Saga Showing SW for the first time

It wouldn't be bad. But you were arguing that my approach introduced bias, which wouldn't allow newcomers to come to their own conclusions. So I'm simply pointing out that what you're striving for is not really possible; bias is present regardless of how a newcomer watches the movies. So then I'll ask you, what's so bad about someone starting with the 1977 movie called Star Wars? What would it hurt to see the OOT with release order?

I guess it doesn't matter whether I mention the year or not. But to be clear, I was referring to the movie title.

No, I never said that anyone else had to share my opinion. You just asked why I personally placed more significance on the art versus the artist, and I answered. I'm certainly not going to be explaining all that to a newcomer. I'll just show them the movie called Star Wars and let them formulate their own opinions from there. I would continually ask for their opinion though, because it's fascinating to hear what newcomers think about everything.

 

I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with release order. I'm just saying that it won't hurt the viewer to watch the films in numerical order and that they could easily have their own views if they were allowed to do so on their own.

 

How could they possibly develop their own views on what the best viewing order is if the movies come labeled with the episode numbers on them? Given that, the likelihood is greater that they'd watch in episodic order if left to decide on their own. And I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with that, but I am saying that it's essentially equivalent to my approach of "Hey, you wanna go watch the movie Star Wars?"? In both scenarios, an external force (labeled episode numbers, or my suggestion) is predisposing the newcomer to a certain viewing order. But other than that initial predisposition, the viewer is left to develop his or her own views.

So to reiterate, I'm saying that there's nothing wrong with a newcomer either deciding upon the episodic order based on the number-labeled movies or deciding upon the release order based on my suggestion. But for some reason, you take issue with option B.

 

If anyone were to ask me about where to start, my answer will always be the chronological order if possible.

 

Agreed, this is the way Lucas intended, and that should be brought up in the conversation at the very least when discussing viewing order.

 

It should also be brought up that numerous components of the narrative structure were designed for an audience who had not previously seen a Star Wars movie and that viewing it in a different way compromises that.

 

My girlfriend and I finally got around to The Empire Strikes Back (Despecialized). Her first words as soon as it finished were, "I loved that one. I really loved that one." It couldn't have gone over any better, honestly.

She's consistently impressed with how good the movies look despite their age; the larger budget relative to the original film was also pretty evident to her early on. She loves Leia, and it's been interesting to see the character through her perspective. After the scene when Leia was briefing the Rebel pilots immediately before the Battle of Hoth, she turned to me and said, "It's cool that she's giving the orders, but it's not like they're annoyed by it or questioning her or acting like she doesn't know what she's doing. And she's not even learning; she knows what she's doing and she's good at it, and they respect her. That's really impressive for a movie for a movie from the 80s, especially this kind of movie."

She really liked Leia and Han's relationship; they're back-and-forth sniping at each other elicited a lot of laughs (both movies so far have, but for the right reasons. I think people forget just how genuinely funny and charming these movies and characters are. She continues to find Luke endearing, Chewbacca cute (I heard "Aww" every time he mad a sad growling noise), 3PO annoying but funny ("Does he ever shut up?"), and she adores R2. But the character she really took to was Yoda. "He's just my favorite character right now. He's stolen my heart." Every time Yoda and R2 were on screen together she was ecstatic. Yoda's philosophies also align pretty closely with her own personal spirituality, so that made her really happy. I'm guessing she'll like Chirrut when we get to Rogue One.

What I've enjoyed the most is she reacts really well to what's going on, so it's as close as I can get to watching the movies for the first time all over again. She was surprised when Obi-Wan's ghost showed up; I made a point of not mentioning him appearing in this or RotJ, so I think she expected him to stay dead, or at the very least just be a disembodied voice from now on. She went "Oh ****" when Lando opened the door revealing Darth Vader sitting inside. This was immediately followed by her saying, very loudly, "Wait what the hell did he just betray them?" when it sunk in what had happened; she did not like Lando much after that. She loved seeing the Falcon hiding on the back of the Star Destroyer; she thought that was insanely clever, and there was another "Oh ****" when Slave I's engines fired up and Boba Fett started following. She gasped when Luke's hand got cut off, which was surprising because she asked me "Is this when he loses his hand?" when the duel started, so I'm guessing she was just shocked to see it actually happen. Although there was no reaction to "I am your father," which isn't really surprising to me since it was one of the things she knew going in; it's unavoidable. Oh, and when Lando first showed up I told her he's who Donald Glover is playing in the Han spin-off. She asked who's playing Han, I told her, and she proceeded to Google "Alden Ehrenreich" on her phone and held it up next to the TV when Han was on screen to compare. "He's playing him younger?" "Yeah." "Close enough."

I don't know when we're going to get around to Return of the Jedi, but she's looking forward to it. She loves these characters and this world, and she's invested in the story, so it'd be an understatement to say I'm pretty happy with how this has turned out so far. Also, given how much she's enjoyed Chewie, R2, and Yoda (and she can't wait to see BB-8), I'm assuming she'll probably love the Ewoks.
Some final remarks:
"I'd honestly watch the next one right now if I didn't have so much goddamn homework to do."
"Are they going to have to search the whole galaxy for Han?"
"Are the new movies about Luke's son?"
"Yoda's in the prequels? Oh right, he trained Obi-Wan. Does he train Anakin?"

 

We did Return of the Jedi (Despecialized) last night. She liked it, but not as much as the previous two. Whereas the original film was "Really good" and The Empire Strikes Back was "Great," she thought Return of the Jedi was "Okay." Again, she definitely liked it, but as a whole she felt the film was focused more on its special effects and less on its story or characters than either Star Wars or The Empire Strikes Back were.

The opening Jabba's Palace sequence played the best for her. She really likes these characters, and she likes seeing them together. She was genuinely upset when she saw Chewie brought in in chains, she was happy when one of the guards was revealed as Lando ("I'm glad he's finally redeeming himself), she was ecstatic when Leia took off the helmet (it literally provoked a physical reaction of excitement, along with an "I knew it!"), and she liked how cocky and self-assured Luke was in this portion of the film. But this was just generally the section that provoked the strongest reactions from her; everything from how disgusting Jabba was, to the cruelty of dropping people into a pit to be devoured ("Jesus Christ, it's like ancient Rome"), to the absolute weirdness of the droid torture chamber, to Leia killing Jabba (I keep waiting for them to weaken her character but she's still a badass").

I got the feeling the middle portion of the film dragged a bit for her. To be fair, we were both extremely hungry; we were watching the movie while passing time before going to a really late dinner for a friend's birthday, and neither of us had eaten all day, so I think that factored in a bit. She liked Luke going back to visit Yoda, but was saddened when he died (seeing more of Yoda is the principle reason she wants to watch the prequels). Loved the Ewoks. I mean, loved the Ewoks. Not just the fact that she thought they looked cute (But a little creepy, too. But still cute) but how savage they were, from wanting to eat Luke and Han to the quite frankly messed up ways they destroyed the AT-STs. During the final act, she freaked out when R2 got shot and started spazzing out, loved the reversal of the I love you/I know moment followed by Leia shooting the stormtroopers, and was a bit on edge during the Luke/Vader moments. There was a verbal reaction when Luke cut Vader's hand off after wailing on him. She was completely caught off guard by the Emperor's Force lightning, and steadily grew impatient with Vader while waiting for him to save Luke. Vader's death was sad for her, but not as much as either Obi-Wan's or Yoda's. She did make an interesting comment when Luke took the helmet off, though: she asked if the Emperor and Vader look the way they do because of using the Dark Side, as opposed to assuming their deformities were the result of sustained injuries. Finally, she let out an audible "Aww" when Anakin's Force ghost appeared next to Yoda and Obi-Wan.

My original plan was to show her the entire series in release order, but she's adamant about seeing The Force Awakens next (she's looking forward to meeting Rey and BB-8, and she wants to see what happens next), although she wants to wait a couple of weeks before watching it so she doesn't get burned out. After that she wants to do Rogue One (I am going to have so much fun watching her watch every single character die), so we'll get to the prequels sometime after that. Honestly, I'm happy to oblige; she's enjoying the movies, and I'm enjoying watching them with her. The older I get the more I find this is my favorite part of the series, sharing it and connecting over it with the people in your life, and it reminds me of a quote that one of the users on here has as their signature; "People don't love Star Wars because it's great, Star Wars is great because people love it."

 

We had company over a few weeks ago and my brother wanted to see Rogue One. He hadn't seen it yet because he didn't like Episode 7. His girlfriend never watched any Star Wars ever, so Rogue One was her first movie.

She loved it and cried at the end. She said a few times "this is Star Wars?" and we were like "yeah, it's Star Wars!". We ended up giving them our copy of the Complete Saga to borrow because she wanted to see more.

 

Disagreed, actually. My personal opinion is that, while authorial intent is a thing that I think should be taken into mind, consumer satisfaction is something that's just as, if not more, important. Like, we've got a ton of threads here about parallels or mirrors or whatever. While a lot of them are probably intentional, we can sometimes reach and find things that are either coincidence or not at all meant to be interpreted as that, but if it makes it better for us, great

I think it's the same thing when it comes to viewing order and which version somebody wants to see. If GL's preferred order brings about the best experience for someone, great. If release order (or some other order) is most emotional and gives the best experience, just as great!

As such, I believe the best thing to do is just give the explanation of "These came first, but they're the middle of the series" and see what they think would be the best for them