Home General Discussion

watching Star Wars in the Machete Order

polycounter lvl 18
Offline / Send Message
Justin Meisse polycounter lvl 18
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.

Replies

  • Torch
    Offline / Send Message
    Torch interpolator
    Where's the phantom menace? If it wasn't for Jar jar binks the movies would be doomed.
  • skylebones
    Offline / Send Message
    skylebones polycounter lvl 10
    I really like that idea, when my kids are old enough to watch I think I may go this route.
  • Justin Meisse
    Offline / Send Message
    Justin Meisse polycounter lvl 18
    Phantom Menace is held back as some extra stuff you can watch like Ewok Adventures or the Christmas Special.
  • PyrZern
    Offline / Send Message
    PyrZern polycounter lvl 12
    Interesting. Never thought of it that way.
  • Docm30
    Offline / Send Message
    Docm30 polycounter lvl 10
    Surely making a kid watch episodes II and III is some form of child abuse?
  • Autocon
    Offline / Send Message
    Autocon polycounter lvl 15
    Think it makes a lot of sense. Would totally watch it this way with a Star Wars noob.
  • Justin Meisse
    Offline / Send Message
    Justin Meisse polycounter lvl 18
    Docm30 wrote: »
    Surely making a kid watch episodes II and III is some form of child abuse?

    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.
  • Mstankow
    Offline / Send Message
    Mstankow polycounter lvl 11
    Holding back Episode I when Episode II was way worse.
  • aesir
    Offline / Send Message
    aesir polycounter lvl 18
    There's an edit of the Phantom Menace where Jar Jar speaks an alien language which is subtitled with more appropriate dialogue. Also a few other minor tweaks to story. I can't remember the name of the edit though...
  • Justin Meisse
    Offline / Send Message
    Justin Meisse polycounter lvl 18
    Mstankow wrote: »
    Holding back Episode I when Episode II was way worse.

    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.
  • praetus
    Offline / Send Message
    praetus interpolator
    A coworker has stated to me that he wants to hold off showing the prequel trilogy to his son until he is about 20 (he's 7 now) so he can fully experience the anguish and despair he felt watching them as they were released.

    Interesting idea though.
  • Torch
    Offline / Send Message
    Torch interpolator
    Where do gungans keep their honey?

    In their Jar-Jars.
  • Kwramm
    Offline / Send Message
    Kwramm interpolator
    watch 4 to 6, ignore the rest, live happily ever after. The story had much more charm and mystery with some things being left unexplained (and I won't even start with the midichlorians BS here).
    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.
  • Mark Dygert
    Yep it's great, my wife and I stumbled into this last summer when we decided to rewatch them all over again, by ourselves before we let Layne watch them (she was 6). Kind of a parental review. I was gun-ho to plop the kiddo down and let her marinate in greatness but my wife, was a little skeptical that she was ready. She plays with Star Wars stuff and has seen a lot of the made-for-tv content and had a lot of questions about "Dad's Star Wars" which to her was some kind of weird alternate universe.

    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.
Sign In or Register to comment.