I understand why this question is asked so frequently, but I also think the best answer is to just let them discover it on their own, however it is they discover it - whether that’s hearing about it from a friend, picking it out of a home video library on their own, or stumbling across it on TV (or netflix, or youtube now, I guess? Twitch tv maybe?) I don’t think I missed out or lost anything by not having my dad set me down to watch Star Wars with him after having figured out the optimal viewing order. I became a fan of the original trilogy by myself, and that sense of discovery is a big part of why it stuck with me all this time. There’s a big difference between finding this very cool thing “on your own” vs. having it carefully curated and presented to you like a rite of passage. Kids can and do recognize this, even if they don’t have the words for those concepts yet.
I totally get where you’re coming from and in some respects I agree with you. I grew up and discovered Star Wars on my own and it was magical. But my parents weren’t huge Star Wars fans. My dad was a John Wayne western and war movie kinda guy, so those are the types of films he shared with me.
But in a household like mine, where I have a whole collection of Star Wars models, action figures, props, and helmets on display in my man cave, they’ve been exposed in some form to this for their entire lives. So getting to sit down and share Star Wars with them the way my dad shared Patton or Rio Bravo with me was a grand experience for all of us. I’m not a huge western fan like my dad was, but I do enjoy them and have several of the classics in my movie collection. But the memories of watching my dad’s favorite movies with him are an integral part of who I am and are a cherished part of m childhood. Getting to do something similar with my kids by showing them my favorite movies has been a real treat. Maybe they’ll grow up to be huge Star Wars fans like me, or maybe they’ll find their own thing. But regardless, we’ll always have the memories of that fun experience together.