I really can’t understand why anyone would want to squeeze two (or three!) terrible films into the middle of a trilogy of good films. They add nothing to the original story and have nothing good going for them in any edit (other than Frinks!). All they could possibly add to the marathon is several boring ours and lots of eye rolling and groans.
So what’s you guys reason for including them?
I don’t entirely agree that they add nothing. The best thing they did was give Vader’s actions in ROTJ a bit more power and clear up some of the hanging threads at the end of ESB, which is why the Machete Order places them right between them. (I also think the Leia reveal actually has a bit more punch when seen at the end of ROTS, before Luke finds out, rather than at the beginning of ROTJ.) It’s just a shame that it could have been done so much better and really added a lot to it, instead of ruining so many other things at the same time.
And even then, you only have to watch ROTS to get that. The other two add nothing at all and are total wastes of (digital) celluloid. The story of ROTS should have been spread out over the entire trilogy. That’s why I don’t think the Machete Order even needs to include AOTC. You don’t really even need to see Anakin and Padme “fall in love.” You just gotta know they were married and had kids on the way. Despite some cringey romance dialogue in ROTS, there’s not nearly as much as in AOTC so the love story isn’t nearly as awful actually when you cut out AOTC and can fill in the blanks yourself. Also, skipping AOTC gives you a bit less crazy emo Anakin and you can fill in the blanks about his relationship with Obi-Wan too, so they may actually be seen as the “good friends” he described in ANH. You can also see Anakin as an actual good Jedi who tragically turned to the dark side out of desperation, rather than someone who was always right on the edge of going psycho, but that’s impossible if you don’t ignore AOTC and so get the whole sand people mess. I think watching it this way actually improves both ROTS and, to a lesser degree, ROTJ. But AOTC is beyond redemption and pointless to watch.