Star Wars: Rogue One [Now with GIANT SPOILERS, so beware!]

To this point, these anthology movies have once again brought up the question: in what order should someone watch the Star Wars movies for the first time? Assuming you don't leave any out, I liked the idea of 4,5,1,2,3,6. I assume 7, 8 and 9 should follow after those without issue.

Keeping it simple, should Rogue One be watched before Episode IV now?

 

troublemaker

 

As a long term fan I think I will always have to watch Rogue One and then a New Hope now, I think Rogue One enriches the SW universe and makes it better, and it flows so naturally.

However, first time viewing is a tough one. I'm not sure why you leave 6 until last?

First time I think you have to stick with the original trilogy, then episode 7, then Rogue One and then Episode 1 and 2, then Genndy Tartakovsky's Clone Wars, then episode 3 and then Rebels.

 

4, 5, 6, Rogue One, 7, 1, 2, 3

 

Interesting order. It's tempting to try to start with Rogue One, but with it being a bit dour and not nearly as a charismatic as 4, 5 and 6, you risk the chance of boring the viewer and having them not want to continue. Ep IV is the perfect place to jump in.

The part of leaving Ep 6 until the ends comes from the "machete order", where the last shot of current official version of Return Of The Jedi (with Hayden Christensen) makes no sense otherwise ("who is that guy I've never seen before?"). Showing the original version of Jedi would fix this I think though.

I have young kids now, so I'll need to have a good answer for this for when they're old enough to watch!

 

I wouldn't watch "R1" as part of a "Star Wars" marathon because it's not an "episode".

It's a sidebar and wouldn't really make sense if you wanted to view the films as a coherent narrative.

"Hey, here's a movie with a bunch of characters you never saw before and will never see again - enjoy!"

 

The OT should be first. If they watch Ep. I, II, and III, that may turn the viewer off on the whole deal. And I'm someone who thinks that Revenge Of The Sith is just as good as a whole as Return Of The Jedi.

 

It's was really tacky and distracting to have Peter Cushing CGI. If they can replace Darin Stevens with a completely different actor , then they could have done the same here. It's the friggen eyes.

Otherwise I envied the movie. Certainly better than the last one.

 

This, basically.

The original film is a classic and needs to be seen by anybody that enjoys movies...and quite frankly, if the original Star Wars bores your audience, they're not going to spend any more time on any of the other films

 

Don't overthink it with the kids. I have two, we showed them Episode 4 only for a while, and once they were into it enough, then we showed em 5 & 6 and the original trilogy, and my kids liked rebels and clone wars on netflix. For kids 5 and under, it all kind of blends together anyway. Its space and robots and lasers and sabers. My 5 year old has seen Star Wars, Jedi, episode 7, and now rogue one. The intricacies of plot and characters and all that doesn't really stick with them.

 

Here's an interesting essay by an industry writer who hated the movie. Their basic point is that not much is explained, the characters are kind of underdeveloped, and the whole thing feels "disjointed and unmemorable." Even if you disagree, it's an interesting read and I think they bring up some good points:

'Rogue One' Shows Disney Still Doesn't Really 'Get' 'Star Wars' »

I personally think the movie had some good moments here and there, plus I didn't hate it, but it was "merely OK but not great." I've seen worse, but it's not a film I'd like to see again. I've seen the first two Star Wars films at least 40 or 50 times (and that number might be low), and I think they hold up very well. The rest... not so much.

 

That, and for me the way the character moves. There is no sensation of the real weight of a person, or of the subtle cues of a body under clothing.

John K.

 

The only thing that is digital on Tarkin in R1 is his face. Tarkin is played by Guy Henry, A real person in a real costume. Your comment makes no sense.

 

I stand corrected.

 

I liked CGI Tarkin. I thought it was really well done. Only a few times did I find the mouth movements to be "video-gamey". For the most part it was amazing and added a lot to the authenticity of the film as a true "Star Wars" movie.

My favorite SW movies:

• The Empire Strikes Back
• Star Wars
• The Force Awakens
• Rogue One
• Return Of The Jedi

(Insert huge gap here)

• Revenge Of The Sith
• Attack Of The Clones
• The Phantom Menace

 

He still looks fake. Bad idea. They should have used the entire real actor.

 

Thanks for that link Vidiot, it's a good read.

A couple of quotes from the article and comments from the peanut gallery (me):

"The original “Star Wars” film doesn’t require a giant action sequence every 10 minutes to keep the audience interested, so why does Disney think that’s the case with its new films?"

It sounds like the equivalent of the Loudness Wars showing up in onscreen. No dynamics, too many action sequences without time to breath.


"But that’s the underlying problem with the new take on “Star Wars”: it’s so afraid to be boring, probably in response to the much-maligned prequel films, that it forgets what people love about “Star Wars” in the first place."

I'm not so sure it's about "forgetting", but the filmmakers may not even realize that the friendship angle (as stated in the article) is a key element. It's not always easy to put a finger on why a movie gives so many viewers that magical feeling. There's an element of capturing lightning in a bottle when making a movie that can't be reliably predicted or replicated. There's charisma in those characters that came through the actors in Star Wars and Empire and a good part of Jedi too. But it's like telling a scientist to schedule a "eureka!" moment for next Wednesday. It doesn't work like that (says someone who's never made a movie).

 

why do people have to be spoonfed all the time. Rogue One is a different story , it isn't the story of Skywalker, Solo and Leia.

There aren't many friendships in this film, there doesn't need to be. I got that the blind guy and the Mexican with the big gun were about the only real friendship in it, that was overt. the dynamics between people seemed pretty evident to me and worked entirely within the context of this story.

ymmv of course!

 

That article has some interesting points worth chewing on. While there are some good points made in theory, I think the writer is romanticizing the original films a bit too much.

"Force Awakens" and "Rogue One" are the 7th and 8th films in the series (in, obviously, the most basic sense as a franchise). There's just *less* new stuff to tread compared to the first couple of films in 1977 and 1980.

While I do think "Awakens" and "Rogue" would have benefited from better character development, I also think the degree to which *the masses* remember the original films, especially the first one, specifically because of characters is a little overstated in this article. A *lot* of what made people (including a lot of kids) love the first film was the entire universe building aspect of it. "A New Hope" is not a terribly complicated, deep film (you can do plenty of deep reading into it, because it has the good foundation that allows people to imbue it with all sorts of other meaning), and I'd argue that while the characters are *well-defined* in a way that the new films could learn some lessons from, I wouldn't say we learn a *a ton* about those characters. They're not complicated as presented in the film. Even Kenobi gets a lot of his complicated nature from the stuff we learn in the prequels.

So, I do think the new films could develop the characters more. But I also think there's only so much one can wring out of the Star Wars franchise that's going to be mind-blowingly amazing.

"Rogue One" is basically really expensive, well-done fanfic at the end of the day. It's like a movie adaptation for one of those off-shoot novels that superfans read. That they made a movie out of *that* and did it as well as they did is actually quite impressive.

And yeah, unless something really screwy happens, these films are gong to remain "movie making by committee" at Disney.

 

I think most of these weird viewing orders are far too convoluted. I'd go one of two obvious ways:

I, II, III, Rogue One, IV, V, VI, VII ("Rogue One" shouldn't confuse anyone; there are tons of other things especially in the prequels that will confuse someone far more than the simple, obvious explanation of why "Rogue One" features different characters)

Or, because the "Prequels" indeed will turn the "uninitiated" off, you could go with the IV, V, VI, VIII and then go back and do the other four in order.

Not sure what to do with the TV shows. I just recently tried the 2D animated "Clone Wars", and that seemed pretty tedious to me. I've dipped a tiny bit in the other two CGI shows ("Clone Wars" and "Rebels") but need to go back and really try those in more detail. But the TV shows tend to play far differently from the films (obviously), and I think certainly someone who you're introducing the films to for the first time might find the TV stuff rather tedious. I dig the films and even I'm having trouble working up the interest to delve into any of the TV shows after sampling them.

 

This. The Star Wars Expanded Universe was wonderful in large part (with exceptions for sure) before they tossed most of it out prior to the release of Force Awakens.

R1 very much took me back to plowing through the "sequel" novels when I was younger.

 

While it may not work in a marathon, it IS fun to watch just before A New Hope.

 

Well the real guy, Guy Henry, moved too fast sometimes. He also twitched a few times. Those movements didn't make sense with Tarkin's face CGI'd on there.

 

Again, It was a HORRIBLE choice. Just hire some friggen actor to play the part completely.

 

The order in which they are watched will be moot in a couple decades,young people wanting to find out what they are about will start from 1 onwards,probably.