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Seeing the Saga in order - a review by a first-time viewer.... — Page 5

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Bingowings said:

There must be a way of altering the PT to keep all the surprises intact (do we even need to see Yoda in the PT? He could be an oft mentioned but never seen Jedi master of great power so when we see him ESB it intensifies the physical incongruity).

This would be best done by completely remaking the PT, in my opinion.  And in such a remake (if I were to write it), Yoda would never be seen, Palpatine would never be seen with a lightsaber, and Jedi Knights and Jedi Masters would be two different things, not different ranks of the same thing.

Among a great many other differences, such as there being more than one Clone War.

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Bingowings said:

There must be a way of altering the PT to keep all the surprises intact.

There’s a very simple way of doing that: put it after Ep5.  (Or after Ep6, but I prefer it after Ep5.)  I can’t image any way to edit ROTS to preserve the Anakin = Vader surprise in ESB if ROTS is seen before ESB.

TPM just isn’t a very good introduction to the Saga, partly because it just isn’t a very good film.  ANH does a much better job of “grabbing” the viewer and making him care what happened a long time ago in that galaxy far, far away.

ANH is by a wide margin the best way to start the viewing experience and ROTJ the best way to end it.  The best way to watch is 4-5-1-2-3-6 or 4-5-6-done, depending on whether you consider the PT to be worthwhile.

If you do want to watch the PT, it works best between Ep5 and Ep6.  Anakin’s descent into darkness is more compelling if you have seen the end result of the fall but haven’t seen him break free of it.  The rise of the Empire is more compelling if you have seen the power and brutality of the Empire but haven’t seen its imminent demise.

 

Time is running out for the Rebels. Antilles upcourt to Skywalker. He’s being paced by Darth Va— the bone-jarring pick by Solo! He came out of nowhere! Skywalker’s open from way outside, he launches at the buzzer... Good! It’s good! The Rebels win on a sensational buzzer beater by Luke Skywalker! Let’s take another look at that last shot. He just does get it off in time. Wow, what a shot. That’s why they call him Luke Legend.

 

That may be the most exciting battle I have ever been privileged to broadcast. Certainly the most dramatic finish. We’ll get you an update on the Artoo Detoo injury situation in just a moment. Right now let’s go courtside where SuperShadow is waiting with Chewbacca.

 

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My personal opinion is that watching them together is pointless.  The OT is so significantly better, than including the PT in with the OT just adds a bunch of needless crap.  I'd recommend watching each trilogy separately, separated by at least a week.  That way, the PT won't damage one's enjoyment of the OT, and the PT can be enjoyed in its own separate way - as a bunch of kinda cool eye candy.

Watching them together is like eating a dinner that has both sushi and dog food.  The dog food is likely to make it a little hard to enjoy the sushi.

"Close the blast doors!"
Puggo’s website | Rescuing Star Wars

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IMHO It's a no brainer.

4-5-6 irrespective of whether you have seen them  before or not at all.

Forget about the prequels.

 

 

 

 

I saw Star Wars in 1977. Many, many, many times. For 3 years it was just Star Wars...period. I saw it in good theaters, cheap theaters and drive-ins with those clunky metal speakers you hang on your window. The screen and sound quality never subtracted from the excitement. I can watch the original cut right now, over 30 years later, on some beat up VHS tape and enjoy it. It's the story that makes this movie. Nothing? else.

kurtb8474 1 week ago

http://www.youtube.com/all_comments?v=SkAZxd-5Hp8


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What do you people think about watching the original trilogy first, then the prequels, and then the 2004 versions of the OT ? That's how I watched them last time and it made sense ... sort of.

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I won't say that the 4-5-1-2-3-6 method has no merits.  It's interesting, and a lot of the arguments for it are valid.

However, for someone who's never before seen Star Wars, I'd have to say that there is only one way to show it to them:

  1. Star Wars (1977 or 1981 version)
  2. Empire (1980 version)
  3. Jedi (1983 version)
  4. Whatever the hell you want to watch after that, if any at all.


And my #4 means that, if after watching those three, they want to watch the prequels, great, go for it.  If they want to watch the 1997 or 2004 SE's, go for it.  If they want to watch the Clone Wars cartoon series (either one), go for it.

My point is, the originals should be seen first by anyone who's never seen the films.  That's how I watched them, and that's the only way they could be watched for 14 years.

Saying you should watch them in any other order is like saying you should read Brian Herbert's Dune prequels before you read Frank Herbert's original novel.  It just doesn't work.

I think the 4-5-1-2-3-6 order should only be used once someone has seen all the films, and wants to watch them in a new perspective.  In that context, it's a great method.  I'd never suggest that someone who's never seen any of them should watch them that way, though.

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Actually I just did an interesting little experiment.And I may have to eat my own words about not watching the prequels.

 I have an Optoma 533st DLP 1080p/24/60 short throw projector.It can beam an image 3metres wide from a distance of just 1.5-2m!!.

I also have a Blu ray player.

I configured my system to show an image 2.7 m in width and 2 m in height on my bedroom wall(which is white).Believe me...for home viewing it is awsomely big! I also stood barely 1.5 meters away from the screen; which is probably a lot closer than I should be(but it was just an experiment)

I also selected a native resolution rather than 16:9(which made the image fill out the entire w/h off the screen).

I popped in my 2005 ROTS DVD(which is upscaled on my sony 300 Blu ray player. I watched it from the point of where the Jedi get wiped out by the clones all the way to the end of the film.

Straight after I stuck my 2004 SW:ANH DVD and watched it up to where Luke and Owen meet C3P0 ect...and I stopped there.

And you know what the story continuity/Imagery/Evolution and look of the characters and scenery actually worked!!!(IMHO ofcourse!!)

The sheer size of the image gave a lot of scale to the CGI heavy ROTS.

Scale I did not appreciate when I saw it in the cinema 5 years ago(I was seated quite far back on that occasion).It is also scale which quite frankly cannot be observed my  21 " widescreen TV ------ ROTS just looks like plain shit on that!

Even though the aesthetic of much of the scenery in ROTS has a shiny clean veneer to it(coruscant,utapao and even Mustafar) the image size really helped me aknowledge the detail on say for example CGI Yoda's face--- which gave it alot more believability.And all of this in nothing more than upscaled 560i.No doubt it will look even more amazing in full 1080/24p.

And here is the kicker----watching ANH immedietly afterwards was a revelation.The Gritty look of the opening scene in the rebel blocade runner combined with it's razor sharp editing actually worked quite beautifully with the pristine look of the same blocade runner seen in ROTS a few minutes before.Also seeing the beefed up Prowse Vader compared to the anorexic Hayden Vader only minutes apart actually is quite convincing.Again this all My opinion.I could go on.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I saw Star Wars in 1977. Many, many, many times. For 3 years it was just Star Wars...period. I saw it in good theaters, cheap theaters and drive-ins with those clunky metal speakers you hang on your window. The screen and sound quality never subtracted from the excitement. I can watch the original cut right now, over 30 years later, on some beat up VHS tape and enjoy it. It's the story that makes this movie. Nothing? else.

kurtb8474 1 week ago

http://www.youtube.com/all_comments?v=SkAZxd-5Hp8


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For me, just a small amount of information in the RotJ novelisation (also present in the script, but cut from the final film) pretty much kills the entire prequel story and exposes it as nonsensical.

Ben tells Luke, "When your father left, he didn't know your mother was pregnant."

Just think about that for a second.  Anakin Skywalker didn't know his wife was pregnant.  That one sentence negates everything that happens in the entire movie of RotS.  No visions of her dying in childbirth, no trying to make people live forever, no faux-Faustian deal with the devil.  Just straight up selfishness and going to the dark side completely for his own reasons.

He goes on to say that Anakin's wife went to live on Alderaan but gave Leia to the Organa family to conceal her identity.  She thereafter died of unknown causes, presumably around three or four years later.

You could argue that this doesn't really "count" since it was cut from the film itself, but I quite liked the RotJ novel and always considered this information as gospel when I was growing up.  Also, viewed this way, the story as presented in RotJ makes perfect sense, since this was the backstory they had in mind while making it.  That the prequels contradicted it so thoroughly was pretty much the last straw as far as hoping the whole thing would make any sense, and the only way to resolve this is to declare that the entirety of Episodes 1, 2, and 3 are essentially very expensive but badly-conceived fan fiction, which have nothing to do with the true story in any way.  (Except in this case, the 'fan' who made them was actually the original creator, but that's what it's come to now.)

Therefore to maintain integrity it is best to shun them and pretend they don't exist.

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hairy_hen said:

For me, just a small amount of information in the RotJ novelisation (also present in the script, but cut from the final film) pretty much kills the entire prequel story and exposes it as nonsensical.

That's how about I feel.  If it was in the original script, or even actually shot, then it ought to count as canon.

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hairy_hen said:

Episodes 1, 2, and 3 are essentially very expensive but badly-conceived fan fiction, which have nothing to do with the true story in any way.  (Except in this case, the 'fan' who made them was actually the original creator, but that's what it's come to now.) 

And, in this case, the fan actually hates the material.

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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ChainsawAsh said:

This would be best done by completely remaking the PT, in my opinion.  And in such a remake (if I were to write it), Yoda would never be seen, Palpatine would never be seen with a lightsaber, and Jedi Knights and Jedi Masters would be two different things, not different ranks of the same thing.

Among a great many other differences, such as there being more than one Clone War.

 Oh, ChainsawAsh... how much longer will you avoid the rewrite forum...?

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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Until I have more of my ideas solidified in my brain and on paper.  I want to have full treatments for all 3 done before I venture in there.

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You're just chicken.  (Cheep, cheep, cheep!)

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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COOKACAAW! COOKACAAW! COOKACOOKACOOKACOOKACAAAAW!

A trick is something a whore does for money.

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Great first post, GOB.

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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Nobody calls me Marty McFly.  Nobody.

 

Time is running out for the Rebels. Antilles upcourt to Skywalker. He’s being paced by Darth Va— the bone-jarring pick by Solo! He came out of nowhere! Skywalker’s open from way outside, he launches at the buzzer... Good! It’s good! The Rebels win on a sensational buzzer beater by Luke Skywalker! Let’s take another look at that last shot. He just does get it off in time. Wow, what a shot. That’s why they call him Luke Legend.

 

That may be the most exciting battle I have ever been privileged to broadcast. Certainly the most dramatic finish. We’ll get you an update on the Artoo Detoo injury situation in just a moment. Right now let’s go courtside where SuperShadow is waiting with Chewbacca.

 

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ChainsawAsh said:

Nobody calls me chicken.  Nobody.

Geez, what a half-par nerd you are.  Everybody knows Marty never said anything like that in the first film.

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.

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Half-par?  Does that make him a birdie? (Assume Par is 2, for some reason)  What kind of birdie?  Maybe a chicken birde?  Cheep cheep cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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Gaffer Tape said:

ChainsawAsh said:

Nobody calls me chicken.  Nobody.

Geez, what a half-par nerd you are.  Everybody knows Marty never said anything like that in the first film.

Oh, I know (that's part of why I'm not a huge fan of 2 and 3, that "chicken" thing is ridiculous), I just did a very quick Google Image search and that's the first one I found that had just Marty in it.

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Cheep cheep cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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Johnny said:

http://geektyrant.com/storage/TommyFootball.jpg

I kill you, you bastard!

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ChainsawAsh said:

 

Nobody calls me chicken.  Nobody.


Funny story about that line.  I'm a huge fan of the first film, but have little knowledge of the other two. I've seen a few scenes from the second but don't remember any of it, and I've not seen the third.

With that in mind;  A guy at work, who I often trade film lines with in conversation, said in response to something we were discussing a few years ago - "nobody calls me chicken...".  He waited for my response and when I said I didn't get it, he said "come on, you know, from Back To The Future - you're the huge BTTF nerd, you have to remember that scene".

I explained to him (yet again) that I only like the first one, and that I know it so well I could probably transcribe the film from memory.  He assured me that the chicken scene was in the first one.  I assured him it wasn't.

Dude, not understanding who he was dealing with, decides to offer me a bet;  If he can find the scene and prove me wrong, I buy him a new Astros cap.  If the line isn't in the movie - he buys me one.  He makes it clear he'll prove me wrong, while I remind him that I'm unfamiliar with the second two films, so he needs to have his money ready. So sure is he of winning that he ups the ante - if he's wrong, he'll even buy me a 59FIFTY (official uniform cap), which is about 30 dollars.

He heads off to find the scene -  I go back to my office to decide which cap I'll get.  After about 20 minutes, he comes down to my office to admit defeat.  At lunch that same day we went over to Minute Maid, which is just a few blocks away.

Long story even longer; I picked the alternate uniform cap (red), seen in this picture from our MLB thread;

I wear that cap regularly throughout the year, even more than the black one.  ;-)

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Haha, that's an awesome story.  More things like that need to happen to me.  I need a chance to flex my geeky muscles.

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.