Like others here, I’ll be treating myself to a re-watch of the saga in some manner before ‘The Force Awakens’ opens. And I’m still finding it hard to get my head around the fact that in less than a month now, we’ll be getting to see a Star Wars movie which is a ‘continuation’ of the events seen in ‘Return Of The Jedi’…complete with the original main cast members, and all-new John Williams score! I mean, it just seems like the other day that I was completely shocked to hear that George had actually ‘sold off’ his creation to Disney…and now the first movie is just around the corner.
After being used to many years of high praise by so many fans around the world thanks to his much-loved trilogy, the negative backlash generated by his eventual prequel and ‘special edition’ efforts must have been uncomfortable for him. Although I owned the theatrical trilogy on laserdisc, I remember looking forward to the announcement of when it would finally hit the successful new dvd format at the time…but while loads of other lesser movies were appearing with reverential quality treatments, the Star Wars trilogy remained stubbornly unavailable on the format for years and years. That was the first of a series of dubious miss-steps, and instead, George eventually came up with his dissapointing prequel trilogy and awkwardly-tinkered-with OT versions. And the belated, sub-par GOUT releases were yet another reason why he lost a lot of the high regard he was previously held in by some fans of the OT.
And now in his latest comments, he’s remarked that Disney and co. ended up ditching his own conceived story ideas in favour of ‘something for the fans’…and describes his take on the saga as being a ‘soap opera of family problems’. Well, I don’t know what J.J. and his writers have come up with, but if they’ve come up with something that ends up keeping the majority of fans happy, then I’m certainly all for that.
I’m hopeful that this latest entry will be a successful ‘continuation’ of the adventures of Luke, Han, Leia, Chewie, and the Droids…and that it will simply have the same sense of ‘fun’ that the original trilogy provided overall. I’d have rathered that George had come up with some sequels involving the original cast himself back in 1999…but hopefully, J.J.'s instalment will be the start of a great new trilogy.
Anyway, here’s the saga order I’ll be watching in the run-up to the latest movie -
STAR WARS Despecialized (the blockade runner/stardestroyer opening chase will always kick off the saga for me)
STAR WARS Revisited
EMPIRE STRIKES BACK Despecialized
EMPIRE STRIKES BACK Revisited ‘workprint’
RETURN OF THE JEDI Despecialized
(no prequels whatsoever, and that’s mainly due to the fact that I’ve already spent a lot of time working out many, many cuts/re-arrangements on each one that I hope to re-edit for myself next year into a trilogy I can bear to re-watch)