Yes, but the other way may leave her more excited for the actual movie versus peaking early and then slogging through the PM.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. The best order is this:
Episode IV
Episode V
Episode I (optional)
Episode II
Episode III
Episode VI
This way, you start off in the awesome, with not much knowledge about the universe. Then, as soon as Darth Vader is revealed as Luke's father, it basically goes into a flashback about him. You can skip Episode I because really, there's not much that happens there that has much of an impact on the overall story. So you see the fall of Anakin which is then starkly contrast with his redemption in ROTJ.
The emotional punch of Anakin's journey is at it's best this way IMO. I read about this order online a few years ago, and it's now the order I always watch in.
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So my wife has never seen Star Wars (and I still married her)
Anyway, I am looking forward to sitting down with her over the next two months and working our way through the movies. Question is, do I do it by movie release date or chronologically?
My kids only watched the original 3, but they were into the Clone Wars series, and genuinely wanted to watch episodes 1-3. So last week, we watched "The Last Turn to the Dark Side", a merging of the two best fan edits of episodes 1-3 into a single 2.5+hr movie. These were inspired by Topher Grace's famous recut of the three movies that has only been seen by a few of his friends.
It makes the movies bearable, and, more importantly, has a much clearer story arc: Anakin's turn to the dark side. Basically, no Jar Jar, no Anakin-as-a-child, no gratuitous cgi fight scenes. And, it's less than 3 hours
Watching it again, I was surprised how terrible the cgi really was. Way too cartoonish, with clunky interaction with real-life characters.
"The best order I’ve seen suggested is as follows:
IV: A New Hope (original trilogy)
V: The Empire Strikes Back (original trilogy)
I: The Phantom Menace (prequel trilogy)
II: Attack of the Clones (prequel trilogy)
III: Revenge of the Sith (prequel trilogy)
VI: The Return of the Jedi (original trilogy)
Basically, you have a very extended flashback between episodes V and VI.
That puts the oldest and clunkiest SFX first, avoids spoiling the revelations from episode V, and finishes at the end of the story. And it means you won’t stop and give up in disgust after watching only one movie."
Think this is practical for an actual newbie to the series? I like the idea of it...
Think this is practical for an actual newbie to the series? I like the idea of it...
I would say so. Either that or by release date. Otherwise you start with the worst two. Even hardcore Star Wars fans have a tough time getting through those. You have to know Anakin is Darth Vader, or he's just an annoying whiny brat.
Ok, it is decided, I will go with the IV, V, I, II, III, VI.
I would be tempted to replace I, II, III with the fan recut "Last Turn To The Darkside", but am a bit of a visual/audio snob and couldn't suffer watching a 3hr youtube video on my TV.
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^^^ I've never seen the recut (although I am intrigued now), but I'm sure it's HD on Youtube.
Also, forgot to mention, ROTJ actually holds up really well jumping from ROTS. You would think there would be a pretty good drop off in quality, but it's amazing how well the practical effects age.
why are you even trying to find a way to make her sit through the prequels? if they do things right in TFA, those won't be prerequisites in the slightest. JJ probably even went out of his way to avoid anything at all from those 3 films, aside from having Rey look distractingly like her grandma from Attack of the Clones.
...again, you're really going to make your wife sit through a movie entitled "Attack of the Clones"?
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Two hunches: Oscar Isaac is the Sith apprentice to Kilo Ren's master.
Kilo Ren is indeed Leia and Han's son and they're torn up.
I have my doubts that Kylo Ren is the master here, I think he's either an apprentice, or more logically, the rule of 2 is gone or he's not a Sith Lord.
Here me out because this makes some sense.
First scenario (And the one that should be true)
When Sideous and Vader died, that ended the Sith Lineage, under the rule of two. All of the knowledge accumulated that lead to Palpatines rise is gone, no holocrons, nothing.
Kylo is a dark side user, he was trained as a Jedi and for some reason fell.
Now the difference between the Sith and a mere dark side user is huge. Sith understand that the base emotions of fear anger hatred etc are a means to an end, and a tool to be used towards achieving the ultimate end goal of rulling all. To bring peace and order to the universe.
Dark Side users are just that, they have more earthy goals, Vengence and power.
So maybe Ren the fallen Jedi is part of an order or group of Dark Side users, but he's heard the stories of Vader and Palpatine and how they seized the galaxy and he realizes that to do that he needs to restart the Sith lineage and reform it, that's why he's chasing all of these objects of Sith knowledge and power. Once he gains that knowledge, he will name himself a Dark Lord of the Sith, find an apprentice, betray the leadership of the First Order and destroy the resistance, thus finishing what he believes that Vader and Palpatine started, a galaxy ruled by the Sith with peace and order.
Or the second scenario which is I hope less likely
when Vader and Sideous died, Vader had been preparing to make his move on his master and he had found and trained an apprentice in case Luke refused to help him in his goal of throwing down Palpatine and taking his mantle. When the Sith died this apprentice hid and studied and waited and watched the Empire Crumble. when it did, he stepped in and seized power and reformed the Empire. He then found a Jedi (Kylo) and corrupted him and made him his apprentice. He then tasked this apprentice with recovering all lost knowledge and symbols of the last two great Sith Lords .
As for the mask and appearance , to me the more I look at it, the more it looks like an attempt at an amalgamation of Revan and Vader.
Spoiler!
Maybe this rumor about him belonging to a group called the Knights of Ren, is a misdirection
The Knights of REvaN
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My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Last edited by CaptainCrunch; 10-20-2015 at 09:58 AM.
Yeah no joke. The prequels all have terrible names.
But really, the prequels are decent minus pretty much any scene between Anakin and Padme. Just plain awful. Story wise, II and III are pretty integral and III is actually really good minus the "Noooo!" Seriously. All they needed was Vader being wheeled up on the bed and hear the breath. Cut to black.
Yeah no joke. The prequels all have terrible names.
But really, the prequels are decent minus pretty much any scene between Anakin and Padme. Just plain awful. Story wise, II and III are pretty integral and III is actually really good minus the "Noooo!" Seriously. All they needed was Vader being wheeled up on the bed and hear the breath. Cut to black.
No, they really aren't. They are terrible, terrible films. The only thing they did well was pander to nostalgia near the end of ep 3.
The transformation of Anakin to Darth Vader and the buildup of the empire was such an opportunity to tell an epic story. But they missed the mark on pretty much everything.
I hope one day someone has an opportunity to re-tell that story with a much darker and more mature vision (not to mention halfway decent writing, directing, and acting), so the prequels can pretty much be removed from history.
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A few weeks after crashing head-first into the boards (denting his helmet and being unable to move for a little while) following a hit from behind by Bob Errey, the Calgary Flames player explains:
"I was like Christ, lying on my back, with my arms outstretched, crucified"
-- Frank Musil - Early January 1994
I guess this one resonates with me because it shows the power of the empire against a small rebel band. Basically this whole movie is one a$$ kicking after an other and while it has a optimistic ending, its more like seeing the sun peak over the horizon on a rainy day. Effects wise it was very good for its time. We see that Vader is more then just a thug or enforcer, but a very powerful person, with a very human story. Everything really came together in this movie.
Key Scene number 1 - "I am your father", this changed movies forever, this was the twist before the twist became popular. I remember seeing that and thinking, not wow, or even believing it. Vader was the ultimate evil trying to seduce this powerful kid, and to me, he was lying. Only to have it slammed in your face with Luke accepting it.
Key Scene number 2 - "There are lots of them, but the Lando betrayal scene, when the door opens and Vader stands up and cooly blocks Hans shots then invites them to dinner as Fett who was still cool at the time calmly watches. I've always wondered what happened when that door slammed, I know that years later Robot Chicken did a great spoof on it. But did they actually have a civillized conversation? Did Vader gloat and tell them what was going to happen?
Episode 5 - A New Hope
The movie that started it all. Great effects for the time (more on that later). Great heros and villains, but awkward dialogue. Vader in this movie was really a secondary villain, you had no sense of a pathetic broken man. But when he tortured Leia you saw strength and viciousness. Yes Luke was whiny. But you couldn't help but be fascinated by Obi Wan, and charmed by Han.
Key Scene Number 1 - The first scene of the Star Destroyer coming in over your head. I had never scene anything like that before. I could almost feel my seat shacking from the passage, and my usually stoic dad who had taken his 10 year old kid to the theatre on his birthday, actually inhaled in shock and then quietly dropped an f-bomb.
Key Scene Number 2 - The destruction of Alderaan scene just for the banter between Tarkin and Leia, and you found out later that Tarkin could blow up her home world and she still wouldn't break.
3) Revenge of the Sith
Ok, I liked a lot about this movie. I loved the opening effects, I was a big fan of Palpatine in the entire trilogy. Ewan continued to put on a strong performance as Obi Wan. Yes there was a lot wrong with this movie, and they could have done far more with Anakins turn. But I liked it because I could get past a lot of awkwardness to get to the final scene.
Key Scene number 1 - The exchange in the opera house between Anakin and Palpatine. Ian is amazing in this scene, and he's like a gardener who's been planting seeds for the past few years and have seen the first malignant growths popping out of the ground. You could almost see him do a mental fist pump when Skywalker asks how he can learn these powers.
Key Scene number 2 - The montage at the end that leads of to ANH, especially the scene on the Star Destroyers bridge with Palpatine, Tarkin and Vader. Frankly the body language of Vader was perfect. This wasn't the sad confused man of ROTJ, this was the seriously pissed off guy who had lost everything and wanted to take it out on the Jedi and the galaxy vader.
4) Attack of the Clone - I'm going to take heat for this but its my party and I'll fry if I want to. I could almost split this movie into two. The love story between Anakin and Padme which was really badly done. Yes the dialogue was bad, but Portman and Hayden put in bad performances and had little chemistry on screen. The second part was the rest. Ewan was a great Obi-Wan and really seemed to relish playing him. Christopher Lee was brilliant as Dooku, he resonated contempt for the Jedi. But the biggest thing, the shadow menace, was Palpatine in the back ground manipulating things with very little screen time. you felt the curtain dropping on the Republic as the Jedi got pushed further away from what they were. I liked the clones concept a lot, and it was great to see the early Storm Troopers, and they were the good guys. You knew that betrayal was coming to.
Key Scene 1 - The battle in the bowl. We finally saw a lot of jedi fighting and this was the height of their power. You also saw that their arrogance had consumed and doomed them. The scene with the Clones fighting the Droids with the dust blowing and the huge AT-TE's going up against the Droid enforcers was awesome to me
Key Scene 2 - The fight between Dooku and Anikan and Obi-Wan. The contempt and the ease that they were disposed of was a sign of the power of the Sith. While I didn't like the Yoda flying around thing, Chris Lee really sold this scene
Movie 5 - The Return of the Jedi
This wasn't a great movie, it went back to the stilted dialog of the first one. While the Jabba the Hutt stuff was cool, the pacing was really slow, and the effects especially with the light sabre really hurt it. The battle scene in space was very cool, but the ewok stuff on the ground was eye rollingly bad. Love the battle for the fate of the galaxy between Vader and Luke with Palpatine waiting to claim the winner was excellent. The duel of the fates music when Luke attacked Vader with dark fury was incredibly well done. But this movie was just too cutesy and ham handed. We also finally saw Vader for what he was, a pathetic broken sad man who had been a slave his whole life.
Scene Number 1 - Vader lands on the Death Star and threatens the Moff. You just see the terror when the officer tries to reason with Vader and learns that the Emperor was coming and was not as forgiving.
Scene Number 2 - Luke confronts Sideous for the first time, and learns the power of the darkside.
Movie 6 -The phantom Menace
I looked forward to this movie for years, and it crushed me a bit. Mostly because I had grown 20 years older and wasn't a kid anymore. This felt like a kids movie. Liam and Ewan did their best to save it, but seeing Vader as an 8 year old was kind of silly. On the positive side, we saw what Palpatine was before he was the Emperor and he was awesome in this whole movie. The fight between Obi, Qui-gon and Maul was incredibly well done, as we saw out prototype of Vader.
Scene 1 - The scene where Padme decides to return home despite Palpatine begging her to stay where it was safe. Then the camera zooms in on Palpatine and we see that smirk of Satisfaction and get our first real glimpse of Sideous.
Scene 2 - The hanger door opens and we see the cloaked shadow. Obi and Qui-gon somewhat arrogantly proclaim that they'll handle it. the the cloack comes off and the Sabre Staff ignites, and we see that the Jedi aren't the most powerful force users in the galaxy.
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My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
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No, they really aren't. They are terrible, terrible films. The only thing they did well was pander to nostalgia near the end of ep 3.
The transformation of Anakin to Darth Vader and the buildup of the empire was such an opportunity to tell an epic story. But they missed the mark on pretty much everything.
I hope one day someone has an opportunity to re-tell that story with a much darker and more mature vision (not to mention halfway decent writing, directing, and acting), so the prequels can pretty much be removed from history.
For anyone that really wants to see how the seduction of Vader should have been done as well as the Empire. Go out and buy the Matt Stover novalization, and then buy Dark Lord the rise of Darth Vader.
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My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
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I hope one day someone has an opportunity to re-tell that story with a much darker and more mature vision (not to mention halfway decent writing, directing, and acting), so the prequels can pretty much be removed from history.
Get your grim and gritty #### elsewhere. This is Star Wars.
Soon I will start my Star Wars marathon... and I will mayhaps take the order suggested here.
Although I prefer to just get those 3 crappy movies out of the way first..
__________________ "In brightest day, in blackest night / No evil shall escape my sight / Let those who worship evil's might / Beware my power, Green Lantern's light!"
So my wife has never seen Star Wars (and I still married her)
Anyway, I am looking forward to sitting down with her over the next two months and working our way through the movies. Question is, do I do it by movie release date or chronologically?
Um, what? Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi. In that order, as there are no other movies. The prequels were just a very bad dream
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If you are going to watch the 3 originals, I highly recommend the De-Specialized versions. Not sure if they have been mentioned here before, but to me they are by far the best, definitive ones to watch. Of course, they must be acquired through ...ahem...non-traditional channels. The quality is fantastic, and all of Lucas' '90's-2000's meddling left out.
