- Time
- Post link
The PT was never meant to be seen before the OT.
They’re literally Episodes 1 to 3. Lucas isn’t innumerate, the franchise is to be watched in chronological order.
The PT was never meant to be seen before the OT.
They’re literally Episodes 1 to 3. Lucas isn’t innumerate, the franchise is to be watched in chronological order.
But the entire marketing campaign of the prequels was marketed at people who had already seen the OT. If he really wanted people to watch chronologically, he wouldn’t have made Episode 4 first.
My preferred Skywalker Saga experience:
I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX
Yeah, despite the numbering they absolutely are prequels. Imagine you were born under a rock and started watching Star Wars from Episode 1. You’d think the Imperial March was just a motif for Anakin doing bad stuff. The clonetroopers and Venators would stir absolutely zero familiar imagery in your mind. Jango Fett’s son would seem like a strange thing to focus on. Anakin being renamed to “Darth Vader” would probably conjure a laugh because it’s a nonsense word and you do not yet associate it with a big scary cyborg man. “Luke” and “Leia” would hold no meaning for you, and neither would Owen and Beru watching a twin sunset. etc.
I also don’t think the Original Trilogy works very well as a sequel to the prequel trilogy, if you know what I mean. You might have questions like - why does Luke only have to train for a few weeks, or a year at the absolute most, to become a Jedi? Why doesn’t Obi-Wan mention that Luke and Leia are related so they don’t keep kissing one another? How come no one can jump anymore, and fight like geriatrics? What happened to Sidious’ lightsaber skills? Why does Vader never mention Padme? How on Earth does Leia remember a mother who died thirty seconds after she was born? Why does Obi-Wan continue to wear Jedi robes on Tatooine? Why doesn’t it occur to Obi-Wan and Yoda that some of the ten thousand other Jedi might have survived? I mean, all of these little nitpicks exist anyway, but watching in release order makes them less apparent unless you’re being deliberately anal.
The PT was never meant to be seen before the OT.
While it does very much show in the finished product, I wonder if there are any primary sources backing up that notion during the prequels’ production.
But the entire marketing campaign of the prequels was marketed at people who had already seen the OT. If he really wanted people to watch chronologically, he wouldn’t have made Episode 4 first.
And if they weren’t supposed to be watched chronologically then they wouldn’t have episode numbers at all.
How on Earth does Leia remember a mother who died thirty seconds after she was born?
We don’t know how memories work in Star Wars, so we can infer that they work differently than in real life.
The Watsonian bends over backwards.
The Jedi and the Force are not explained in TPM. The only time it does touch on them with Midichlorians, it does so in a way that assumes the audience already knows what the Force is. Oh and Darth Maul’s double saber, while not important, is a lot more mindblowing after three movies of single sabers than one. Hell, even Luke’s green saber is a revelation in terms of what a lightsaber can be.
Or alternatively audiences can be expected to work things out from context rather than exposition and work out what looks cool themselves rather than basing it on other films. Maybe they could also draw on the fact that nobody watching any of the Star Wars films, in whatever order, will be going in blind as there’s nobody on the planet that doesn’t already have some basic knowledge of it due to their influence of pop culture and will sensibly start with the first numbered episode as intended and happily follow along.
I don’t think it’s a good argument to assume people will already have knowledge of the original trilogy through cultural osmosis. While probably true, it’s conceding that knowledge of the OT is in some way beneficial to appreciating the prequels.
No, I said knowledgable of Star Wars will be already held not knowledge of the OT. I also said they’d have it not that they’d need it. It’s obvious Lucas didn’t think they’d need it or else ANH would have been Episode I.
I also don’t think the Original Trilogy works very well as a sequel to the prequel trilogy, if you know what I mean. You might have questions like - why does Luke only have to train for a few weeks, or a year at the absolute most, to become a Jedi? Why doesn’t Obi-Wan mention that Luke and Leia are related so they don’t keep kissing one another? How come no one can jump anymore, and fight like geriatrics? What happened to Sidious’ lightsaber skills? Why does Vader never mention Padme? How on Earth does Leia remember a mother who died thirty seconds after she was born? Why does Obi-Wan continue to wear Jedi robes on Tatooine? Why doesn’t it occur to Obi-Wan and Yoda that some of the ten thousand other Jedi might have survived? I mean, all of these little nitpicks exist anyway, but watching in release order makes them less apparent unless you’re being deliberately anal.
I won’t deny that they definitely didn’t follow the continuity of the OT to the letter but I don’t think these were the best examples. 1 & 6 are the only ones I feel like you could really hold against the prequels but I feel like they were done for the better.
- I will give it to you that that is a legitimate inconsistency
I pointed this one out earlier. We don’t know how memories work in Star Wars, so we can infer that they work differently than in real life.
This is such a weird explanation, though. Even the silly idea that Leia had “Force” memories makes more sense than inferring memories work differently in Star Wars.
I wasn’t listing inconsistencies so much as I was listing things that would probably be different in the OT had it been made after the prequels. Questions that could perhaps come up if you were to watch episodes 4, 5 and 6 with the idea in your mind that they were sequels to episode 1, 2 and 3, without having any knowledge of the real-life production order (imagine you’re a young child). I’m fully aware of the real life explanations and the possible in-universe justifications, and I wasn’t passing judgement on whether the retcons were for better or for worse. And yeah, they don’t fight like actual geriatrics, that was meant humorously - what I was getting at was that none of the OT fights approach ROTS’ Anakin vs. Obi-Wan or Yoda vs. Sidious in sheer speed and spectacle, which may seem odd if you were watching the movies in episode order without secretly knowing the OT was made first.
I would say that looking at the movies alone, Luke wasn’t at the level of most of the prequel Jedi even by the end of ROTJ.
I’m just bringing up G&G’s pointer.
Anyway, one could also argue Obi-Wan was old in ANH, even though Yoda and Ki-Adi Mundi were also old and yet still have decent lightsaber skills.
I would say that looking at the movies alone, Luke wasn’t at the level of most of the prequel Jedi even by the end of ROTJ.
I’m just bringing up G&G’s pointer.
Anyway, one could also argue Obi-Wan was old in ANH, even though Yoda and Ki-Adi Mundi were also old and yet still have decent lightsaber skills.
Obi-Wan saying “I’m getting too old for this sort of thing” when he’s not even 60 always cracks me up in retrospective, thinking about how 80-year old Dooku wiped the floor with him twice in the prequels.
OB-1 ages very rapidly, accelerated growth and all.
That is also why Vader is played by 70-year-old Sebastian Shaw, since Vader is just a clone of Luke’s actual father.
All the inconsistencies between the PT and OT can be explained away by just saying that the OT characters are just clones of their PT counterparts.
Reading R + L ≠ J theories
Really, if there were a way to add a decade or two between the PT and OT, it would make the transition feel much more plausible, but alas, the twins birth ties our hands down.
Anyway, would it be possible to indicate Palpatine and Obi-Wan using Force healing in the scenes of discovering a burned Vader and discovering a knocked out Luke?