Rogue One After Rogue One, what's the best viewing order?

Yep. After the order viewing debates post-TFA last year, I find that some consensus seems to have emerged, at least for introducing new viewers/kids is to go by release order. I've heard 'release order' suggested numerous times these past few months.
For better or worse, the PT/ST as well as R1 rely on OT to some extent and introducing new viewers to OT first seems to make a lot of sense.

 

I think that RO strangely modernises ANH and makes the OT as a whole seem less dated. I just don't know if you could get a young new viewer to persevere through ANH without RO giving them that additional weight to the film first.

 

Chronological is still my preferred

 

For a newbie I'd go with the machete order (4, 5, 2, 3, 6) and treat the rest as one off's to be viewed separately. This is not to say I dislike the other films, I just think the best way to introduce somebody to Star Wars is to begin with the original film. I also think the machete order does the best job of framing the series as Luke's journey while still demonstrating the parallels with his father.

As for myself (and other initiated), my wife and I agreed that the best order to watch the series now is as follows:

1. Rogue One
2. A New Hope
3. The Empire Strikes Back
4. The Phantom Menace
5. Attack of the Clones
6. Revenge of the Sith
7. Return of the Jedi
8. The Force Awakens

 

Why would people watch the prequels between 5 and 6? That's just ********.

Bardan Edit: Language

 

Only if it's a first time viewer, to preserve the mystery of the Vader/Anakin reveal. Starting with Rogue One, then ANH, will help that. Vader's screen time increases in each movie, going from a couple of scenes, although dripped with menace and terror, to the full fledged right hand of the Emperor by the time of TESB and ROTJ.

 

the best viewing order is 1,2,3,rogue one,4,5,6,7

 

I think you now have a new Mini-Saga.
The Death Star Trilogy.
Sith-Rogue-New Hope.

Nice for a lazy evening.

 

^ This.

 

An awful lot of young new viewers managed to persevere through ANH in '77.

 

Yes. But the media they're surrounded by these days is completely different.

 

R1 - ANH - ESB - RotS - RotJ?

 

And '97.

 

1, 2, TCW, 3, R1, 4, 5, 6, 7....that's my preferred viewing order...

 

I'm eager to own RO so I can watch RO and the 1977 SW film back-to-back. First RO, then SW.

 

Excellent point.

 

To be fair, my kids enjoy ANH. I know the pacing seems slow in some ways, but following the droids, then the Jawas etc keeps their interest.

 

My point--which seemed to get lost--was just that RO makes ANH more contemporary to modern viewers. It achieves what the SE couldn't, without even touching a frame.

 

do not forsake the prequels Satipo or forever they will dominate your destiny.

 

Ah, I wish I enjoyed them more. To be, they are massively frustrating misfires, but appreciate many love them, and more power to those who do.

 

Your kids are clearly wise beyond their years.

 

For a 1st time viewer I would do

R1-ANH-ESB-AOTC-ROTS-ROTJ-TFA, if the person is say under the age of 12 maybe add in TPM after ESB. The PT was made in a way that you really can't appreciate it without seeing at least ANH and ESB 1st.

Now for me- Chronological because I already know all the reveals and such and I like to see the story unfolds in sequence.

R1 is a big game changer to me because I think for a vast majority of people it will be required viewing before ANH (even for a newcomer because it spoils nothing about ANH, well, maybe just the shock of seeing Alderan being destroyed since you will be more familiar with the DS now).

I think little things like having bail Organa in R1 will be cool for new viewers who use the order I suggested. They will see him in R1 and not know who he really is, and then when they see ROTS they will connect the dots and it will be a cool moment.

 

For me, I think the best viewing order is going to have to be ROTS - RO - ANH. It does too good a job of linking these movies together to justify splitting them as the machete order would do.

The movie directly continues a lot of the threads from ROTS such as Bail Organa and the creation of the rebellion, Darth Vader being totally consumed in his hatred, the veiled references to Obi-Wan Kenobi and the twins, and so on. And it does a surprisingly good job of capturing the time period of ANH from the hair styles and mustaches of the rebel pilots to the delightfully clunky looking technology of the archive vault.

 

This! A nicely ordered summation of the PT-OT era. TPM and AOTC are useless and you can't start with ROTS so, yep. Rogue One is a solid, if mysterious, opening to this version of the saga. At least in this order, Vader's first appearance (in the suit) is pretty epic with that shadow on the wall inside his Castle....Anway, I actually really like how ROTS ends with Obi-Wan, Luke, the Lars and the Tatooine sunset (feeling in this order like a reprise of older Luke doing the same in ANH!), then Jedi starts on Tatooine again with C3PO and R2D2 (the only characters in all 5 movies). Works well. Feels continuous and purposeful.

 

I'd say ANH, R1 (to get the scrawl), TESB, ROTJ, TFA