Star Wars fans - question.

Whoa didn't know Auralnauts has made an episode 4! Gotta watch that later!

Machete viewing order looks like a good idea. A lot of the horribleness of the prequels is established in Episode 1 and it is pretty much irrelevant to the whole storyline.

I agree with the Machete order! If you are a big fan of star wars, read the Machete link and it'll make perfect sense.

If its TL;DR: The watch order is 4, 5, 2, 3, 6.

The 4 and 5 build great, then you watch the back story of 2 and 3. And the Denoument of 6 caps everything nicely. Episode 1 is strictly extra footage and should be treated as an outtake.

I'd say watch them in order 1,2,3,4,5,6 in the latest edited versions you can. She already knows that 4,5,6 were made long ago, so they will look different.

My 14 year old prefers them in order and doesn't hate 1,2,3 or think they are too horrible. His only complaint was too much of the political discussion scenes.

I was surprised at first that he liked 1,2,3 until I realized that most of the people who hate the prequels grew up on 4,5,6. After many years, we held it in SUCH high regard and put it on such a huge pedestal, I think we guaranteed that Lucas couldn't have produced anything that met our standards.

And agreed with the sentiment that not everyone likes Star Wars. It may never be something she'd enjoy so the order probably doesn't matter.

-Rob

With the kids, we did machete order and went back to watch 1 later. They have never asked to watch 1 a second time.

Diehard fan here. 4-5-6 then eventually 1-2-3 with a dire warning. Sorry, I know the prequels aren't "cool", but I still watch them from time to time. I always say, if you can stomach the Ewoks you can put up with berkeleying Jar Jar, stop being a Bob Costas.

Take out the cardboard acting of Anakin and Padme, and the prequels aren't that bad. (Ducking from the fruit thrown at my head.)

I watched a review of the prequels online ( ooh, big surprise.) The reviewer made an interesting point: in the originals, there were sets with stuff to look at and interact with. The prequels had nothing but green screen.

You are in a deep, dark canyon. REACT! React to what? It's just green. I believe that explains much of the wooden acting by almost all of the players.

i actually don't mind the prequels... i don't even mind what everyone calls the "horrible" acting of the characters of Anakin and Padme, simply because they were supposed to be awkward and confused teenagers that got themselves in way over their heads, and that's how awkward and confused teenagers act in the real world when they get in way over their heads. the only scene i really didn't think fit all that well was when Obi Wan went into that diner, but that was made better in my Auralnauts link from before..

Jar Jar seemed kind of superfluous at first- just some idiotic comic relief meant to pander to kids- but he became important in the second movie when Papa Palpatine needed someone that was easily manipulated to speak out and vote a certain way for a certain thing to happen to move the plot along to the next movie..

Just read that whole page explaining the Machete order. This was difficult as someone who is not a star wars fan but has seen the movies, and I think it makes a lot of sense and pretty much addresses many of my complaints.

I was wondering if there was some super cut that deleted the garbage and unnecessary filler (I'm looking at you pod racing scene among many others) The machete thing is pretty much it.

I doubt I will ever try it out though.

Appleseed wrote: I watched a review of the prequels online ( ooh, big surprise.) The reviewer made an interesting point: in the originals, there were sets with stuff to look at and interact with. The prequels had nothing but green screen. You are in a deep, dark canyon. REACT! React to what? It's just green. I believe that explains much of the wooden acting by almost all of the players.

I think we've seen/heard the same review. ForceCast.net (I think) did a podcast on the issue a few weeks ago as well.

Nuh-uhhh. Yoda did a much better job in 1, 2 and 3. He interacted, jumped around, whacked bad guys, all much better than in 5 or his cameo in 6.

Now I want to watch all of them again in the machete order. Makes sense to me.

I did watch the two youtube videos of all the edits from the originals to remakes. Not a whole lot to fuss about. What's the big deal?

Anyone else prefer the Andywan version of 4?

Star Wars: Clone War is actually pretty good viewing. Fast forward to the darker, later episodes and you'll understand the "Rule of Two" better and that should certainly help you going into 7-8-9.

Yoda jumped around and fought...at the end of Revenge. None of the Jedi counsel did much of anything in these movies but sit around and talk.

Appleseed wrote: Yoda jumped around and fought...at the end of Revenge. None of the Jedi counsel did much of anything in these movies but sit around and talk.

Yoda jumping around and fighting was so dumb. They should have had Samuel J Jackson's character fighting instead.

MCarp22 wrote:

Appleseed wrote: Yoda jumped around and fought...at the end of Revenge. None of the Jedi counsel did much of anything in these movies but sit around and talk.

Yoda jumping around and fighting was so dumb. They should have had Samuel J Jackson's character fighting instead.

spoiler alert: he got thrown out a window by a defeated old man after arguing with a moody teenager..

MCarp22 wrote:

Appleseed wrote: Yoda jumped around and fought...at the end of Revenge. None of the Jedi counsel did much of anything in these movies but sit around and talk.

Yoda jumping around and fighting was so dumb. They should have had Samuel J Jackson's character fighting instead.

That's the form of lightsaber combat. Plus he's 900 yrs old so he needs the force to help him move like that. I think Palpatine and Yoda are really underrated by the viewers. Maybe because they didn't really display their powers like they should have.

In reply to yupididit:

The problem was that the Force was still a mystery at the end of ROTJ (Return of the Jedi) despite seeing it displayed quiet regularly. For instance, Palpatines ability to use "Force Lightning" could be done by Jedi Masters, but the Jedi didn't believe in using that amount of suffering on anyone. Palpatine also believed so much in his omnipotent ability in the force that he no longer thought a light-saber was worthy of his use, although he was probably one of the most dominant saber fighters in Star Wars history.

When people saw the goofy "schtick" of Yoda bouncing around while fighting, it didn't go over well, partially because we hadn't seen the Force amplified in that way, except for maybe some of the aerobatics of Obi-Wan.

Another fun fact, Sidious/Palp was probably around 93 years old at the time of his death/destruction, but its believed he may have been studying his own master's ability to extend life after death.

It's believed Yoda's race was actually a tree-swamp dwelling creature, and they would have been quite agile. I once read something that said that its possible that Yoda's race was kind of like a snake or reptile in that they usually conserved energy for hunting.

Anyway, for those of your excited about the new movie, here's some new revelations:

http://io9.com/13-things-we-just-learned-about-star-wars-the-force-aw-1723645676