So I finally got around to getting The Godfather dvd’s. One and three each get their own dvd, while two is split into two, I assume the first being the prequel portion and the second the sequel portion.
I haven’t seen either film in a long time, and Mrs. Six not at all. My question is, as stated in the thread title, in what order should we watch the dvd’s? Should we go straight through, 1, 2, 3, or watch them in chronological order? Ordinarily, I would say one should view a set of movies or read a set of books in the order in which they were produced regardless of the order in which the stories occur, unless the author/director has approved of the reordering. Thus, I insist that the first book of The Chronicles of Narnia is The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and that The Magician’s Nephew should be read in the same order in which it was written, (fifth I think, but I’d have to check). C. S. Lewis was long dead when it was decided to reorder the books chronologically, and I have to believe that if he had wanted them to be read in a different order from which he wrote them, he would have authorized such reordering while still alive.
Likewise, all of the books in Isaac Asimov’s Robot’s/Empire/Foundation series written post 80’s must be read in the order written and only after having read all of the previous installments from the 50’s if they are to have the proper impact. However, the 50’s material, particularly the original robot stories, can be found reorderd in chronological order as approved by Asimov (in The Complete Robot and other chronologically ordered collections), so these can be properly read this way.
Coppola, however, seems to have left the choice to the viewer here. He did reorder the sequences for The Godfather Saga, but then set up the dvd’s in such a way that either order can be just as easily used.
So what do you say? For best dramatic and artistic impact, do we watch in chronological order or in order of production?