YES! Don’t ask! If you care at all, don’t speak to anyone else about it. Tonight, do not walk, run to a video store, rent it, watch it, and then scratch your head wondering what in the Hell the big deal about this flick was, anyway.
One of my closest friends didn’t know that Vader is Luke’s father until three years ago. I kid you not. He had seen Episode 4 when the Special Edition came out (because I dragged him to it), but had never seen the others. Finally, I forced him to watch The Empire Strikes Back. We were watching it on video with a couple other friends. When Vader said I am your father my friend shouted “Holy s***!”
The jaws of everyone in the room dropped, and after about three seconds we all burst out laughing.
I’ll add my voice to the chorus of RELEASE ORDER!
I was an adult of twenty two when Star Wars was released.(And no matter what nayone says, it was NOT labeled as Episode 4, A New Hope) I remember sitting in the theater, my mouth hanging open, as the huge ship passed overhead. I felt like a little kid, with the amazement and wonder.
I watched ROTJ at a special showing. I was attending a science fiction convention, and we all trooped to the theater to watch it at a member’s only showing that had been arranged. One of the best times I ever had at a movie. Half of us in various costumes, cheering the good guys, booing and hissing the bad guys, quite a raucous bunch.
I wish I had kids to introduce it to, like Pochacco was talking about. I can never experience the wonder of seeing it again for the first time, but seeing someone else see it for the first time would be almost as fun.
By the way, I bet I know tons of people who don’t know what Soylent Green is and have never even heard of it.
Oh, and release order is definitely the only way to view Star Wars.
You are correct – this was added later. I’m pretty sure it didn’t appear until the re-release in 1980 prior to the release of The Empire Strikes Back. Which makes sense, because when the original Star Wars came out no one knew if it would be successfuly enough to make more.
Awright:
There seem to be two versions of this story, the cynical one, and the Official Lucasfilm’s Version.
The cynical one says Star Wars was basically a one-off that raked in a ton of money (for the time and genre), so he made up the whole “trilogy of trilogies” thing soon after, and then began liberally backfilling whenever necessary to make out like he had concocted some huge alternate universe (of which Star Wars was only a glimpse), a la Tolkien.
The Official Version is that Lucas really does have a trilogy of trilogies, outlined well before Star Wars went into pre-production. In fact, the original idea was to tell the Anakin story first, and proceed in order; but, finding “A New Hope” more compelling, he began with Episode IV, and hoped one day to bring to the world his Star Wars vision in completion.
Frankly, I suspect the latter version of the history is almost 100% bullshit. I’m betting what Obi Wan told a certain someone about his past really was the version he had in mind at the time. I’m guessing Darth Vader strolled around in a big black helmet because it made him look like a badass, NOT because…well, you know. And I’m betting a certain avacado-hued somebody hadn’t even been thought up yet, and that a certain somebody else was NOT supposed to be a relative, and so on.
So, which is correct?
Most likely the truth is somewhere in between-Lucas had a basic story lined out for a trilogy, but wasn’t sure what EXACTLY would happen, or if the first movie would be successful.
Oh dear Loopydude - someone as cynical as me perhaps? I think it’s obvious that the original Star Wars was a one-shot that got extended and extended because it kept making money.
I first saw The Original Star Wars in the theatre when I was in my early 20s. I thought it was ok. Thought the sequels unnecessary. Have no desire to see the prequels. Don’t feel the necessity to introduce my child to it. (Though I loved seeing the Lord of the Rings movies with her).
Release order. If you haven’t already seen 4-6, then there’s absolutely no novelty in watching 1 and 2 (maybe 3 will be good on its own). Without the novelty, you won’t be able to forgive the ugly bits in favor of the good bits (more ugly bits in E1, more good bits in E2).
In fact, I would recommend you skip Episode 1 altogether. Or at least put it on Fast Forward the whole time. Oy, what a thin script…
I’d argue for release order as well. I liked the prequals, though I wasn’t really fond of TPM, I think AOTC is as good as ROTJ. Release order works because it keeps some of the surprises, especially of ESB, in the dark. If you saw the prequals before that, you’d already know them and that’d ruin the fun.
I think it’s only 50% bullshit and 50% misinterpretation of what he claims.
He said he had a backstory for the characters and situation and universe, and that he had a larger story that he divided up into pieces and only made one small part, the most action packed part.
That’s why the Ewoks were added, because his original plan was to have Wookiees but he kind of took the surprise of their existence out of the equation with the addition of Chewbacca. And it’s why a second Death Star was created, because originally the story he planned only had one Death Star sequence, he put that in the first one when he reduced the story, and then he didn’t have any climax for the last one anymore, so he rehashed it.
The prequels stem from a very vague concept of who the Emperor was, who Vader was, and how Obi Wan figured into it, all of which was hinted at in Ep IV, but he didn’t have anything much more concrete than that. It therefore could be adjusted and kicked around a bit to be fleshed out to suit a trilogy, which was perhaps his biggest mistake - he had a single movie’s worth of backstory that he had foolishly promised to be a trilogy.
What’s the big deal about Soylent Green? Everybody knows that soylent green
is
…
His sled
Can some one please tell me what all the animousity is about towards Episode I and II? I thought they were good. And this is some one who grew up in the 70’s so I know all about the orginal episodes.
I will say I liked episode II better than I though.
Well, there is simply no excuse for Jar Jar Binks. No Excuse. I am not one of the people who thought he was a clumsy racial slur, but I hated that crappy piece of animation. It was like a one-man throwback to the tortuous nightmare of over an hour of Ewoks in Ep VI.
Ep II is a distinct improvement over I, that is for sure. However I find that neither of these movies, for all their technical wizardry (and excess of CGI) manage to evoke the magic and fun of Ep IV & V.
I & II are like modern extensions of VI, that is to say based on good material and good legacy, much better funded, using greatly improved technology, but overall lacking the heart that went into IV & V, and relying instead on flashy tricks or “cute” aliens. The word “cute” is used loosely here and I would have no problem with a Death Star utterly wiping out the Moon of Endor where the Ewoks live, and Darth Vader – the REAL bad-ass one, not the whiny self-centred asshole – disembowelling Jar Jar.
I always thought V in particular is a fine piece of film making. I don’t know why they didn’t stick with Irvin Kershner as a director, out of all the Star Wars movies IMO Kershner did the best job by far – perhaps he was stealing Lucas’s thunder?
Watch them in order of release, which corresponds to:
-
the one that started it all
-
the best one of the lot
-
one that could have been great, but that you can still fix with an AV editing suite on your PC
-
a wishy washy special effects extravaganza exploiting the massive market of the original trilogy
-
similar to above, but improved in quality, with a lot less Jar Jar, and quietly retreating from the midichlorian nonsense
-
?
I dunno about EpII being much of an improvement over EpI. While the script for I was thin, the script for II was, in places, quite simply awful. The dialogue between A. and P. especially was almost excruciatingly bad. They had as much on-screen chemistry as a bucket of mud. There were points in their burgeoning “romance” where a particular line, delivered with po-faced breathy seriousness, would send the audience into fits of laughter. Embarassingly unintentional laughter. It was painful. I wanted to plug my ears and cover my eyes, and found, to my chagrin, I have only two arms. For all the improved cinematics and denser story, there is such a weight of hideous characterization, banter, and carcinogenically bad reparte, none of the eye candy and action can redeem it. I don’t care if it’s “a kid’s movie”. Nothing in any of the earlier releases sucked this hard.
Simply avoid the episodes George Lucas either directed or was the (sole) writer. The man should be prohibited to directing live actors or writing dialogue. (For those scoring at home, that leaves Empire Strikes Back as the only one worth watching).
He’s OK (though not great) at drafting a story arc. He just knows jack about actually translating such an arc to the page or the screen.
Sua
See them in release order. In fact, I would go so far as to extend that to any series, be it of books, movies, or any other medium. A later-released work will, in general, assume that the audience is already familiar with the earlier works. Plot points which were handled dramatically the first time around will be matter-of-fact when they’re referred to in later-released volumes. And even for non-spoiler matters, an explanation of some story feature in a prequel won’t matter if you haven’t already been introduced to that feature. I usually have this discussion in terms of the Chronicles of Narnia (which are now numbered incorrectly, by story order rather than series order), but I think it’s equally applicable here.
So, you’re complaining that the lovey-dovey dialogue between a sexually repressed broomstick-up-her-ass politician and a sexually repressed, emotionally repressed monk-equivalent wasn’t slick enough?
You remember any of the shit you said when you were an emotional teenager talking to your girlfriend/boyfriend?
Of all the slams against these movies, that complaint was by far the weakest.
-Joe
We shall not speak of the CoN publisher’s re-ordering!! UNCLEAN!! UNCLEAN!! :mad:
Wha? When was this done? What is the correct versus “their” ordering of the stories?