I’d definitely start with 4. Not only is it my favorite, it’s the movie that most influenced the way movies were made and marketed afterward. I agree with Meeko that it might seem slow to someone expecting a full-on action adventure movie. If I were showing it to someone close to my age I would expect them to get that. For someone much younger but still an adult, I would try to give them a little bit of context about what movies were generally like pre-Star Wars. For a kid, I would encourage them to root for the princess and the farm boy, laugh at the funny robots, and watch out for the guy in the cape.
If they liked 4 enough, I would tell them about the sequels, that a lot of people said 5 was a better movie although it didn’t have a clear beginning and ending, and 6 was something of a letdown but as a whole its a rollicking fun space adventure.
If they still wanted to see more, I would sit them down and explain about how sometimes getting what you wish for is not always a good thing.
Actually, I find that 1,2,3 make 4,5,6 seem old and crotchety in one way- the lightsaber fights. Lucas did do a great job improving the lightsaber fights as the series went on. Watch Obi-Wan’s death at the hands of Vader, and compare it almost any fight in the prequels. The old movie fights are jerky and gritty compared to the superfast, fluid fights in the prequels, and while jerky and gritty may fit better for a crippled half-robot and a half-trained kid, it just looks ugly compared to the new stuff.
If blue people can attack aircraft with spears and arrows, then surely, the squishy bears can take on the stormtroopers?
(singing) “If you go down to the moon today
You’re in for a big surprise
If you do down to the moon today
You’d better go in disguise
For every bear that ever there was
Will gather there for certain because
Today’s the day the squishy bears attack the empire.”
I took film in College. We started with the magic lanterns, DW Griffith etc. The last film we studied was 4. For this very reason. That alone shouldbe enough to determine order…
But, again, I don’t think the Gen Y, Gen Z (or what ever it is,) will appreciate that, either – They’ve never known a world with out blockbuster movies. If I can fall back on my Gone With The Wind example, there was nothing my Mom could have told me, that would have made me appreciate the film any more than I already didn’t.
Another thing that I don’t understand is why several people would exclude II but at the same time include III.
Surely, III is the weirdest of them all?
For one, what Simplicio called the foreshadowing of everything happening in IV. This completely spoils any surprises that were left, both for the movie in itself as for the entire series. In the end everything is ready for IV… except that Luke and Leia are still wearing diapers. While it would have been perfectly simple just to cut it off much earlier in the storyline.
It’s like you’re in your car and there’s somebody driving too close behind you all the way (is there an English word for that?).
Two, as if that wasn’t bad enough, the feeble attempts to explain everything that was unclear so far. OK, so apparently darth whatshisname impregnated Shmi (we are the knights who say… SHMI!) Skywalker using the force. And that some jedi can stay on as ghosts or something.
The only meaningful explanation of events happened almost by accident in II when it becomes clear why the vicious sandpeople of Tatooine run away screaming for help the moment they see some guy in a brown robe. No doubt they all know the story of the robed figure who wiped out a whole village 25 years before (not sure though if there was anyone left to tell the tale).
Three, what’s going on with count Dooku? Christopher Lee’s character (who seemed utterly invincible in the previous episode) is gone after not 5 minutes and replaced with some robot guy. Bad choice.
Four, just wondering. Wouldn’t it have been more interesting if the seperatists had actually been right all along? They would have still been under sith control, just not aware of it. Now it seems senator Palpatine is actually controlling and financing BOTH sides of an INTERGALACTIC war. Both sides are working for him. Where does he get the money to buy TWO complete fleets of armies? But this apparently is all but a clever deception to hide the fact that he is officially declaring himself emperor. The plot seems very cumbersome and expensive to me.
Five, again just wondering how this is supposed to happen. The jedi have somehow become the officers for the clone army. Apparently. Then they’re killed at the touch of a button. Leadership gone. Out of nowhere a new class of officers appears. Where do they all suddenly come from?
As for the OP - I think everyone agrees IV V VI, and after that possibly I II or III. (Which makes it all the more pointless that III is trying to get as close to IV as possible.)
Yea, watching them in order would be especially jarring, since you go from obi-won and darth vader flying across a volcano while magically hurling objects the size of small cars at each other with their minds to the same characters in episode 4 taking a couple half-hearted wacks at each other while standing basically still, all the while bragging about how their powers have increased since the last time they met.
But don’t forget, IV-V-VI have Han Solo. He should have been the centre of the prequels, not some bunch of mystical old fruitcakes. That is why my favourite Star Wars prequel is Firefly.
A slight highjack. This is actually one of the biggest misconceptions about Star Wars. There is no love triangle between Luke, Han and Leia. Luke and Leia barely say two words to each other until the moment he tells her they are siblings in the third movie. Other than “Aren’t you a little short for a stormtrooper,” and " Quick, we’ve got to get across. Find the control that extends the bridge," she doesn’t speak to Luke in Star Wars. He blows up the Death Star and she STILL only talks to Han (“I knew there was more to you than money”)! In Empire Strikes Back, her entire dialog to Luke is “It’s a trap!”
People imagine what they want to see. The hero always gets the girl, so everyone assumes Luke will get Leia. I’m not going to say that it wasn’t intended, because it in fact was. The radioplay version sets it up, I think the novel might (been a while since I read it), and an earlier version of Empire sets it up. But they cut all that out. There’s nothing left in the film. Closest is Luke kind of having the hots for her in Star Wars (“What do you think of her?” “I’m trying not to.” “Good.”). The next line shows that the whole exchange was purely to set up Han’s interest, though. It’s all formula.
Han and Leia even Meet Cute. He’s there to rescue her and she ends up rescuing him (into the garbage chute). “Wonderful girl! Either I’m going to kill her or I’m beginning to like her”
There WAS a scene that did in fact hint at something going on between the two of them. Luke and Leia are about to kiss and then they are interrupted by C3P0. Then the scene goes on as normal and it has the famous Luke and Leia “kiss”, which wasn’t so much a kiss, but Leia trying to get Han’ goat. They cut it out because they were sending Luke off on his own path to become a Jedi and if he’d lost Leia to Han, he would have come off looking like a loser rather than a hero. The audience would have been aching for Luke to leave his training early so he could get the girl, plus we would hate Han. This might have been an interesting parallel with Anakin, because he DID compromise his training to get the girl. This wasn’t planned out in 1980, so they cut the scene and allowed Luke to follow his destiny unencumbered by romance and allowed Han and Leia to become a couple. Heck, Han and Leia are even embracing for a kiss on the poster for Empire Strikes Back.
Totally disagree. The lightsaber fights in the original trilogy may be simpler, but they had a sense of danger, menace, and meaning utterly absent in the overproduced, CGI-enhanced crapfests that litter the prequels. This is not helped by the fact that the characters involved in the prequel fights are so uninteresting that we as an audience literally couldn’t give a damn who wins or who loses. Luke facing off against Darth Vader in ESB is the best fight scene in either trilogy, and one of the best in movie history, because here was a fight where every move, every clash of blades, every exchange of words, had purpose and significance and emotional impact. Their rematch in ROTJ (particularly the sequence in which Luke hacks off Vader’s mechanical hand in a rage) is a close second, for similar reasons. There is nothing - nothing - in the prequels like this.
IOW: In 4,5,6, the characters fought with feeling. In 1,2,3, they fought with choreography.
Leia kisses Luke right before they’re about to swing over the pit, “For luck.”
Luke “casually” asks Han what he thinks about Leia. Han says, “I try not to, kid.” Luke mumbles, “Good.”
Before the attack on the Death Star, Luke and Leia have a small heart to heart. After the destruction of the Death Star, Luke and Leia are hugging each other and whooping it up.
In Empire, after Luke is rescued and everyone’s with him in the medical bay, Leia gets annoyed with Han and gets back at him by kissing Luke, who gets a smug-as-hell look on his face when Han looks at him.
I won’t bother to go into the Han-Leia relationship, because you acknowledge it exists and it’s definitely more blatant than the Luke-Leia relationship, but the L-L one is definitely there and they definitely say more than a couple of random lines to each other. At the very least, Luke is clearly hoping for a relationship with Leia, even if Leia never had any real intentions that way.
Don’t forget that after they rescue Luke from the Bespin antennae, he’s in sick bay with Leia attending, and before she goes back to the cockpit, she gives him a kiss on the lips. Yeah, she’s declared her love for Han, but he’s now a 3x6 carbonite slab, so…
Another scene that makes the love triangle so freaking obvious occurs on Endor. It’s the famous one where we finally find out that Luke and Leia are siblings.
Han Solo: I’m sure Luke wasn’t on that thing when it blew.
Princess Leia: He wasn’t. I can feel it.
Han Solo: You love him,
[pause]
Han Solo: don’t you?
Princess Leia: Yes. Han Solo: All right. I understand. Fine. When he comes back, I won’t get in the way.
HAN: Still, she’s got a lot of spirit. I don’t know, what do you
think? Do you think a princess and a guy like me… [could end up together]
If that line doesn’t foreshadow who’s going to link up then you haven’t seen any chick flix.
LEIA: What’s wrong?
LUKE: Oh, it’s Han! I don’t know, I really thought he’d change his
mind.
LEIA: He’s got to follow his own path. No one can choose it for him.
LUKE: I only wish Ben were here.
Their little heart-to-heart is about Han.
Princess Leia rushes toward him.
LEIA: Luke! Luke! Luke!
She throws her arms around Luke and hugs him as they dance
around in a circle. Solo runs in toward Luke and they embrace
one another, slapping each other on the back.
HAN: (laughing) Hey! Hey!
LUKE: (laughing) I knew you’d come back! I just knew it!
HAN: Well, I wasn’t gonna let you get all the credit and take all the
reward.
Luke and Han look at one another, as Solo playfully shoves
at Luke’s face. Leia moves in between them.
LEIA: (laughing) Hey, I knew there was more to you than money.
Luke has just destroyed the Death Star and Leia’s line of dialog is directed at Han.
Watch the scene again. The whole scene is Leia vs Han. All the dialog, the emotion, everything. When she kisses Luke, it is to piss off Han. She doesn’t even talk to Luke. Check it out. They don’t share a single word of dialog. Her every line is directed at Han.
Want to go through the scripts? Leia doesn’t have a SINGLE line of dialog in Empire Strikes Back with Luke other than, “It’s a trap!” and “I’ll be back.” She also doesn’t have any dialog with Luke in Star Wars other than functional random lines during the rescue, like open the bridge and hurry. In fact, they don’t have a conversation at all until Return of the Jedi and by then Han and Leia are firmly established and he’s telling her she’s his sister.
This blows everyone’s mind, because they just KNOW that there was a Luke Leia Han triangle. There HAS to be. I’m telling you there isn’t. It’s completely in people’s imaginations and expectations.
It’s one of the biggest errors Lucas ever made. He closed a thread he completely forgot he never left hanging. Obviously in Star Wars, there was no romance anywhere. The whole plot was Luke gets off Tattooine, they Rescue the Princess, they Destroy the Death Star. In Empire Strikes Back where’s the romance? Han and Leia spend the whole movie together while Luke is off with Yoda. Now, it can be argued that Han has been frozen at Jabba’s for three years and doesn’t know what was going on between Luke and Leia, but that’s irrelevant. There was no relationship in the film between Luke and Leia indicated while they were planning Han’s rescue. Why would there be? Leia has declared her love for Han by that point. There WAS no Luke and Leia romance even hinted at, let alone existing. Luke having a brief unrequited crush on a hologram doesn’t count as a romance.
4-5-6-1-2-3. I find the original trilogy more accessable (not that the later trilogy was a great work of art). When I was much younger (can’t estimate an age), I would sit through Episode 1, even though I considered the kid playing Anakin annoying and unbelievable. Today, the only episodes I would consider watching are 4, 5, the first third of 6 (can’t stand the teddy bears), and 3 (which despite being mindless (see pathetic attempts at humor in an obviously darker film) had some action and drama which I appreciated). I loved many of the ideas of Star Wars when I was younger, but it wasn’t long until I realized what a waste of effort it was to continue the series.
Sorry but that’s just a nonsensical argument. There is more to movies than just dialogue you know. Especially in case of the star wars movies where dialogue is often very thin (apart from highlights such as “The circle is now complete.” or “I find your lack of faith disturbing.”).
Remember that Star Wars was originally just Star Wars. Only later it became episode IV. A lot had changed by the time they got to ESB when the story was basically continued to become a trilogy. Obviously from that moment on it was going to be a Han-Leia romance. I’m not sure when they decided that Luke and Leia were a twin, but it must have been around that time. There was a love triangle as a story device, or minor subplot or call it whatever you wish. It ended in VI with Leia explaining to Han that Luke is her brother.
What we need is someone who is able to sit through the Holiday Special, so he can tell us (after he’s recovered from the brain damage) where the connections are drawn in that.
See, I’m blowing your mind. Where is this romance? Star Wars sets it up. Watch it with your chick flick filter on. Every scene sets up Han and Leia. Luke has a few moments of establishing that Leia is desirable, but it is all for Han’s benefit. It’s pure formula. And Empire Strikes Back is pure Han and Leia. Luke is with Yoda all movie. Luke and Leia don’t just have non-meaningful dialog together. They have NO DIALOG together. In the few scenes they have together, Leia’s focus is on Han. Where is this supposed sub plot? One kiss that was meant to piss Han off rather than show Leia was into Luke? In Jedi, the first act is about rescuing Han and then the rest of the movie is Han and Leia together while Luke hangs with Yoda and Darth & the Emperor.