Saga Star Wars marathon- what is essential content? (SPOILERS FOR EVERY MOVIE/SHOW)

Hello all! Been recently contemplating a fresh go through of the Star Wars movies with my kids and wanted to include some of the recent films / anthology show episodes / animated arcs to get a true "full" story for the saga.

Some quick background, myself and my kids have already seen EVERYTHING - to include all films / tv shows / and animated series (including bad batch, tales of jedi, rebels, clone wars). If i ignore the need to explore anything post-ROTJ in this marathon, that eliminates the need to watch any of the sequel trilogy (which we are all indifferent on) as well as Mando/Boba Fett shows (which we like but I don't yet view as essential to "understand" anything in the saga as a whole. Maybe when more is made clear, with future seasons, on the general direction of the arc they plan to take it. Currently it is just an epilogue for me on Luke post ROTJ and Ahsoka a bit to the same extent).

Anyway would love to hear everyone's general thoughts. I am trying to keep this as LEAN as possible, since we have seen everything already. We are generally trying to keep this focused on main movie characters + Maul and Ahsoka. Generally, that is why most Clone Wars arcs involving the Clones themselves (which do a great deal to humanize them) were left off the list (sorry Umbara fans!).

Here is what we have come up with so far as viewing order (since we have seen everything we wanted to do a chronological viewing):

Phantom Menace

Tales of Jedi - Dooku turn to darkside

Attack of Clones

*Clones Wars movie - (to cover Ahsoka intro though admittedly we could prob skip much of it)
Clone Wars - Mortis Arc
Clone Wars - Darth Maul Returns (starting with "Brothers" episode - then "Revenge", "Revival", "Eminence", "Shades of Reason", & "The Lawless"
Clone Wars - Jedi Temple Bombing/Ahsoka leaving arc
Clone Wars - Fives Conspiracy Arc (season 6)
Clone Wars - Syfo Dyas / Yoda living force/visions arcs (Last 4 episodes of Season 6)

Revenge of the Sith

Clone Wars - Siege of Mandalore
Tales of Jedi - Last two episodes (essentially Ahsoka clone wars epilogues)

*Obi-Wan show - definitely the final episode / possibly the 1st episode also and the one covering his and Vader's 1st fight post ROTS as well......This is the one we are struggling with the most (as far as what NEEDS to be watched vs. can be summarized verbally since we have seen it).

Rebels - Spark of Rebellion arc
*Rebels - Siege of Lothal (debating if needed)
Rebels - Twilight of Apprentice arc
Rebels - Twin Suns
Rebels - Finale

Rouge One
A New Hope
Empire Strikes Back
Return of Jedi

Eager to hear thoughts!

 

For me, the Clone Wars microseries is a must. After watching AotC, I watch CW up to just after Anakin's knighting. Then on to whichever episodes of TCW I want to include. Then just before RotS, I watch the rest of CW.


I know you didn't mention books, but in case anyone else is interested, I think The Rise of Darth Vader is a perfect addition and transition point from PT era into Dark Times era. And perhaps Cloak of Deception before starting TPM to set the state of everything. (They're available in audiobook).

 

Just my personal opinion:

The Phantom Menace
Attack of the Clones
Revenge of the Sith
Rogue One
A New Hope
The Empire Strikes Back
Return of the Jedi

This is the essential material to watch. Everything else is just optional in my opinion. To be honest, there are days in which I think that even the Prequels and Rogue One are optional.

 

Defining 'essential' as 'things I would willingly watch again,' I don't need anything animated, nor the PT, nor most of BoBF. Solo, ST, and Kenobi aren't anything special, but I'll probably see all of them again at some point. Mando and Andor are kind of essential. R1 and OT are absolutely essential.

 

If you're doing quick and dirty, then yes this. Though I also include OWK.

 

I actually think you should introduce Star Wars to new fans in the order that they were released. Let's face it: ANH is the building block and the narrative everything else unfurls from it.

We are delivered information based on having seen the original 3 films, then the prequels, and so forth. New content is created/new stories are told this way. I mean, you can watch Obi-Wan without having watched the OT or Prequels....but is it a maximized viewing experience? You can watch Mando without having seen any SW films (or TCW show) but a lot is lost for the 1st time viewer.

 

A New Hope
The Phantom Menace

 

"Essential" is a very subjective thing here

I personally feel like it depends on what you want out of a SW viewing. I guess- oh **** lol I just saw TCF's post, and that's pretty much the same thing
But yeah, I feel like the saga movies themselves is perfectly fine for a complete picture of the "main story". Or you can throw in stuff that's very adjacent to the main saga films. The Obi-Wan show and RO/Solo are great for that. Then I think TCW is sort of in its own tier afterwards, and below it, in varying different levels of adjacency to the story, would be other shows like Rebels, Andor, etc

I suppose I'd say it's whatever is most related to the BIG deals of the Skywalker Saga. Like, knowing Dooku's backstory and all that is cool, sure, but what's told and shown to us in the films is already his greatest relevancy to the story. His backstory in TOTJ is sort of like a good supplementary thing. And likewise, with TCW, I kind of see it as sort of.... fillerish, if that makes sense? What we "need" to know about the Clone Wars is shown to us in the films - ironically, just how it begins and how it ends, because that's what's most relevant and meaningful in Anakin's journey and what it means for the ongoing story of the Skywalkers/galaxy at large. We definitely need to see that he gets embroiled in a war and later falls to the dark side in an attempt to save his wife near the war's end. Do we "need" to see all the different battles and smaller scale personal conflicts he had over the course of the war? Do we "need" to know he had an apprentice of his own, that Maul survived and did his own stuff in the meantime? Just for the Skywalker story, I feel the answer's no, but it's nice that all that other stuff is there

TL;DR - I think that the main films themselves are enough of a complete experience in their own vacuum, but I think everything else is nice additional details to have, even if the blanks they fill in aren't really essential to the story thematically or narratively, and with varying levels of relevance to the saga

 

- For the full Skywalker Saga experience, just watch the Skywalker Saga from beginning to end.
- For the full cinematic Star Wars canon experience, watch EVERYTHING that's canon in chronological order (If you want to include the non-canon stuff as well, go for it).
- For the full George Lucas Star Wars experience, watch Saga episodes I-VI and TCW.

- Finally, for the "essential" experience, just watch what feels essential to you.

 

I think “essential” to me really just means the OT.

 

"Essential"? That word alone is highly subjective. In my personal opinion that would be only ANH - ESB - ROTJ - TPM - AOTC - ROTS, in that order. Everything else would be strictly optional, and nowhere near essential.

 

I was trying to do this but Disney ended up producing too much content for me, so now I’m just trying to come up with a list of TCW arcs/episodes that are most essential to tell a condensed self-contained Lucas-approved story to accompany the first six movies.

 

So to reply to OP, it's totally subjective and whatever you think will make for the best experience with your children. Ultimately you know their tastes best so I'd say adjust the viewing order or selections as you go to where you think they'd get the most enjoyment.

I've also actually been slowly going through the Star Wars saga since last spring with my daughter who's 5, and we finally just finished ESB tonight.

I've been showing her the films in chronological order. For one it's like I'm experimenting on her to see how one sees Star Wars from a chronological perspective, so I'm getting a kick out of how she's absorbing the series. Also figured Episode 1's tone was a good start for her sensibilities.

However, the one thing I can't resist from sharing is, this whole seeing it by numerical order business, has essentially made Obi-Wan her favorite character full stop. She really gravitated to him after Episode II. So based on that, after we finished Revenge of the Sith last summer, I thought she'd appreciate the saga more if we went through the Obi-Wan series. Plus it helps there's a

Spoiler

little kid in Leia

for her to relate to. Of course I found out there's a price to this which is:

To her Obi-Wan was THE franchise. She saw him as the main protagonist as a result of this, so just imagine her utter shock when we got to the lightsaber duel in A New Hope. Absolutely devastated when Obi got struck down. Really cried her eyes out. Made the whole discourse about TLJ Luke almost look tame by comparison. Obi Wan speaking to Luke beyond the dead was about the only thing that comforted her about him getting killed off for the rest of the movie.

So yeah it's gonna be fun stuff like that. Magic of parenting.

 

For me, its:

Rogue One (the only prequel you need, sets up the original trilgy better than anything else)
Original Trilogy ('nuff said)
Dark Empire Trilogy (the only continuation that really follows on from Return of the Jedi instead of starting a new story with the sae characters)

 

"Essential" to me would be the George Lucas Star Wars: PT, TCW, and OT. That's it right there. He's the creator and author so ultimately all you really need is what he gave us.

However, for my own personal enjoyment, my Star Wars list of "essential" viewing materials has grown quite large:

- Darth Plagueis (Read Parts 1 and 2)
- Cloak of Deception
- The Phantom Menace Supercut (which includes Part 3 of Darth Plagueis and the Dooku Tales of the Jedi episodes)
- Attack of the Clones
- Clone Wars (Microseries up until Knighting)
- The Clone Wars (movie and TV series, including Crystal Crisis Animatics, Son of Dathomir comic, and Dark Disciple, and excluding Siege of Mandalore)
- Labyrinth of Evil
- Revenge of the Sith Supercut (which includes the Microseries Battle of Coruscant, Siege of Madnalore, and the ROTS deleted scenes)
- The Bad Batch Destruction of Kamino Arc
- Obi-Wan Kenobi
- Solo
- Rebels (Fire Across the Galaxy, The Siege of Lothal, Shroud of Darkness, Twilight of the Apprentice, Wolves and a Door, World Between Worlds, Finale and Farewell)
- The Force Unleashed YouTube Movie
- Rogue One
- A New Hope
- The Empire Strikes Back
- Return of the Jedi
- The Mandalorian: Season 1
- The Mandalorian: Season 2
- The Book of Boba Fett (Episodes 4-7)
- Ahsoka

I do anticipate adding the rest of the Thrawn storyline - hopefully that can provide a satisfying conclusion for the post-ROTJ era of storytelling! Also I do love the Old Republic era, but the stories I enjoy from that really don't mesh well with the movie era stories (unless you headcannon that Revan is Shmi Skywalker's ancestor, which I kind of always have).

 

The Phantom Menace
Attack of the Clones
The Clone Wars
Revenge of the Sith
Rebels
Rogue One
A New Hope
The Empire Strikes Back
Return of the Jedi
The Mandalorian
Ahsoka

Basically the stuff created by George Lucas and/or Dave Filoni. R1 isn't essential by this definition; it's just really good and I think everyone should see it.

 

I recently came up with a list of all the canon entries ordered in what I feel are most-important to least-important (at least for newcomers):

Original Trilogy
Sequel Trilogy
Prequel Trilogy
Obi-Wan Kenobi
Solo
Andor
Rogue One
The Clone Wars (in chronological order)
Tales of the Jedi
Rebels
The Mandalorian Seasons 1-2
The Book of Boba Fett
The Mandalorian Season 3
Ahsoka
Skeleton Crew
The Bad Batch
Resistance
Young Jedi Adventures
Rebels Shorts
Young Jedi Adventures Shorts

My thinking was that a newbie could go thru this list and then jump off wherever they get bored.

For more context, I made a blog post where I detailed all my choices: http://henrynsilva.blogspot.com/2023/10/full-circle-order-new-way-to-watch-star.html?m=1

 

Prequel Trilogy, Original Trilogy, Sequel Trilogy. Clone Wars, Rebels, Rogue One, Andor, Kenobi, Mandalorian, Book of Boba Fett, Ahsoka.

 

Just watch 1-6, and you can really stop there. Some of the rest is ok, but not really required viewing.

 

Everything including cartoons but not the holiday special or ewoks. I also include the 2003 clone wars but haven't found beat way to integrate it... there is a way to do it episode by episode but think I'd go first part of 2003... then the film.. then first six seasons of TCW... then part two..then season 7 ... it's quite funny the most amazing feature of star wars, order 66 is so hard to watch in chronological order as it's seem from so many different angles by different shows

 

The Ewok movies!

 

I'll agree on the first one, but the second short-circuits the first one's happy ending, setting the stage for the ST decades later.