Slashdot Mirror
7-Year Old Prequel Fan On ANH
Random BedHead Ed writes "It is a subject often pondered by Star Wars fans: what is it like to watch the six films in order with a fresh perspective? From the Desk of Ghent, On one of the Star Wars blog site's many journals, answers this question in a recent blog entry about the writer's 7-year old son, who recently watched A New Hope for the very first time. Some enlightening quotes: 'Look... Obi-Wan is pretending he doesn't know R2-D2,' and 'Why don't those ships need Hyperspace rings?' It's a pity the end of Empire has been spoiled."
If one thing I found was that I was more bound to side with the Empire simply after seeing how inept the Republic truly was.
The new perspective gained from watching the first three puts the whole series in a new light. The Empire really became what it was simply because the Republic and Jedi had become so egocentric and inept they had to be replaced to move forward.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
When my three year old is old enough to watch the movies, I'll just show him IV through VI and skip the others. Finding out about the family relationsips, (as well as who Yoda is) is just too important, and the whole series suffers way too much. I liked episode III better than I or II, but watching Darth throw out his arms and arch his back screaming "NNNNOOOOOOOOOO" was terrible. As I left the theatre, I thought, "that is the last bit of new Star Wars I'll see. And it ended with a "NOOOOO!!!".
At what point did the Emperor decide that it was time to change Storm Troopers into a zesty new outfit and cut back on the accuracy training budget?
And when did they all get a new accent?
I always read things and watch series in the order they were written, not in the order of the books. It is better to watch Star Wars this way, read the Foundation series this way, and just about anything I can think of. In this way you follow the natural creative process of the writer rather than an artificial storyline; you grow with the writer and the story, the last three Star Wars movies certainly don't flow like Lucas wrote them all at the same time, maybe he had a vague treatment...
Slightly off topic, but this guy mentions that his kid has watched RotS twice (I think it was).
My four year old girl has started expressing a MAJOR interest in all things Star Wars since seeing, for some reason, a Darth Vader poster (I hope that doesn't say something disturbing about her bugeoning subconscious).
I have sat with her and watched A New Hope, which she thoroughly enjoyed, but having seen Sith myself, I think the scene of Anakin's "disfigurement" was a wee bit much for a child of her age, and I don't know how mature this guy's seven year old is, but is ANY child of that age ready for something like that?
"The dew has clearly fallen with a particularly sickening thud this morning"
This sound like awfully sophisticated thoughts for a 7 year old. Maybe kids have gotten better at understanding these things, or maybe it's a particularly intelligent 7 year old, but I'm doubting this is for real.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I think the best order dramatically is IV, V, I, II, III, VI. You still get the surprise in Empire, and then treat the prequels as an extended flashback, which adds much more weight to the scenes with Luke, Vader and the Emperor in Jedi.
To me, one of the greatest thing about Star Wars is the Big Revelation in Empire. Why spoil that? I will be watching Empire tomorrow night with my daughter and I can't wait to see her jaw hit the floor just as the jaws of the collective audience in 1980 hit the floor. If any of you out there have children coming of age and want to show them these films, PLEASE show them in release order. They don't need the prequels to appreciate the original trilogy
Don't get me wrong. I am one of the few who think the prequels kick ass from start to finish, but why spoil one of the greatest surprises in movie history just to give a lot of back story that doesn't matter much until you've see the originals anyway?
Besides, for a new viewer, the prequels still contain the surprise of Palpatine being the Emperor so it's just fine to end your viewing of the films with Sith. Palpatine isn't referred to by name in Jedi so there is still a satisfying build-up and climax in the prequels with that revelation (most of us hardcore fans might not realize that because we already knew who he was. New, younger viewers won't.)
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
"How did Yoda go so senile so quickly?"
He didn't seem so senile after he told Luke who he was. The impression I got was that he was playing a tard to wind Luke up. Testing his patience, so to speak. I'm not interested in defending the consistency of the prequels, but I didn't have any real qualms with Yoda.
It is interesting thinking about Yoda's motivations now, though. Was he helping Luke to deal with his father, or was he using him to take out Vader? I hope it's the latter. I like the idea of Yoda being self centered.
"Derp de derp."
The endings of both tESB and RotJ had a new spin for me after watching Sith recently. By the end of Empire, Vader has figured out that the Emperor lied to him and his son was alive all along. What does he do? Try to get Luke's help to muscle the old man out and run things himself. Now it comes off not just as greed for more power, but as hoping for revenge for being lied to and otherwise manipulated.
Similary, the end of Jedi seems totally different to me now. Vader realizes his hopes of taking over as the new Emperor aren't going to happen because Luke just isn't good enough to pull it off, and he cracks. He gets pissed off and the old reflexes to kill the person responsible kick in, so he offs Palpatine in a rage the same way he routinely used to kill people in his younger days. It's not to atone for his sins or even to save his son. He's been getting pushed around by this guy for twenty years, looking for a weak moment to off him, and finally he gives up hope on a better ending and just finishes him off while there's a good window to do it.
When bicycle racing I like to find some really big guy who obviously isn't that experienced, and continually bolster him up with how great he's doing, while drafting him the whole time.
Come to think of it, I used to do much the same thing while playing dodgeball in grade school.
Same deal I guess.
KFG
I personally find that the best order to watch them is:
I, II, III.
sic transit gloria mundi
It has been my speculation since about 2 seconds before the end of Episode 2 that R2 is, in fact, an avatar of the force. Here's the details of the theory:
Long ago, Corsicant, a plantet girded by a single city, became not just self-aware (which many droids are), but self-motivated and free-willed.
It decided that humans (and I'll use that term, even when I mean "all biological sentients") were a threat of some sort. Perhaps their wars could have destroyed the computer, or some other, more subtle sort of threat.
In order to keep humans in check, it produced a nanotech tool called mediclorians, which could simulate a number of seemingly magical effects such as enhancing strength, generating magnetic and gravitation fields, providing sensory data, modifying the moods and simple surface-thoguhts of other (by dispersing a small cloud of them into the target creature) beings.
By dispersing this tool among the humans, two factions were created. The first (the Sith) were meant to maintain order, but they were too ruthless, and warred among themselves. So, a second group was created to counterpoint the Sith (the Jedi). This group, however, simply wiped out the Sith, rather than achieving a balance with them.
Anakin was created either directly by Corsicant's agents and avatars or by Palpatine on behalf of the planet (almost certainly without knowing the purpose). R2 was sent along by way of Padme to look after Anakin and make sure he was being guided down the path to "restoring balance to the force" (which becomes quite a bit more sinister when you think about it meaning the death of all but a handful of Jedi from the beginning).
Evidence:
R2 is the hero in so many scenes in all six movies that the point is hardly worth mentioning.
"He's been known to be wrong... from time to time." We never do establish how smart R2 is, but clearly it's far beyond the capabilities of most Astro Droids.
Several times people do things around R2 which make little sense (e.g. wiping the memory of C3PO, but not R2, combat droids deciding that the noise in the corner was "nothing"... do droids here things when R2 ISN'T around?)
R2 and Yoda have a very interesting relationship. Either R2 makes Yoda forget who he is (surely a blue R2 unit showing up along side Luke isn't a mere coincidence), or they both know what's going on... which makes me wonder who exactly WAS Yoda's master....
R2 is everywhere that an avatar of Corsicant would need to be to see the prophesy fulfilled and then set the whole process in motion again.
I think you are partly right. But I don't think the balance was in numbers so to speak, both Jedi and Sith are extremes. The real balance is embodied in Luke, Anakin goes to both extremes and meets luke halfway. Anakin I believe brings balance in the form Luke, by destroying both Jedi and Sith and ultimately open the way for a new breed of Jedi who see the Force as a whole, not a good light side and an evil dark side. The force is niether good noir evil, the Jedi and Sith made that distinction, each one believing the other is evil, these are people who are evil not the Force. Both factions are largely dehumanized, one are selfish and care more about themselves and indivuals than for the greater good, the other are selfless, they don't care about themselves they only care for others and are detached from most of the basic human emotions, take Obi-Wan, he is more than willing to sacrifice people in order to perform his "duty" and for the great good. I think the point is that anything taken to Extremes is bad, even if they are well intended like the Jedi.
Now on to the parent comments...
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
But why would the planet want to "bring balance"?
And its Coruscant btw.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating