Star Wars Marathon: What order to watch them...

Spoiler Alert: Rachael gets the meal done on time.

 

So it wasn't R2D2 with a turkey baster?

 

To me, I is actually a pretty good movie if you could just strip away Jar Jar, little Ani and the pod race.
That would leave a short movie, but you'd have perhaps the coolest Jedi in Qui-Gon (sp?), the coolest bad guy in Darth Maul, a little bit of political intrigue that actually isn't bad (though it's better in parts of III) and your first look at the Jedi in their prime.
I don't know how you could fix II. You'd have to strip out the love story (which would completely change III) and do away with C3PO's awful puns. That's a start, but I think it wouldn't be nearly as good as my fixed version of I.
And I don't know any Star Wars fan who didn't have a total geekout moment when Yoda pulls out the light saber (and love how he goes back to the slow limp again afterward).

 

I didn't HATE the pod race - thought it was pretty cool on the big screen actually. I HATED the announcers during the pod race. Sucktastic. Also, I wonder at what point during filming did Lucas realize he made a major fuckup hiring the kid who played Ani. That kid couldn't act to save his life. God, he was awful!

 

Well, I did hate the pod race, but that's me.
As for the kid playing Ani, if you watch the bonus materials on I, you can see the auditions and also some of him acting (as I recall it's on set but the cameras aren't rolling or have stopped). He clearly had the best audition that they showed, but you see on-set how bad he was.
I don't know how such a big-time movie had such a bad pool of kid actors to choose from. I mean, look at Dakota Fanning's early work and tell me kids at that age can't act. Look at the kid in The Sixth Sense.
Lucas obviously needed to try a little harder, but he made the same mistake with casting Anakin in II and III. A director who admits his only direction usually is "faster and more intense" clearly doesn't have the best eye for talent.
Consider how many real actors he had in the entire series. You'd think six movies with huge budgets (at least after the first one) and so much interest would have a better list than Harrison Ford, Samuel L. Jackson, Ewan McGregor, Alec Guinness and Natalie Portman (who is bad in II and III).

 

the first one is kinda boring. in fact, i tend to sleep through the first hour of it. it improves greatly with the 2 and 3.

 

At this rate, you'll never be invited back into my pants. Bruce Campbell is a god.

 

Well, Ian McDiarmid definitely came on over his tenure in the series.

 

First time ever: IV-VI, I-III.
After well-acquainted w/series: I-VI.

Allen: I agree 100 percent. I and II are not as horrible as most want to make them out. In fact, overall, they're pretty darn good.

 

I love this logic. Let's continue:

Cut out Luke's whining and the Jawas in the original. The whole sequence in the trash compactor was pretty cheesy too.

Cut out the entire introduction to Yoda in Empire, and when it comes down to it, that whole thing with Luke getting captured by the snow beast is pretty extraneous, isn't it? Obi-Wan could appear to him in his quarters, after all.

Cut out the Ewoks in Return of the Jedi.

There. Now they're all "fixed."

The point? There has been cheese and annoying characters in this series since Day One. They're popcorn movies for kids.

I will say, however, that Mucas made a horrendous miscalculation with the virgin birth and the midichlorians thing. He jut didn't want to spend five minutes thinking about who the dad would have been.

 

You're right. I simply left him out. I knew I'd forget somebody who did a great job.

 

You have a point there. To be honest, there are pieces of the original trilogy I could do without (the ENTIRE Ewoks part, for example). But I don't know how you could watch IV-VI and say the flaws are nearly as serious as I-III (especially I and II). And the best parts of I-II and nowhere near as good as the highs in III-VI.