watching Star Wars in the Machete Order
polycounter lvl 19
I know it's old but it's the first time I've heard of it and it seems like a great way to introduce a kid to the series without spoiling anything. The Star Wars Saga Suggested Viewing Order
TLDR, have someone who's never seen the Star Wars movies watch them in this order: IV, V, II, III, VI. It's basically putting in episodes II & III as a flashback to show the downfall of Vader, who you just found out was Luke's father. Episode VI is the two stories coming together.
TLDR, have someone who's never seen the Star Wars movies watch them in this order: IV, V, II, III, VI. It's basically putting in episodes II & III as a flashback to show the downfall of Vader, who you just found out was Luke's father. Episode VI is the two stories coming together.
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read the blog post, he says it actually enhances some of the themes in Return of the Jedi - Luke going to the darkside seems like more of a possibility.
Also, kids love the new trilogy. Much like older fans are dismayed at my generation enjoying Return of the Jedi.
from the blog post:
"The reason to remove I isn't just that it's bad, it's that the overall story arc of the saga, which is Luke's discovery of his Jedi lineage, his training to be the last of the Jedi, his temptation at following the path of Anakin, and ultimately his overcoming that temptation and redeeming his father, is told BETTER by including II and III, whereas I serves to distract from this main arc."
and the best part:
"I recently discovered my college-aged brother-in-law's girlfriend had never seen any Star Wars films and wanted to watch them all over winter break. Armed with the new Blu-rays, we all went about watching them, and I showed them in Machete Order. It actually works even better than I originally anticipated - it's almost as if this is somehow the intented order. There's a great pattern here, taking the viewer on a series of emotional ups and downs. IV ends with a victory that seems to have some sinister undertones, then V is dark and unresolved with a cliffhanger, II ends with victory with sinister undertones, then III is dark and unresolved with a cliffhanger again. It works incredibly well, and when III ended everyone demanded we immediately watch VI to see how everything gets tied up.
Perhaps most importantly, the flaws with Machete Order seem to not be problematic at all. When Anakin returned to Tatooine in II, the conversation with Watto immediately indicated to her that Anakin's mother was a slave. She asked why Anakin never went back to free her after becoming a Jedi, but Episode I doesn't really provide an answer to that.
The thing she had the most trouble with was when Leia and Luke are talking in ROTJ, and she talks about how she remembers her mother, her "real mother" (so Leia clearly knows she's adopted). With a few movies between III and VI, one might forget about this line, but watching VI right after III made her stop and ask "wait, what? How does she remember her mother?" She found herself similarly bothered by R2D2 having a jetpack in the prequels but not the other films, and all I could tell her was "yeah, it bugs me too."
I asked her if she found Jar-Jar annoying and she asked "who's Jar Jar?" - Mission accomplished."
Who's Jar Jar indeed!
I've only watched each of the prequel films once so I might give this a shot, I barely remember anything about them.
Interesting idea though.
In their Jar-Jars.
But in the 21st century using your imagination is not required any more, just wait, and there will be a gazillion more sequels and prequels until everything has been explained to death. We rather watch a shit story than not knowing what EXACTLY the author had in mind.
So we decided to tackle it 1-2 per week after Layne went to bed. We got into a discussion about what to watch first. My wife doesn't mind the newer episodes nearly as much and wanted to watch them in "intended order" 1-6, something we had never done. I wanted to watch in release order 4-6, 1-3. I feared that we would lose enthusiasm half way through (1-3) and never get to any of the good stuff (NOOOOOo) and she agreed that was probably going to happen, plus Star Wars is much more my thing than it is hers.
We got through 4(A New Hope) & 5(Empire) in a week and she stumbled onto something similar that suggested the same order as the blog, watch it in 4,5,(1-3),6. Since we hadn't mucked up the order yet we went for it.
I was really skeptical at how well it would flow and thought that it would jack up the story and not make any sense. We didn't read any of the scrolling text because we thought that might mess with this implementation, but I've read that it mostly works out fine.
Watching it this way takes 1-3 and stuffs them inside of 4-6 making the story all about Luke, who the majority of fans my age are strongly attached to. They kind of tried to graft that attachment onto Anikin and make the entire thing about Vadar but his character never really drove the story in a way that helped people attach to him. I guess for kids that watch them in order 1-6 they get it but they never really connect to the franchise.
As an explanation for "what happened to Luke's father" it works great sandwiched into the original trilogy. The midiclorians explanation and the stilted, mile-wide inch-deep story of 1-3 still bother me, but it works fine as back story instead of as "the way the story was meant to be".
Layne turned 7 this year and has seen it all in Machete Order and has a deeper understanding of "Dad's Star Wars" but still prefers what she has grown attached to (Leia, Ahsoka Tano, Shaak Ti, Padme, Aayla Secura) and she likes the stuff she has created for herself. Mace windu's purple lightsaber is her lightsaber. Her Leia, is an odd mix of Disney Princess who loves small woodland critters and a badass jedi-master-princess who uses dark force powers if you mess with her. I was a little worried that watching the original would spoil her Leia but it didn't.
I don't think there is one way to watch it and die hard fans will figure out way to enjoy their slice of the universe, however they hack it up. For me I know it forward and backward and don't really worry about what gets added or changed, I know what Star Wars means to me and that doesn't need to be a universal truth for everyone else.