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

Fair enough. Though if you own all the other films, I’d personally recommend owning Solo. It’s really up there in quality, IMO. And Solo-Rogue One-ANH-ESB is a beautifully seamless quadrilogy.

 

TLJ
AOTC
SOLO
ROTJ
R 1
TESB
ANH
ROTS
TFA
TPM

 

Rogue One. And then Rogue One.

 

I usually watch the films in chronological order, but I tried to do it with Rogue One and it totally killed the momentum of the story for me, so I’ll continue to treat it as an outlier from the saga proper. I can still follow it with ANH or even sandwich it between ROTS and ANH, but it doesn’t really work for me as part of the larger story.

That said, I haven’t even attempted full chronological viewing with Solo, but the presence of Darth Maul makes me feel like the animated shows should be part of that viewing as well. So maybe once this final season of TCW is out I’ll try to get through everything in chronological order (or maybe just keep TCW in release order, because unlike the films I think they do mostly work better that way).

 

I would probably watch PT first, followed by Solo, Rogue One and OT.
But... to be completely honest, nowadays I only rewatch OT and RO. These movies are the best SW has to offer in my opinion.

(No, I didn't forget ST. I just like to pretend it doesn't exist.)

 

Is there a reason for this order? I can't make head or tails of it.

 

Nothing makes sense with The Battle for Endor included.

 

I only watch the OT, RO and Solo these days.

 

4-5-1-2-3-6-R1

No sequels. I wish I had not watched them really.
Then I might have thought I am missing out on something good, with the hope I will eventually get to watch them.

 

I can see the merits of watching in either chronological order or release order, but I was exposed to SW with the release the order and that is how it worked for me. So when I show SW to others, I tend to introduce the franchise by the release order. That means that I would probably show RO after the OT and the PT as well. But RO fits very seamlessly between 1-2-3 and 4-5-6 if you want to watch in chronological order. RO can also serve as an entry point to the franchise if you just want to show the OT story to someone.

The only one that is a bit odd is Solo, because of the Maul cameo. The movie experience feels incomplete without watching TCW first.

 

challenge accepted

 

I haven’t attempted it yet, but Solo begs for TCW and Rebels to be included in that viewing as well. Usually I still just stick to the episodes proper and then watch the standalone films as just that.

 

Yeah...I love Star Wars but I have neither the time nor the attention span to watch all ten movies in one sitting. Two to three movies a day is where it’s at for me. Anyway, here’s my preferred viewing experience for newbies:

ANH or RO (or TFA for a gateway film)
ESB
ROTS (TPM and AOTC are optional)
ROTJ
Solo
TFA
TLJ

Rogue One is the best Prequel film and makes for a decent first Star Wars film. However, ANH (obviously) and TFA are much stronger gateway movies.

Revenge of the Sith is also a good choice for a gateway movie, as well as being a strong backstory that provides context for the relationships between the Jedi, Anakin, Obi-Wan, Padme, and the Emperor. I like the other two Prequels as fun filler films (TPM especially), but ROTS is easily the most interesting and most essential. It can stand on its own in my opinion, while the others are for more hardcore fans.

 

Most of 3, and all of 4-6 in a day.
Might have done 4-7 at one point as well.

 

Yeah - when I get that rare chance to watch the entire series with new people I tend to do release order(456, 123, 7,8, Solo/R1). But, once people have seen them and know about Vader being Lukes Dad and all the other surprises and reveals, watching them in time line order with Rogue One sandwiched between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope is really an awesome way to view them. It gives R1 sooooo much more weight & validity.

You are right though - as new stories and whatever get added then the release order method is going to get to be quite the cluster-muck. It almost is now with R1 and Solo in the mix. Straight timeline as in watching the films purely in "when they occured" order is getting to be the best way to do it these days!

 

It does minimize the timeline jumping. While some people can take it in stride, I know people who have seen the movies multiple times and still can't keep the internal order straight or remember which new movie is a sequel/prequel to what. Of course, I also think that the idea of starting with the original trilogy to preserve the Darth Vader reveal is kinda something that's really becoming less and less important as the twist is part of pop culture these days and the franchise is expanding far beyond that original story.

 

No doubt about the Vader reveal - even non SW fans probably by now have heard about that! C'mon!

So other than the Vader reveal there really isnt any major reason to NOT watch them in timeline order. We prefer watching them that way and thats how we'll do it from here on out.