As I’m assuming you know, this week marks both the beginning and end of something very special to approximately 800 billion people worldwide: It’s the beginning of a new Star Wars trilogy (and the universe beyond) and (hopefully) the end to the wait for a proper Star Wars sequel. Listeners of this show know how much I love this universe and how excited I have been for the last three years waiting for this week to arrive. To celebrate the occasion, we’ve recorded a ton of special podcasts which have been releasing over the last two weeks and I’m working on putting together some kind of Star Wars-related content each day this week for the blog.

Today I present to you, dear reader and listener, the (my) definitive ranking of every villain within the Star Wars movie universe. Two quick disclaimers: One, I chose not to include creatures. Maybe rancors are actually very gentle beings unless they’re forced to kill for the entertainment or Jabba and maybe the space worm (now known as an exogorth thanks to the Internet) just didn’t want a spaceship landing in its throat. We don’t know, so they’ve been tossed out. And two, this list pertains only to the six Star Wars films, NOT the expanded universe. While I have some experience with the expanded universe (books, video games, comics, TV shows, etc.), there’s far too much of it to consider in this space. So these 26 baddies are ranked based only on what sort of impact they made within the films themselves. Enjoy and feel free to send in your thoughts to madaboutmoviespodcast@gmail.com or @MAM_Podcast or @BGill12 on the Twitter. (Also, I’m sure there are small errors or exclusions and I’ll just have to live with that.)

26. Nute Gunray (Episodes I and II)