How will you be watching the saga in preparation for Force Awakens?

GOUT, Laserdisc, Despecialized, or Semi-Specialized? Original trilogy only or the complete saga? Fan edits of the prequels? If so, which ones? How about order? Chronological, Release, Rister or Machete? Alone or with friends? Will there be snacks? I want to know!

Personally, this is what me and my friends are doing. Most of us have seen all the films but one has seen none of them. We mostly dislike the prequels but there are a few that are fans of them. I am the only one among us who has watched any fan edits:

1.)Star Wars (1977) Despecialized 2.5
2.)The Empire Strikes Back (1980) Despecialized 2.0
3.)Shadow of the Sith (l8wrtr EP 1)
4.)The Republic Divided (l8wrtr Ep 2)
5.)Dawn of the Empire (l8wrtr Ep 3)
6.)Return of the Jedi (1983) Despecialized 1.0

On the back of a naked lady.

Chronological order.

6 days prior to the 17th.

With wife.

1-3, 2011 BD.
4-6, Harmy’s.

God save the Queen.

OT only, in a single day.

1. SW- DED 2.5
   Really the best that’s available. No contest until we get a full 35mm scan.
2. ESB- Renegade Grindhouse
   HD, and no chance of a SE change slipping in.
3. ROTJ- Dark jedi GOUT V3
   Best thing there is until we get a new DED or 35mm scan.

I’ll be watching with my wife, my brother and his wife, my brother in law, and maybe a couple other people.

I have been preparing for months already…since way back in june…starting with…

Reading the

Darth Bane trilogy
Cloak of Deception
Darth Plagues

then watching

Episode 2 attack of the clones
the Clone Wars Tv show
clone wars microseries

reading Labyrinth of Evil

watching Revenge of the Sith

reading

Dark Lord The Rise of Vader
Lords of the Sith

Watching

Star Wars despecialized edition
Empire strikes back Special edition 2011

reading Shadows of the empire

watching Return of the Jedi Despecialized edition

Right now I am currently reading Lords of the Sith. One more month to go!

I don’t plan on doing anything special. To me, TFA’s just another movie; I’ll be watching it (if I choose to watch it) without ceremony.

I’ll certainly be watching the Despecialized Editions, because I watch those all the damn time anyway. If any friends are willing to do a boozy marathon of the entire saga, I’ll do the 2011 Blu-rays as well, but I don’t want to watch the prequels by myself and if I’m not watching those there’s no reason to watch the Special Editions of the originals.

Reading this thread has reminded me I still have yet to read the Dark Lord paperback my friend let me borrow years ago. I might start with that before finally tackling the OT novelizations (first edition paperback copies I found at secondhand stores) and Splinter of the Mind’s Eye (the 90’s paperback copy with the GL intro).

As for the movies themselves, my sister just asked me the other day if we have them (I haven’t been able to shut up about TFA for the last several weeks). I explained to her that the highest quality copy I own is cowclops v2, which I acquired only a couple months before the out of the blue GOUT announcement. Don’t have the prequels, sold them off along with my '04 OT box years ago. Never got the GOUT or the blu-Ray as I considered either option to be sending the wrong message with my wallet. Gave away my '97 silver box VHS to goodwill collection when my parents sold their house just over three years ago, right before the Disney deal happened. Aside from that I’ve got the '95 faces/thx p&s VHS box which I got at a secondhand store only a few years ago pretty much just for the Maltin interviews (for some stupid reason). Also got the '86 p&s VHS of Jedi I found at my local video store’s sale shortly before ROTS came out. My p&s VHS of TPM might still be lying around unless I gave that away as well.

So yeah, if my sister wants to re-watch the OT over several nights then it’ll be cowclops v2, which looks surprisingly decent when upscaled and the PCM audio can’t be beat. Who am I kidding, I’ll probably re-watch these discs myself if she doesn’t want to. To be honest though, I’ve watched them so many countless times that it doesn’t make much difference to me. I’ve already got such a massive backlog of other stuff I want to watch anyway.

Chronological Order:

Episode 1 - Blu-Ray version

Episode 2 - DVD version

Clone Wars Mini series (“The Clone Wars”, I won’t do this time around, but will probably do on the countdown to Episode 9)

Episode 3 - DVD version

Episode 4-6 - Despecialized Versions

Alternatively, I will search out and download the Prequel Fanedit titles mentioned 😉

AntcuFaalb said:

I’ll be watching the JSC on my Runco LJR-II.

I didn’t know there was a new naked lady bot out. I thought the LJR-I was the most recent.

I watched the first film a few weeks ago, to make up for the fact that I didn’t get to see it in a theatre in September like I thought I would, but I’m not going to watch the others, or do anything else that would involve thinking of TFA as being anything other than some new movie.

I have, however, been passing out copies of the Despecialized Editions in DVD form to everyone I know who is interested. Several of these people have never seen the originals, and others have not seen them for many years, and I believe this discrepancy must be rectified. I use my 70mm tracks for the audio, but in stereo form rather than 5.1 since no one I know has a 5.1 setup except me, and the 2.0 versions sound better on stereo systems. Everyone I’ve given them to has been extremely grateful, and they’ve all agreed that the originals are superior.

I will be having a marathon with friends and family the day before. 1-3 will either be blus or fanedits. 4-6 will be despecialized.

SilverWook said:

I think watching Harmy’s versions while in line for Episode 7 would be a great way to start a conversation.

But what would you watch them on?

JEDIT: This joke would have worked better in the days without phones, tablets, etc.

SilverWook said:

I think watching Harmy’s versions while in line for Episode 7 would be a great way to start a conversation.

I have to largely credit noticing the original version of Empire playing on a laptop several rows ahead of me in the theater during the hour or so before the midnight opening of RotS with leading me to these forums in the first place.

I’ve never heard about portable VCRs before.

*rushes out to Google “portable VCRs”*

My dad had a portable VHS player. It was paired with a big video camera module. What a two-piece silver beauty!

…

Wait, sorry, I started dreaming about the LJR-I again.

I’m new here. I didn’t know alternate SW restoration projects or fan edits existed until just a few weeks ago. When I discovered them, I decided to watch through the saga with my family in preparation for TFA.

We just finished Harmy’s Despecialized OT Saturday. Next we plan to watch Hal 9000’s prequel trilogy. I am so excited to see the fan edits, as I’ve been reluctant to rewatch the PT at all. An edited version, I think, will make a big improvement.

I wanted to watch them in what I suppose would be considered Rister order (4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 6), but thought that might add some confusion, since my boys are pretty young. My younger two boys frequently confuse the names of Luke and Anakin, and Leia and Padme, so the flashback structure would likely be too hard to follow for them. I think release order will be easier for them to follow this time around.