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. 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.
EpI is not digital. And EpII contains the death of Anakin’s mother (I guess it’s important to see Anakin falling to the dark side ?). EpII gets really better in a proper fan edit. I’m even beginning to think it is slightly better than EpIII, because in EpII Anakin still can embrace the dark side by choice, and not by being tricked to. But anyway the thread is about a SW marathon, so it means all 7 films. If you skip 1-2-3 it’s a semi-marathon.
Yeah I know Episode I was shot on 35mm but it still feels like a sterile digital film. And the fact that Episode II contains the whole sand people thing with his mother is one of the main reasons why I think it should be skipped. I would prefer to see him as an actual good Jedi who was actually friends with Obi-Wan and an actual hero in the Clone Wars who tragically turned to the dark side in a desperate attempt to save his family rather than as an unstable emo who was always one push away from going psycho. That seems to be a lot more consistent with the backstory Obi-Wan tells in ANH.
Also, Anakin both turning to the dark side in ROTS in an attempt to save his child and then turning back in ROTJ for the same exact reason is the thing I like best about the entire prequels that I think adds the most to the originals. Even though I think the “dying in child birth” thing is stupid, the overall idea is great and it’s the “rhyme” I like most. The idea that the power of paternal love is the only thing that can change him is so much better than the idea that “Anakin’s just bipolar and he can go from extreme light to extreme dark with the breeze.”