Saga Viewing Order Post-TFA

Very easily.

 

Is showing the movies out of order to an easily confused friend really such a great idea?

 

Release order. Other wise the biggest reveals are spoiled. Seems pretty simple to me.

Wiiith the exception of 7. I guess you could watch that wherever. Minus the 'clone troops' line. But then I'd still say release. So nothing changed.

 

Not if you mention that they were released that way. Would you show The Hannibal Lector prequel movies before Silence of the Lambs, even though they were released after it? Would you show someone the X-Men prequel movies before the XMen Trilogy?

It would actually help if you did explain to a friend which order the movie was released so they could understand the context. I know there are so many X-Men movies that have come out since Last Stand in 2006, I couldn't tell which timeline they were on so a friends recommendation would help alot.

 

The Hannibal films are based on books and the first book in the series is "Red Dragon". So you would be correct to show that film before "The Silence Of The Lambs". "Hannibal Rising" is a prequel book and film, made well after the original three books were written. So you could do that. I haven't seen "Hannibal Rising" so I cannot speak about that.

I discussed this back in June in the X thread.

http://boards.theforce.net/threads/...pocalypse-next-legion-logan.31296307/page-196

 

Why TPM?

Funny enough, that's how I find many people loving more after seeing the movies in order.

 

This may sound crazy but i like to watch it chronologically.

 

I said once that the order doesn't really matter due to the way I watch, because they are quite spread out viewings, even if many times total - so you are essentially watching the PT then the OT then the PT again, technically utilising both orders. I would watch TFA last though personally.

 

Like planned, I marathoned the Saga in Episodic order, with the canon Blu-ray versions of the first six films. I enjoyed the PT more than usual this time around, but I think that's more to do with me mellowing out as a person over the past year or so than the viewing order influencing my perspective of them. My take-away was that I understand why people prefer watching these versions of the films and in this order, but I'm just not one of those people and I can't reprogram myself to be. I still stand by release order and the OOT as the best way to watch the Saga, at least for me.

 

That's cool! I think it's the other way around for me. I understand your perspective and can definitely appreciate the release order experience, but my preferred order remains the episodic one.

 

Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones
Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

Untitled Han Solo Movie

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi

Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens
Star Wars Episode VIII
Star Wars Episode IX

 

Or, alternatively, (I, IV, VII), (II, V, VIII), (III, VI, IX) if you are looking to view parallels in the beginning, middle, and ending installments of the trilogies. I did that option for Episodes I-VI once and found it to be an incredibly rewarding experience.

 

I've done the Ring parallell order with I-VI (I-VI, II-V, III-IV) and that's also highly interesting.
It's gonna be VERY interesting to try that out with I-IX, though! I-IX, II-VIII, III-VII, IV-VI, V... followed by VI-IV, VII-III, VIII-II, IX-I

 

Showing my wife - who has never seen Star Wars before - the films for the first time in episodic order 1-6 before going to see TFA in theatres was an amazing, eye-opening experience. They really do work that way. By the time we got to ESB and Luke gets his arm cut off she said "well this is looking awfully familiar." She completely bought into Anakin's journey, and was worried that Luke was also being tempted to the dark side like his father. By the end of ROTJ she was crying as the story came full circle.
I strongly believe that the films work as the creator intended - and if you strip away the 40 years of nostalgia and expectations and watch it fresh through somebody else's eyes it makes you appreciate what Lucas achieved even more.

 

Disagree. Let them watch Anakin fall before the OT. George intends it that way.

 

Don't tempt 2019 Seagoat to do that all in one sitting....

 

D E W I T.

 

George ain't canon no mo'.

While i can watch it in chronological I - VII order, i still think it's best to introduce people to the saga OT first. 'The Adventures of Luke Skywalker' came a long time before 'The Tragedy of Darth Vader'. I can understand watching it through and seeing Luke's story parallel Anakin's, but it's the other way round, really - Lucas built stuff retroactively into the PT to parallel Luke's saga and struggle in the OT. It seems like a lessening / downgrading of the OT to me to see it the chronological way.

Just my opinion, though, obviously. If Lucas had made the PT without any 'rhyming' i'd be better disposed towards episodic order, probably. Then again, i still think preserving 'I am your father' is more of a priority than seeing Anakin's fall.

 

Nope, Anakin's fall is more important.

Would people rather watch movie scenes in shooting order. If principal photography begins with scene 19, then I guess it should be 1st in the movie. If they end with scene 8, then that should be watched last.

C'mon guys, you ruin the saga in release order. In RO, they will like the OT, then get bored senseless by the PT. Then showing ep7 after all that is just pointless.

In chron order, they will enjoy the PT as they feel it leads up to something. Then the OT will unequivocally blow their mind, then ep7 will be awesome as they see the Big3 older, with the new big 3 taking over.

Please, for the love of Star Wars, show it in episodic order. When they see Anakin and Obi fight again as old timers, it will remind them of Mustafar, and really hit emotionally. It is worth it.

It's better seeing Luke and Leia knowing that they came from the beautiful Padme Amidala. Makes you root for them more.

 

I absolutely and unequivocally disagree. Your analogy doesn't really apply because it's not as if they wrote and then shot all the movies at once; there's literally 28 years separating Episode III from Episode IV. The movies were released in a certain order; it'd be like watching Pulp Fiction in linear sequence. It was never really meant to build that way. The originals can't possibly build on the prequels because the prequels were written/filmed way, way later. Darth Vader and Anakin Skywalker were not the same person in Lucas' head when he wrote and filmed the original film, for instance.

And I don't see how it ruins it. Yeah, the story doesn't run linearly, but the progression of elements does. There's more to movies than just the story; films are more than what goes into the Wikipedia "Plot" section. Things are introduced in Star Wars, then built upon while new things introduced in The Empire Strikes Back, then further built upon while more new things are introduced in Return of the Jedi, and so on with The Phantom Menace etc. etc. The lightsaber duel in TESB clearly builds on the one preceding it, the one in RotJ builds on TESB's, the duel in TPM is a further escalation, again in AotC, then there are, like, five in RotS, and they all feature something new that builds on the previous five films. TFA is yet again something new due to the inexperience of its combatants, while also harkening back to the duels of IV-VI. The Force Awakens as a whole is a stylistic return to IV-VI, and the impact of that very deliberate is pretty much non-existent if you watch the films in episodic order. There's nothing to "return" to.

And it's not as if the PT is suddenly made boring because it's not what comes next; that idea really doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. They essentially answer questions the audience may have from the bits of backstory revealed in the OT. What are the Clone Wars? How did the Jedi fall? How did the Empire come to power? How did Anakin become Darth Vader? Those questions are all answered in turn in such a way that's clearly intended for audience members who are already aware of the "what," they just need the "who/where/when/why/how." Lines such as "Begun... the Clone War has," come across as unnecessarily dramatic unless you already heard Luke say "You fought in the Clone Wars?" a few movies ago, and know that it's an event that you're going to see come to pass at some point in the PT. The films in release order build to that, because the films as released over the span of decades built to that. The same for lines like, "Henceforth, you shall be known as Darth... Vader."

The OT films are structurally designed as an adventure; part of that involves dramatic discovery, where the audience discovers things alongside the lead protagonist. Everything is seen through Luke's eyes, and every revelation is just as shocking to us as it is to him. The prequels, however, are structurally designed as a tragedy; there's a sense of foreboding present from the first minutes of The Phantom Menace that only builds throughout the next two films. Part of a tragedy's power comes from dramatic irony, wherein the audience knows how things will turn out and is forced to watch the characters damn themselves to a predetermined fate. The structure of both is completely undermined watching the films in episodic order; I'd argue if any order "ruins" the saga (and neither actually does), it'd be that one.

 

Flashback order for new viewers and then episodic order any other time. Eventually I would view them with the anthology films (the good ones, at least).

 

Having just finished going through the first six films (one a week) with my friend who didn't even know "I am your father" and knew almost nothing about the series as a whole I have come to believe Machete order would've been best.

I opted to go for OT then PT, and while this worked pretty well, now making the jump from III to VII is going to be very jarring. In fact, when we finished III she had no real interest at all in seeing VII, and felt that anything past the first six movies would be "ruining it." She was shocked at the Vader reveal, loved Return of the Jedi and after that wsa incredibly curious about I-III. She (surprisingly to me) loved the Phantom Menace, calling it better then the original movie (which she ranks as the second worst overall, claiming it is just "a lot like other movies I've seen, not very interesting or original." When I point out that it is the other movies she's seen that are unoriginal she just brushes that aside) and she hated Attack of the Clones.

She thought Phantom was "great" and she also said Clones was "boring beyond belief." She thought the romance was laughable and was really confused overall by the plot and what was going on. However, after Attack of the Clones we immediately watched Episode III and this seemed to confirm to me something I've always beleived: III is best watched right after II. Anakin's fear of losing Padme plays really well if Shmi's death is still on your mind. She thought Episode III was the best of the entire series and had the best story, but as it ended she felt it was a shame the whole thing had to end on a bit of a downer note. So I think in the end Machete would've been best overall, because I do think going from Anakin turning to Palpatine trying to Luke is really powerfull, as is watching Vader's fall and return back to back. In the same way, after we watched Jedi she was most interested in Vader and all of the backstory and I think if we had already seen the prequels she would be more interested in what happened next.

On the other hand I suspect that all of the nostalgia of VII and the different reveals of the old characters will play better if you haven't seen them in a while. So in that sense it's been a whole trilogy since we saw Han and Leia and Luke so those moments might be more impactful. Probably watching VII this week before Rogue One comes out, so we'll see what she thinks of it. She's bought in entirely to the Anakin/Vader story so it'll be interesting to see if she accepts this as a logical continuation of that.