I’m doing a Star Wars marathon today, and eating chicken. Or well, I will be shortly.
May the fourth be with you!
The first time I watched Star Wars at my geek friend’s house in 3rd or 4th grade it was pure awesomeness. I tried to do a Star Wars marathon like 6 months ago and rewatch all the movies in a row, but I got bored after watching A New Hope and the Empire Strikes Back. I didn’t even make it to what has always been my favorite, Return of the Jedi. That fight between Vader, Luke, and the Emperor is my favorite part. So intense.
I read a very well-written post on a SW forum yesterday that suggest the best viewing order is 4-5-1-2-3-6. The reasoning made sense, so I’m going to give it a shot. Here, I’ll copy it for you (OP is here)
"As for me, I was interested in the 4-5-1-2-3-6 order back then. Today I feel strongly that it is the ideal order. (BTW, I think the new material is best viewed after the saga, 4-5-1-2-3-6-TCW, rather than putting TCW in its chronological place between 2 and 3.) Watching it 4-5-1-2-3-6 I notice so many things that work best that way. A few:
• If you like twists, the 4-5-1-2-3-6 order maintains the best surprises for Star Wars virgins who have been in a coma for the last 30 years. In Ep 5 the viewer has the “Holy poodoo, that little green troll is Yoda!” twist and the “Holy poodoo, Darth Vader is Luke’s father!” twist. At the end of Ep 3 are the “Holy poodoo, Luke has a twin!” and “Holy poodoo, the twin is Leia!” twists. Thank goodness the Hoth kiss is a distant memory by the time that particular twist is revealed in the 4-5-1-2-3-6 order; the kiss is creepier if the relationship is revealed before the kiss.
• 4-5-1-2-3-6 answers questions in a dramatically natural order. After the revelation that Vader is Luke’s father, there are two questions: “How the heck did that happen?” and “What happens next?” It makes sense to answer the first question before the second so viewers can watch the resolution with a better understanding of the events and situations that lead to it and who the characters are.
Feng Zei points out that there may be another question after Ep 5: “Is Vader telling the truth about being Luke’s father?” If that is a question then I think that watching Anakin’s early life story and seeing what unfolds is a more dramatic way to get the answer than simply having Yoda say, “Your father he is.”
• 4-5-1-2-3-6 has an opening that grabs viewers from the start. “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away… Star Wars - Episode IV - A New Hope. It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire. During the battle, Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire’s ultimate weapon, the DEATH STAR, an armored space station with enough power to destroy an entire planet. Pursued by the Empire’s sinister agents, Princess Leia races home aboard her starship, custodian of the stolen plans that can save her people and restore freedom to the galaxy…” That’s one of the great openings in cinematic history.
It’s a hell of a lot more interesting than “Turmoil has engulfed the Galactic Republic. The taxation of trade routes to outlying star systems is in dispute.” If the viewing experience starts there, it’s not a good hook. Why should viewers care about how the Galactic Republic decides the issue of taxation of trade routes to outlying star systems? Why should they care about the battle between the Trade Federation and Naboo? The opening crawl lets them know who the bad guys are and who the good guys are by calling the TF “greedy” and calling Naboo a “small planet,” but it isn’t one tenth as compelling as the opening crawl in Ep 4.
If Eps 4-5 are watched first then the viewers see Ep 1 knowing that they’re seeing the events that lead to the rise of the Empire, so they have a reason to be interested. This is even more compelling after 4-5 than after 4-5-6. After 4-5, the Empire is a scary evil power that rules the galaxy with brutality; after 4-5-6, the Empire is a flash in the pan that ruled the galaxy for about 23 years. The former inspires more desire to know its origins than does the latter.
• Fang Zei said, “That last scene of Empire is just as much if not more about how they’re going to get Han back. This gets completely interrupted if you stop to watch the PT between Empire and Jedi.” I think that interruption is a good thing because it’s a cliffhanger and cliffhangers become more compelling when one must wait for the resolution. TV shows typically place their biggest cliffhangers at the end of the last episode of the season so that the viewer has to wait all summer to see how it’s resolved, instead of placing them in the middle of midseason episodes so that the viewer only has to wait through a commercial break to see how it’s resolved.
Waiting through the PT also makes Han’s hibernation feel longer. If the end of Ep 5 is followed immediately by Ep 6, it feels like the carbon hibernation was brief and just another incident in the life of Han Solo.
• The arc of Anakin’s redemption is more connected. At the end of Ep 3, Padmé says of Anakin, “There is good in him. I know there is still…” This flows right into Ep 6 in which Luke believes, despite the protests of Ben and Yoda, that there is good in Anakin that can be brought back to the surface.
The Emperor’s arc is more connected. In Eps 4 and 5, he is a shadowy presence of which we know little, then we see who he is and how he rises to power in the PT, then we see his big showdown and ultimate fate in Ep 6. If instead the viewing order is 1-2-3-4-5-6, then by the time the PT is over the viewer knows Emperor Palpatine as a real specific person who is conspicuously and without explanation absent in 4-5 before returning to his prior level of visibility in Ep 6.
So basically in the 1-2-3-4-5-6 order, the stories of Anakin and Palpatine are developed for three episodes, put on hold for two episodes, and concluded in the final episode. Watching their stories as 1-2-3-6, without interrupting them for 4-5, makes those stories more cohesive.
• Many of the characterizations in Ep 6 are inconsistent with the characters presented in Ep 5. Perhaps the most glaring (but far from only) example is the cocky “They’re not going to get me without a fight”/“Never tell me the odds”/“I know” Han Solo of Eps 4-5 being replaced by the insecure “Could you tell Luke, is that who you could tell?”/“All right, I won’t get in the way” Han Solo of Ep 6. Putting the PT in between 5 and 6 makes the inconsistencies between 5 and 6 less glaring. (It makes the continuity error of Leia remembering her birth mother more glaring, but that’s a minor point.) Obi-Wan and Vader in particular seem more like the characters we see at the end of Ep 3 than the characters we see in Eps 4-5.
• As I mentioned in an earlier post, I like having the series bookended by Death Stars in the first and last episode viewed. When 4 and 6 are viewed with only a single episode between them, so that a Death Star is present for a movie, absent for one movie, and back again for the next movie, it makes the Death Star feel more commonplace.
• The tone of 6 is more consistent with the tone of 1-2-3 than the tone of 4-5. In 4-5, the Empire is evil and brutal; Ep 5 is especially dark. Ep 6, with its shih-tzus and slapstick approach to action, is more like the “This is where the fun begins” approach to action in the PT than the darker approach in 4-5."
Never seen em. I’ve been in a room while they were playing, and I know a little bit because of decades of references to it, but nope, never watched the movies, don’t know what happens.
I get like this about Battlestar Galactica. But since this isn’t about Battlestar Galactica, all I have to say is: …geeeeeeeeeeeeeks.
Was that a typo? I thought it was Battlestar Galaxative…
No, it was not a typo. Battlestar Galactica is the best space drama ever written. Since I assume you’re an old timer, I’m talking about the series that was put out in the 2000’s… not the 1970’s.
I watched a few episodes from both era’s and space opera was my conclusion. I never saw an idea that wasn’t ripped off from earlier sci-fi. Lorn Green should have stayed on the Ponderosa. I think it was Asimov who coined the Battlestar Galaxative label… He wasn’t wrong.
Battlestar Galactica had a woman president and is therefore unrealistic.
Isaac Asimov died more than a decade before the series was ever created. You even quoted me telling you which series I was referring to. Perhaps you can show a modicum of integrity and watch the entire first season—that’s a “fair chance”—before speaking about it. For the record, I thought the first few episodes were not good at all. And that the first two seasons were the best of any show, of any genre, of any time-period… on television. And yes, it is a space opera,or space drama… that’s exactly what it is.
I am a river.
Battlestar Galactica. I watched that…
Some of it was quite high-quality writing, some not so much. A lot of it was quite gimmicky, but a lot of it was legit as well.
I suppose the same could be said of Star Wars.
These reviews are hilarious!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxKtZmQgxrI[/youtube]
You’re wrong. Asimov died in 1992. BG started in '78 He had quite a few years to comment on the original. The 2003 re-do was nothing more than a continuation of the original series except the Cylon’s won the war with the colonies and the rest of it was the rag tag fugitives looking for the 13th colony. The show -and it’s story line - didn’t catch me the first time or the second. I’m not about to watch an “entire” season of what I consider crap just to please you, and I’ll comment on what I see as I damn well please without your permission. BG was just another spin on what happens after the “holocaust”, blah blah blah. If you have any interest, read Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy and you’ll see where the BG writers got their ideas - and failed miserably to produce anything new.
I thought BG was based on The Book of Mormon…
Isaac Asimov died more than a decade before the series that you are saying he was right about. There’s not much more in common between the two series than the title, and the general idea that humans are at war with robots. And someone (aka YOU) who has only seen “a few episodes” of each series isn’t in a position to speak to the comparison between the series, if he is going to be posting with any integrity at all.
Excuse me, how the fuck do you know what ideas are in Battlestar Galactica if you haven’t seen more than a couple episodes? Post with some fucking integrity, please. I can’t believe someone who hasn’t watched the series is now telling me that the series is crap. Get some fucking integrity.
Mo,
Three times you challenge my integrity. Who the fuck do you think you are to be my judge? My opinions are mine, not yours. That I disagree with your praise of the spacey soap opera is my choice, NOT yours. If there is any lack of integrity, look in the mirror. Ad homing simply because someone disagrees with you shows a lack of regard for other’s opinions and is just a stupid attempt to bully. Get off it. You’re outed.
The so-called new series is a continuation of the old. There was nothing new about it.
Maybe it was a dazzler to anyone not familiar with sci-fi, but for those of us who have read hundreds of sci-fi novels, it was old stuff dressed up in new clothes. My opinion is based on more sci-fi than just watching TV. After all, I wouldn’t want to express an opinion without being knowlegable about the genre. That would be a show of a lack of integrity. You don’t like it? TT
Not a single thing I said was ad hom. Ad hom is when you attack the person to discredit their ideas. I said you lack integrity, because:
- You are calling the series crap when you haven’t seen it.
- You are saying the ideas are ripped off, when you don’t know what ideas are in it. Not that it would matter… it’s a tv series, not a scholarly paper.
- You are adopting what some guy thinks of it, and claiming he’s right, when he died before the series was ever created.
- You are claiming the 70’s series is the same as he one 40 years later, when they’re not.
I try to refrain from spouting off about something until I’ve given it a fair chance. There’s nothing wrong with not liking Battlestar Galactica… but there’s everything wrong with not liking it for the reasons you’ve given.
Bullshit. Attacking because I didn’t watch every fucking episode before I formed an opinion? My opinion was formed before I read Asimov’s funny labeling. It was crap both in 1978 and in 2003. The idea that one has to watch every scrap of a soap opera to have an opinion is YOUR opinion. If I say shit, I don’t have to stick my nose in it and taste it to form an opinion that it is indeed shit. If you need that sort of confirmation, go for it.
I could care less what you think of my opinions, but to suggest that I lack integrity because I disagree with YOUR opinion is ad hom. Your attack plan is obvious to anyone who has read your posts here. You can run, but you can’t hide.
Asimov died a decade before the episodes were even written, because all new episodes were written. Not only did you not give it a fair chance, you said you just watched a few episodes. If I read a few pages of a book, and call the book crap----I will lack integrity, because I haven’t given it a fair chance. Nobody is saying you have to read the whole book to give it a fair chance, and nobody is saying that you have to read any more than a few pages to declare you don’t like what you’ve read… but to declare that the book, or the series, is crap is just a lack of integrity on your part.
Please quote me as having said anything like that. Justify that comment, please.
That’s straightforwardly false. How can you even let garbage like this come out of your mouth, when you haven’t seen more than a few episodes of either…? I’m not even going to bother asking you to justify it. You can’t. It’s an ignorant comment.
In other news, you’re absolutely entitled to your opinion about the few episodes you’ve seen. Although, episodes are not as good when they’re not watched in order, and thus you have no frame of reference. I’ve certainly seen many episodes that I did not like at all, …far more than “a few”. But there’s about 100 episodes in the series, and to extend your opinion beyond what you’re entitled to (the few episodes you’ve seen) is just beligerent, ignorant, and lacking you-know-what. That’s all I’m saying.
Have anyone else here read the interpretation that Chewbawka is an ultra elite solider that was protecting Luke and Leila with more knowledge about how all the characters relate to each other than nearly everyone else?
I forget how it goes, but I am being totally serious here. It was Chewbawka and someone else.