I had just finished Andor and I wasn’t ready to give up so I watched Rogue One, ANH:R and ESB:R then I thought I would give machete order a spin. I am surprised how much the ordering works. The films are still full of issues but I think if I were to watch them with a newbie that’s how I would do it. I have just finished ROTJ:SE I think I will do The Force Awakens next followed by Solo and the do the other sequels. I wish I had watched Kenobi after ROTS. Maybe one day.
Mostly release order.
All Despecialized:
Star Wars
The Empire Strikes Back
Return of the Jedi
If someone is curious about the prequels as such they can watch all three in order. Just for story and quality reasons though, I would do either just Revenge of the Sith by itself, or do Phantom Menace and ROTS and skip Attack of the Clones. I experimented with this recently and it’s a little bit jarring, but it helps with a lot of the problems I have with the prequels.
Then if the person is interested they can watch Solo, Andor, Rogue One, and Mandalorian whenever they want, and Tartakovsky Clone Wars whenever they want. No sequels, Filoni shows, or other Disney shows.
I always do prequels first,
Ep1 - Hal9000
Ep2 - Hal9000
Ep3 - Theatrical
R1 - Theatrical
SW - 4k77
TESB - Hal9000
RotJ - Hal9000
Sometimes I’ll sub in Hal’s or Despecialized for Ep4 but for the most part 4k77 just feels right for that one to me. Usually any movies/TV outside of those listed I’ll watch on their own instead of part of any watch order
I normally watch them all in chronological order, but when I want to introduce Star Wars to a newcomer, I’d recommend to watch them by year of release (Originals first, then Prequels).
Ever since I’ve come across them, David Kaylor’s Final Cuts have been my go-to way to watch the Original Trilogy from now on, because they do almost everything right - not to mention they’re in 4K UHD as well. As for the Prequels, I just watch them in their original form.