movies that feature terrible things happening to Han (Empire Strikes Back, Force Awakens) have a 93.5% average.
  4. Movies that originally featured Jabba the Hut (Phantom Menace, Return of the Jedi) have the lowest scores in each trilogy.

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There you have it! A whole lot of Star Wars data for you on May the fourth. Hopefully, you can use this data to “wow” your friends and provide some interesting talking points while you are waiting in line for Solo.

from → Films and Flix Special, Mark's movie reviews, Movienomics

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