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REAL Order of Star Wars movies


ZooNamedGames

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We're rapidly approaching the 40th anniversary of the first Star Wars film. So this has led me to ask what the KSP community thinks the actual order of the films are to them. To me, even though I grew up in the age of the prequels, I still think that the original three movies are the first. However, I still wonder what everyone else's opinion is on the order to them. Are the originals first or are the prequels first?

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I try to pretend that Episode I never happened. Beyond that, it is what it is.

As far as my own chronology of Star Wars films goes: Return of the Jedi was the first one that I saw in the theaters. I didn't see the original Star Wars or Empire Strikes Back until after seeing Return of the Jedi. None of them will ever live up to Return of the Jedi for me, if only because I wasn't as old and jaded then as I am now. 

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24 minutes ago, GluttonyReaper said:

Uh... what exactly do you mean by order? Chronological order? Because I don't think you'll get a whole lotta debate outta that...

When you say "first films", are you referring to the original trio or the prequel trio?

22 minutes ago, GluttonyReaper said:

For the record, I still consider the LEGO Star Wars game as the ultimate collection of all things Star Wars. At least, it was good enough that I could pretend to have seen the films for 7 years just by playing it. :P

I seem to be the only person who dislikes them. Lego games trivializes any series it touches to logic puzzles. It's like watching the terminator doing hop scotch to me. It just doesn't click to me, and I played them as a kid too.

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The watching order has been talked about a lot on other social networks.

If I remember rightly the conclusion that often comes out is that episode 4 and 5 should be watched first and then 1, 2, 3 to get the back story before watching return of the jedi.  Even though this is not the order they were made or which the story follows it does fit nicely into the theory of how stories work.  You take a character or characters, establish a norm for them, something happens to them to upset that norm and cause them a problem.  They have to do something to overcome the problem in the end getting a new norm having learned something.  The prequels fill in necessary backstory, which was not known when episode IV came out, which is necessary to understand the events in episode VI.

To be honest though I am not really a fan and am not in a rush to watch any of them again.

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Machete Order is the best, by far, watching Harmy's De­spe­cial­ized Edi­tions for 2 and 3 (because they're crap unless properly edited). 4, 5, 2, 3, 6. The story makes much more sense. Toss out the "first" movie, it's worthless in the larger scheme of things and is just a terrible movie all around.

E: Damnit, I messed up, I don't think Harmy did edits of 2 and 3. When I watched this order my friend used some edited versions of 2 and 3 on Youtube, I think. I highly recommend getting fan edits of those movies, they're much more bearable edited by someone other than Lucas and yes-men. I daresay the actor who played Palpatine makes 3 a pretty fun movie, but that might have been the alcohol talking.

Edited by regex
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My wife and I still mean "a new hope" when we say "the first film" and further more, we call it star wars because that was it's original freaking title, that ep IV a new hope was added on the first theatrical rerelease.  It was still colloquially known as star wars then too.  People didn't start calling it a new hope until those ocular ambitions known as the prequils came along.

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Prequels?:confused:  There are prequels?

A New Hope is first, Empire Strikes Back is second, and Revenge* Return of the Jedi is the third.  Force Awakens was a decent tribute to ANH, though.

I saw all three in the theaters on release day, even skipping class in high school** to see the premiere of Jedi.  Saw ANH 24 times in the first year it was out - in the same theater it originally released in where I grew up.  Sat through an earthquake in Columbus, Ohio watching Empire with a date.

*A guy I went to school with was a member of the Star Wars fan club back then, and has several items (posters, patches, etc. - fan club exclusives) that say "Revenge of the Jedi" prior to the title change (due to fan protests - "A Jedi seeks not revenge")

**Told the teacher we were leaving and why.  He said, "Enjoy"

Edited by MaxxQ
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My dad showed me and my bro the later editions of IV, V and VI when I was young (6 or 7?), IIRC we watched them in a row, possibly on the same day (or very closely packed together). Later on (when I was about 9 or 10) we watched the prequels over a span of a few months. I've always thought of ANH as being the first, though I've never felt particularly strongly about it. I need to rewatch them. 

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11 hours ago, MaxxQ said:

Prequels?:confused:  There are prequels?

A New Hope is first, Empire Strikes Back is second, and Revenge* Return of the Jedi is the third.  Force Awakens was a decent tribute to ANH, though.

I saw all three in the theaters on release day, even skipping class in high school** to see the premiere of Jedi.  Saw ANH 24 times in the first year it was out - in the same theater it originally released in where I grew up.  Sat through an earthquake in Columbus, Ohio watching Empire with a date.

*A guy I went to school with was a member of the Star Wars fan club back then, and has several items (posters, patches, etc. - fan club exclusives) that say "Revenge of the Jedi" prior to the title change (due to fan protests - "A Jedi seeks not revenge")

**Told the teacher we were leaving and why.  He said, "Enjoy"

LOL I'm not as violently anti-prequel as some folks are. Except for I. There is nothing redeemable about Episode I. I was actually living in South Africa when Episode I came out, and I convinced a ton of my friends from work (some of whom had never even seen Star Wars before) to take a half day off of work and go see it with me. When the house lights came up after it was over, we were all sitting there in stunned silence for a second. I turned and looked down the row, and said, "Guys, I am so sorry."

I've seen every Star Wars movie in the theater on opening weekend. I saw Return of the Jedi on opening Friday in Mann's Chinese Theater on Hollywood Blvd, which was the most unreal theater experience of all time. That last scene where the Emperor is zapping Luke, there were guys in the audience standing up, shaking their fists and screaming at the screen, "Do it! Do it!" And when Vader picks up the Emperor, the entire audience was on their feet, erupting in cheers. The energy was amazing. I've never seen anything like it, I doubt I'll ever see anything like it again.

And, yeah, one of my friends from high school still has his Revenge of the Jedi button. They're worth quite a penny now, IIRC.

12 hours ago, Robotengineer said:

My dad showed me and my bro the later editions of IV, V and VI when I was young (6 or 7?), IIRC we watched them in a row, possibly on the same day (or very closely packed together). Later on (when I was about 9 or 10) we watched the prequels over a span of a few months. I've always thought of ANH as being the first, though I've never felt particularly strongly about it. I need to rewatch them. 

I have to tell the story again, because I love it. So, I come home from work one day, and I notice that my sons (who were 7 and 5 at the time) have brought a stack of Star Wars books home from the library. I immediately confiscate them. My wife thinks I'm overreacting, but I'm all, "There might be spoilers in here!" Thankfully there weren't, but that started me thinking. Then, that Christmas, my mom treats us all to tickets to Legoland. As we're walking down the walkways in their Star Wars section, they have life-sized Lego figures of each of the characters with biographical plaques underneath each one. That go into great detail. About things like their parentage. "Oh, my goodness, kids. Move along, nothing to see here."

So I finally decided that if they didn't hear about it at home they'd hear about it on the streets. So I went out and bought the Star Wars Blu-Rays. And a Blu-Ray player, since I had never actually bought a Blu-Ray disc before. And we watched them, one each Saturday night, in Machete Order. It was awesome. When they saw the end of Empire, their jaws were on the floor, because they had no clue it was coming. I asked them what they thought afterwards, and they said, "He's lying!" I remember thinking that. The really funny part was all that week they were pestering me to watch the next movie, they were just dying because they wanted answers. I was all, "You think you're dying because you have to wait one week for answers? I had to wait three years!" LOL

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@regex FTW on this. If you watch any of the prequels first, it entirely removes the whole point of the real first 3 movies (4, 5, 6) in terms of plot reveals. For the prequels... might as well watch the red letter media reviews, they're better than the movies, and funny.

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On 12/10/2016 at 1:25 PM, ZooNamedGames said:

We're rapidly approaching the 40th anniversary of the first Star Wars film. So this has led me to ask what the KSP community thinks the actual order of the films are to them. To me, even though I grew up in the age of the prequels, I still think that the original three movies are the first. However, I still wonder what everyone else's opinion is on the order to them. Are the originals first or are the prequels first?

The order is simple:

  1. Star Wars (You may know of it as Indiana Jones and the... Oh wait. No. You may know it as A New Hope)
  2. The Empire Strikes Back
  3. Return of the Jedi
  4. The Force Awakens

If you really want to, there are some other movies as well but they're not worth watching. Maybe one of them, but not the rest. It has Bea Arthur in it. :D

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9 minutes ago, tater said:

@regex FTW on this. If you watch any of the prequels first, it entirely removes the whole point of the real first 3 movies (4, 5, 6) in terms of plot reveals. For the prequels... might as well watch the red letter media reviews, they're better than the movies, and funny.

Read the blog I linked too, there's a good reason to watch (properly edited versions of) 2 & 3; they make 6 a better movie (and let's face it, it's not the best of the original trilogy, you see Lucas' hand there and the face of the prequels). 1 can be tossed out, it is utterly useless in terms of plot.

So glad this franchise is out of Lucas' hands, he squandered its potential and failed to realize how terrible he is as a director and editor.

Edited by regex
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Yeah, I never actually watched 2 &3. I hated 1 so violently that I vowed to not give him my money. At some point, I watched the redlettermedia take down of all three prequels, so I now know what happened in them. I like his observation about how a gajillion minute long lightsaber fight is vastly less interesting/meaningful than a 2 minute one without much actual fighting (original SW). I know my son watched edited prequel versions he found himself (he's 10, lol).

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20 hours ago, regex said:

Machete Order is the best, by far, watching Harmy's De­spe­cial­ized Edi­tions for 2 and 3 (because they're crap unless properly edited). 4, 5, 2, 3, 6. The story makes much more sense. Toss out the "first" movie, it's worthless in the larger scheme of things and is just a terrible movie all around.

Seems I've been living in a cave... I'd never heard of machete order. But I can imagine how it would improve the series. I'll keep it in mind for when my kids are old enough to be interested.

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I was only really interested in the order for my kids. Machete is definitely a good way to go if you're gonna watch the prequels. 

As an aside about movies and kids, in our house movies made from books we like are disallowed until after you have read the books. The Harry Potter books being the obvious example. They're welcome to watch the Hobbit and LotR movies now if they like (having both read them), but I really hate the Hobbit movies, and I only like the LotR movies for the look of it, I hate what they did to the protagonists (and I wish they had stolen a few minutes from a zillion hours of Hobbit films to have the Scouring of the Shire in---except they removed agency from the Hobbits in those films, so why bother, right?).

 

Edited by tater
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3 hours ago, tater said:

but I really hate the Hobbit movies, and I only like the LotR movies for the look of it

I loved the LotR movies, seeing the Balrog on the big screen had me hook, line, and sinker. The end of the series was definitely a real letdown, though. The Hobbit movies... I feel like they could have been two movies and covered the book very thoroughly (and well), but the extra filler from the Silmarilion and Peter Jackson's rear end was excessive enough that I almost didn't watch the second and third. My wife's usually in control of the Chromecast so I eventually ended up watching the other two. Garbage.

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6 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

The order is simple:

  1. Star Wars (You may know of it as Indiana Jones and the... Oh wait. No. You may know it as A New Hope)
  2. The Empire Strikes Back
  3. Return of the Jedi
  4. The Force Awakens

If you really want to, there are some other movies as well but they're not worth watching. Maybe one of them, but not the rest. It has Bea Arthur in it. :D

I disagree. Return of the Jedi and Force Apathetic...I mean, Awakened were as bad as 1 through 3...

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3 hours ago, tater said:

As an aside about movies and kids, in our house movies made from books we like are disallowed until after you have read the books. The Harry Potter books being the obvious example. They're welcome to watch the Hobbit and LotR movies now if they like (having both read them), but I really hate the Hobbit movies, and I only like the LotR movies for the look of it, I hate what they did to the protagonists (and I wish they had stolen a few minutes from a zillion hours of Hobbit films to have the Scouring of the Shire in---except they removed agency from the Hobbits in those films, so why bother, right?).

We try to keep that rule, but with our family dynamic it's hard. #1 and #3 are bookworms, but #2 is not. And #3 is not really into fantasy or sci-fi, she's into mysteries. So if we made #1 wait to see the movie until #2 and #3 had read the book, well, he'd be waiting for a very long time.

The LotR movies were great, I loved them. Funny anecdote: People always ask when you knew your wife was the one. My wife and I had just started dating long distance, she was in the Bay Area, I was in Los Angeles. We were talking on the phone one night, when she says, "Oh! Oh! Quick! Turn on your TV! NBC!" I'm all, "What!? What!? What is it!?" She says, "The trailer for The Lord of the Rings is on!" So we sat on the phone and watched the trailer for the first Lord of the Rings movie together. That's the first time I thought she might be a keeper. :)

But, yeah, the Hobbit movies were about twice as long as they needed to be. They also felt way too campy to me. I didn't enjoy them at all actually.

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