WATCHING SW IN SEQUENCE

It is an interesting read, and I wish there were more like that, cause I don't think what everyone says is an exact science, but it is still a good read.

I look at it this way, she aint gonna be a diehard like we are. Whatever anyone wants to say about the saga, 1-6 or 4-6,1-3, there is always one of the 6 SW movies that sucks us into being a fan.

For me, it was Star Wars in '77, and cause I love that movie so much, the rest is just gravy for me, but the original SW is the reason why I am a SW fan, that movie is my favorite of any movie I have ever seen.

For many of my friends, it is ESB that made them fans, they just love Vader in that movie, and although they think ANH is a classic, ESB is what sold them as fans.

For the PT, I have read many here that AOTC is what sold them to SW. They mention that they liked TPM, but AOTC solidified their love for the rest of the saga.

What I am getting at, is whatever way you watch it, to be a diehard fan who watches these movies over and over and over since we first saw them, you have to love one, some, or all the movies. After reading her assessment, I think she liked em, but didn't love em, and to me, she aint gonna be a crazy SW fan like we are. I highly doubt she will be watching any of the 6 SW movies hundreds of times through her life, and I think everyone of us here has done that. Thats what makes us SW fans, the replay value, and never getting sick of them.

 

You make a good point, Boba. And I also agree that I want more stories like this one, they're usually very fun. That's what this thread used to be about, until people stoped posting them (the most frustrating part is that many people never finished their experiments and simply vanished, some of them had like only one movie left too).

Yes, she seemed to like them, but not love them. But I'm not sure she would have loved them even if she started with ANH. When asked about it, I remember that she said she wouldn't mind watching them again (interestingly she said she would prefer to watch the OT if she revisitd the Star Wars saga) but I agree that that's certainly very far of from a real fan.

It should also be considered that she is a female, and one who prefers romantic comedies at that. I'm not saying that girls can't be Star Wars fans (I know there are many women on these boards) but the majority of fans are male.

BTw, about the replay value, I used to watch these movies like all the time. But recently I discovered that I overexposd myself to them. I just can't bring myself to feel that excited when I watch them now, which has lead to me talking a big break from them to se if I can get the love back over time. It's like I enjoy talking about them more than watching them right now. Most disturbing.

Anyway, I guess my link didn't really bring the debate any closer to a conclusion. Hopefully it brought up some intersting points or at least was fun to read. I know that I liked reading it.

 

Thats interesting, cause SW movies are the only ones I never get sick of. Most movies in my DVD collection, including ones I truly love, I maybe watch once a year, cause I do need a break from them, or the magic will be gone.

For SW movies, I can't explain, I don't understand it, and I am suprised I have never gotten sick of any of them cause I have watched them so many damn times, the replay value is astounding.

That is my main point about whether the story works 1-6, or even 4-6, 1-3, if they don't love it, they are not going to revisit them again. To me, you have to love something to really want to watch something over and over, and SW movies are my one love when it comes to movies, just like Seinfeld is my one love when it comes to TV Sitcoms, as I watch all the episodes on DVD constantly.

I think what might happen in the future is new fans watch it 1-6, and do enjoy it, but because they are watching more the story rather than individual movies now, it may have less overall effect than it did for fans like us as we waited breathlessly for each movie over the years, even new fans who never saw the OT in theaters were waiting for the PT movies from 99-05.

Whatever anyone says about the saga or even the diehard OT fan who watches them 4-6, to me, each SW movie works individually just as well as it works as part of the story. Each ending montage of every SW movie to me represents a clear ending of the movie, and gives you that sense of completion, but in the same breath it does mean but never says once: To be continued.....

 

That was an interesting read about the girl who saw them in order the first time.

To me the Star Wars films are the ones I could watch over and over at any point. The pacing and visuals and musical quality is so great that it's more like listening to a great album than watching a traditional movie.

 

I don't know if this video has been mentioned or watched by any of you, but it is absolutely increbible. darthrazorback has done an amazing job on this. Any self respecting Star Wars fan must watch this video now. You will not regret it. I promise you.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=MvFpPvixUhc&search=spectacular

 

That was a cool watch. Very well done.

 

For anyone who is not interested in the tragedy of Anakin Skywalker character arc that is the saga 1-6 now. I like this way of watching the saga: 4,5,6,3

It still preserves the OT story about Luke, and keeps the minor subplot as Luke redeeming his father in Episode VI. It also keeps the focus on Han, Luke, and Leia as the main characters the whole time too.

Then by watching Episode III at the end, it is more a flashback of key plot points of how everyone got to Episode IV. It does not flesh out the characters like the whole PT does, but I know so many fans who just liked Episode III, and this preserves it now as a standalone prequel film.

Plus there is very little Jar Jar in my sequence of watching the movies.

 

Quote from NZPole
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"THE GREAT NERDIFICATION EXPERIMENT

STAR WARS - EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK

Okay here's ESB. An apology to make - I don't have a list of all the EU that I had lent to my ex prior to watching Empire. The reason for this was the London Bombings and because of what had happened we'd put aside our Star Wars passions for a long time and in that time period stuff got returned and stuff is still over at her place and I don't remember exactly what she had read or played or whatever. So I'm sorry that I cannot provide a list like I had prior to this - i'll try and amend this some time in the future once I had all of my stuff back."
_______________________________________________________________________________________________


Two days ago marks the first anniversary of NZPole's last post related to his Star Wars saga experiment. It's a year later and I'm still waiting for the report on Return of the Jedi


Wizard66

 

Ugh - that guy was just using this forum to promote some crappy short film he was making. He made up this whole line about showing some girl every SW book, comic, movie & cartoon in order, then disappeared for a while and came back saying "Sorry, I've been busy with this movie...by the way, here's a link!" If you go back I think you'll find me taking the piss out of him a few times...idiot.

 

Just got on the site for the 1st time in several months and came across this thread. Very interesting topic, I haven't read it from start to finish as that will just take waaay to long but I wanted to give my $.02.

I first was exposed to star wars as a kid in the late 80's by seeing the Return of the Jedi on TV, and then proceeded to watch the OT backwards. I liked the films very much and was very familiar with them by the time the PT came out. I honestly didn't have much of a desire to see TPM when it came out and finally did see it in the Fall of '99 when it was out for rental or on TV can't remember, but was hooked on the PT after TPM. I like the story of the PT, it is much more personal than the OT, IMO. I personally now find it painful to watch EP I-III and then go to EP IV-VI. Even though the OT has been digitally enhanced and it does look fairly good, it is far less dramatic than the PT and the special/visual effects make it a very hard transition to watch. Light sabre battles are sub par at best and the galaxy seems far less vast and complex in the OT now. Don't get me wrong I still enjoy the OT and imo, I think the best way to watch them is EP 1-6, but I think that if they were made in sequence the films would have flowed better and Vader wouldn't seem disconnected from the films as he does in the OT and the storyline would just have been better.

There are still many things that just don't make sense when going from the PT to the OT.

I would absolutely love to see a re-make of the OT with storylines changed slightly to enhance the characters and clean up some plot blunders between the 2 trilogies as well as have all the episodes be on the same level as far as special and visual effects go.

 

I haven't done it yet, but when I watch them all in order (maybe this weekend) I'll do it 4,5,6,1,2,3. In the order which I saw them originally. If I was to introduce anyone into the saga then I will do it the same way. I have no real reason to do it that way other than that's how I was introduced to the series. Even though it was over the course of two decades.

 

^I always thought ANH would be a better intro to star wars than TPM. On the other hand I love all the episodes and watching it in sequence makes the story alot better IMO. If you watch the OT first the characters of the PT will fail to bound with the viewer and to be honest, the PT was great but we sat there for 3 movies knowing the fate of the main characters and waiting for George to get to the point wich is Anakins turn to Vader. That is the MAIN reason why the PT "failed" with some viewers. Im your father VS ROTS? Future gens will probably watch them in sequence anyway.

 

"I'm your father" is the start of the great speedup towards Vader's redemption.

And that's all.

The real Most Important Line is "The power to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force."

That shows that no matter what, there is still abit of good guy left with Vader. The above isn't too different from what Yoda says in the next episode:

"Judge me by my size, do you? And well you should not, for my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is."

Force>everything for a Jedi..

 

Someone above mentioned "waiting for NZpoe's report on his ex's watching of RotJ", I guess you missed the part where he all but admitted that he made up his "ex" and her "reports" on watching the films. It was always a little obvious that this was all made up, as who is going to read 70 hack EU novels before they have even seen the original Star Wars? And one also might ask why an "ex" would spend long nights at with him? So don't hold your breath on that one!

 

As was pointed out one post later.

 

It's actually very sad to make up stories like that, but I get angry at them anyway becuase they ruin the credibility of everyone els's stories. And I happen to find reading those stories to be very enjoyable, and I do not like being decieved. people should just grow up dammit!

 

It is sad you can't trust anybodies story, and one of the reasons is they always seem to match up to exactly what the person posting loves. I would love to see someone post here who loves the PT, and says, a newbie watched the saga for the first time 1-6 and thought TPM & AOTC were duds and lost interest in the rest of the movies.

 

...then make up your own story.

 

Has it ever occurred to any of you guys that, based on all the flak I was getting because I wasn't posting fast enough because I actually had a LIFE to lead, that I may have just given up in frustration?

I mean who the hell wants to waste their time posting stuff for the benefit of other people when they get abuse for it? If you choose to believe me, then believe me. If you don't, then don't. You don't have to appreciate it or anything, but what's the deal with throwing tantrums while I'm away because you feel one way or another?

Y'know I think out of everyone I've probably had the most fun out of the whole experiment and had a great time rediscovering and re-experiencing the saga and that's what was important for me.

And y'know what's ironic? I've not watched my DVDs SINCE then. Far too much other interesting stuff out there to get into and I'll probably not watch them again until this so-called 2007 Ultimate Box Set thingamejig comes out.

Yeah I was a total prick for not at least telling people that I had no intention of going through all the work to write down another post (not to mention remember stuff we did SO LONG AGO), but at the time I didn't see any point because anything I posted would've illicited more name-calling and frankly, considering I was trying to do something that other people could enjoy and be inspired to try themselves, I didn't feel that ANYTHING I posted would've made people happy anymore.

I'm not going to violate my privacy or my friend's privacy just to show that I'm "for real" because nobody here has given me any reason to doubt THEM, so why should they doubt and abuse me?

In the past year I've been far too busy with my career and my non-online life to even check back on this forum regularly and in that time I've ceased to care what people think anyways. This thread was designed for discussion and sharing of ideas and opinions...instead it frequently dips into the realms of "nerd-war", which I think is a sad, sad thing. And anything I STILL post (including this) will no doubt just add more fuel to that fire.

And that's all I'm going to say on it. It would appear, going back through the pages of this thread, that I've inspired others to do the same and it seems that (if you can believe all the posts and I, for one, am going to give them the benefit of the doubt) they've been enjoyable and eye-opening experiences. I've particularly enjoyed catching up on these pages and reading the reactions of people who tried the same thing on their unsuspecting friends and relatives and found out that they had lost interest or hated it. That's pretty cool too.

For those of you who're still hankering to find out how it all turned out, I'll be brief.

Predictably my friend liked ROTJ, mostly the Death Star Throne Room stuff. My strongest memory from nearly two years ago is that she squeaked so loudly when she saw the baby ewok that my ear rang for several minutes after. She thought the ending was great and I didn't bother giving her any post-ROTJ EU stuff to read and she hasn't asked for it since.

I have no idea if she's watched the saga or read any of the EU stuff since then, but she certainly has never asked to borrow any of my stuff since.

But I do know that she's not a diehard fan like she was when we watching the movies together...she's obsessed with "Lost" and 80's British sitcoms now like "Blackadder" and "The Young Ones" which she never until quite recently.

And for that matter I don't think I'm that diehard a fan anymore either. I've even stopped buying the E

 

(NERVOUS SILENCE)

 

I really enjoy watching the in order, since that is now a possibility. I love how the whole thing fits together, and see Lucas as a master storyteller in this regard. Curiously, I find that I am drawn to the PT far more than the OT now, it has what Im looking for. And i grew up with the OT in the theaters, by the way. And to throw this in, wasnt it always about the Skywalkers? Who could have missed that? ROTJ was about saving Anakin. ANH was full of hints towards the fate of Luke's father. "He has too much of his father in him" "Thats what Im afraid of" "He knew my father?" "How did my father die" "I want to learn the ways of the Force and become a Jedi like my father" ESB "Why wish you to become Jedi" "Mostly because of my father i guess" "Father, powerful Jedi was he, powerful Jedi" "Too much anger in him, like his father" etc, the list goes on and on.

 

Still... for those of us who remember Star Wars and Empire in the theatre back in the day, the Bespin confession was the best movie moment ever. This mass-theatre audience shock will never, ever happen again.



- Notice how I did not break up the last five words of the first sentance by putting a period at the end of each word. I find that really, really retarded.

 

Intersting idea. I know personally I was always a fan of SW with the OT but really grew up with the PT. I liked TPM but AotC won me over to true SW fandom (hence why I joined TF.N is 2002 ). I know AotC gets beat around now but at the time it was a really fun and exciting movie to watch!

I've probably watched TPM more than any other movie in my DVD/VHS collection. I also never tire of watching any of the SW movies. The replay value is still there and I always come back finding something new.

 

There is nothing wrong with saying you love the PT. I love the PT., I grew up on the OT. From the moment ROTJ went to credits, i foamed at the mouth for more. TPM blew my mind, AOTC was an instant classic, and ROTS gives me chills. For the Saga to be complete is a personal highlight in my life. Now for some more Indiana Jones!