Saga Watching the Star Wars Saga Eps I-VI for the first time

I forgot I posted that. Let me try to remember what I was thinking.
Oh, okay.
Darth_Articulate, I just haven't really been in a position since I sort of stopped caring about others seeing movies and now.
I use to think it would be neat to expose people to movies, like "oh you haven't seen it? You should see it..." and then show them or whatever, but they wouldn't care. Actually sitting and watching with them just makes it feel awkward and lessens my own enjoyment of what I like.
It's just the people I've been around. Obviously some of you have/had better people around you.

 

I tried this with Doctor Who with a number of people, (one of whom "hated" sci-fi and thought it was "silly and ridiculous, why would anyone care"...until I showed them it) and it was never awkward at all...they all really liked it, and it was loads of fun. I hope to at some point do the same with some of my SW-less friends, if I can find time.
I suppose it's just different perspectives. And people.

The worst that could happen? They don't like it. But they might love it, and that feels great.

 

My girlfriend used to always give geeks & nerds trouble for being like that....not she's stressing over the fact that she is becoming one. Its awesome.

 

That's why it strikes me as odd you'd be discouraged after reading on here that these people exist. One would think if it had any effect on you at all, it would be encouragement.

 

I think the perfect method is:

Episode IV
Episode V
Episode VI (up to the point where Obiwan talks to Luke on Dagobah about his father)
Episode I
Episode II
Episode III
Episode VI (continue after Luke leaves Dagobah)

This will keep all the OT reveals intact, and will make the Obiwan/Luke conversation on Dagobah feel like one big flashback when watching Episode I-III.

 

I've done this with people who never wacthed Star Wars 4 times:
3 friends an 1 ex-girlfriend.
I think it worked better following the in-universe timeline.

 

I would like to know if there are any users who have watched Star Wars in order (From Episode One being the very first movie they have seen to Episode 6 being the last).

I am curious to get a detailed review of the saga from your perspective as most people have seen the Original Trilogy first.

 

My viewing order was 1 and 2 in cinema, then 4, 5, 6 somewhere between 2002 and 2005, then episode 3 in cinema. So I guess I was pretty close to watching them in chronological order. But what exactly do you mean by a detailed review?

I don't really remember how well I understood star wars back then (I was born in 93 btw), but I do remember being aware of the original trilogy and its significance. I think I did like it when I finally watched it, but I've come to appreciate it much more when I became a real fan of the saga after watching RotS in cinema.

So I was young and wasn't very perceptive of the differences between the trilogies. That came later, but it didn't change the fact that I love all six films.

 

I saw the original trilogy before the prequels, but it was all so close together that I never really viewed them as separate entities. To me I just always had Star Wars in my life. I was born in '94, watched the originals in '98 or '99, and saw each prequel in the theater on or around Memorial Day each year, since my birthday's around then.

I know I don't fit the viewing order that you asked for, but just to give some "details," I remember thinking, in the time after the release of TPM, that Qui-Gon Jinn was secretly a Sith and that was why he didn't disappear when he died. I assumed that he knew what Anakin would become and that was why he was so adamant about him being trained. I also thought that Palpatine and Sidious were separate people until RotS; I knew that Senator/Chancellor Palpatine would grow to be Emperor Palpatine of the originals, but for some reason I thought that Sidious would wind up being a different character. So I guess the revelation that Palpatine was Sidious was a bit of an "I am your father" moment for me in 2005.

 

Before I was interested in Star Wars I saw a snippet from VI (the Jabba part, I still find it the most boring part of the saga). Then I watched II at my cousin's and I somewhere later (It was before 2005). Later my brother bought the originals (DVD) and so I watched IV, V and VI then. I watched III in theatres.

 

I would like to know first reactions. Things like Darth Sidious being Chancelor Palpatine which became the Evil Emperor. Or Anakin Skywalker becoming the Dark Lord instead of the Messiah. Watching Episodes 4-6 first, we knew these things before watching the films. So it was no surprise whatsoever. But my question is, DID YOU know?

It seems that people already knew a lot about Star Wars before watching their first film - or putting them all together in their young minds and not fully taking everything in at the moment (can't blame you).

I watched the Original Trilogy in the theatres when I was young. I will provide a review in a few days.

 

I was (or am retroactively) surprised at Anakin Skywalker even having the potential to be a messiah, because there's no hint of that concept in 4-6.

 

I disagree.

 

With me? Or with the OP? Or someone else?

 

Now that filming has begun on a new trilogy (or perhaps more than a trilogy), I would like to tell the newer generation how I viewed star wars growing up.

I was just a toddler when Star Wars first begun shooting back in 1975, so I never made it to opening day. We didn't have the Internet back then so my first information I got from Star Wars was from marketing. My mom's friend found a lost Star Wars toy near the bathroom of a mall and gave it to me. I didn't know who the person was, but I wanted to find out more. More and more, everyone talked about Star Wars.

When I saw Star Wars (now called A New Hope) I didn't know who Luke's father was. Now, even people who have never seen any Star Wars movie know the famous scene at the end of Empire Strikes Back. But at that time, nobody knew what happened to Anakin except that Vader killed him. And nobody knew that Leia was Luke's brother. Nobody saw Jabba until Return of the Jedi, Yoda until he was revealed to Luke in Dagoba etc. I doubt it if these people were suspenseful to you on your viewing of the saga since they were already introduced to you in Episodes 1-3. Likewise, when I saw episodes 1-3, there was very little suspense because I knew what would happen (it's just that we haven't seen it yet).

Of course, I loved Star Wars very much. And, when the Empire Strikes back came out, people first started calling it Star Wars 2. At that time, someone made a movie and then made a sequel with a different storyline if the first one became successful. Often too often, the sequel never does as well as the original. But what made the Empire Strikes Back so special? Was it the special effects? Was it the continuing cast? Or was it the expansion of the universe? I would have to say that there was something more than those things.


When I saw Empire Strikes Back, I remember Han being frozen in carbonite. That happened around 1 hour and thirty-five minutes into the movie. My first thought was, that's not supposed to happen. He's the hero. But then it went to Luke landing on Cloud City. My next thought was, great Luke is going to rescue Han. Then, when Luke and Vader are battling it out, Lando, Leia, and Chewie go to stop the bounty hunter, but they didn't. I thought, how could they get away with this? And then I thought, how long is this movie anyway? There is still a lot the heroes have to do. Then Luke's hand gets chopped off? What the hell? What? And then the bomb. Vader's Luke's father? What the? But when are they going to rescue Han?

You see we never knew that we were watching a trilogy. It never occurred to us. Likewise, when I went into the theatre to see Return of the Jedi, it didn't occur to me that this was the final movie until Darth Vader killed the Emperor and died in Luke's arms. We never thought these things would happen.

I think most people, since they grew up with the notion of trilogies, sagas, and what have you, wouldn't be so intensely moved as I was back in my youth. Star Wars has influenced many movie sagas such as Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Twilight, and many, many more.

 

Hey mods, can we merge this with http://boards.theforce.net/threads/i-vi-marathons-with-sw-virgins.50007208/ ?

 

bumping this thread for it's greatness.

 

It just got bumped anyway - merging and keeping the later thread title (modified slightly).

 

I wonder if you could squeeze in the parenthetical (I-VI) in the title somewhere. I'm just worried this will turn into another "best viewing sequence" thread.

 

If you watch them I-VI, I think the plot twist is Anakin to the Dark Side, if you watch them IV-VI, I-III, the plot twist is Vader being Luke's father.

 

great post paininthbutt.

 

Wow, never occured to me., Gotta say if I was a fan of Obi and Anakin from the prequels and Clone Wars then Episode IV would be incredibly depressing

 

Intentional, it is.

"If I'd taken the prequel trilogy to a marketing company, Episode I would've started here [III] and Episodes II and III would've been about Darth Vader killing people. But in the end, I wouldn't be able to write movies like that.

If you see them in order it completely twists things about. A lot of the tricks of IV, V and VI no longer exist. The real struggle of the twins to save their father becomes apparent, whereas it didn't exist at all the first time [audiences saw Episodes IV, V and VI]. Now Darth Vader is a tragic character who's lost everything. He's basically a bitter old man in a suit.

"I am your father" was a real shock. Now it's a real reward. Finally, the son knows what we already know.

Its a really different suspense structure. Part of the fun for me was completely flipping upside down the dramatic track of the original movies. If you watch them the way it was released, IV, V, VI, I, II, III - you get one kind of movie. If you watch I through VI you get a completely different movie. One or two generations have seen it one way, and the next generations will see it in a completely different way.

It's an extremely modern, almost interactive moviemaking. You take blocks and move them around, and you come out with different emotional states."

--George Lucas, The Making Of Revenge Of The Sith.

 

That was kind of the point of the prequels. Forcing us to view the originals in new ways which we never would have been able to conceive of on our own.

 

Well, it was one possible approach, and it was the one that GL was interested in using. But it's not the only possible approach.