Aside from trying to start a flame war or an arguement I think the "rankings" most people list are silly.

Economically (technically the only reason movies get made) the movie people pan the most (Episode I) made the most of all the movies.

Source: http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/domestic.htm & http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/world/

If you adjust for inflation, which is not always a realistic indicator, it still fares well for Episode 1, http://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchises/chart/?id=starwars.htm

So if you want more Star Wars movies/toys/games/etc you would actually pray for more like Phantom Menace. Unfortunately when it comes to posts like this, most people prefer to be angry than to think rationally, so people hate on the new trilogy too much.

I find this logic rather silly. I don't like the original Star Wars trilogy because they have the Star Wars branding. I like them because I like them as movies. Suggesting that we should be rooting for more movies we don't like because they're successful and carry the branding is ludicrous. You're suggesting that I should pray for more movies that were like the movies I don't like so that the franchise can continue in a direction that doesn't appeal to me?

Further suggesting that sales should be the principal barometer is equally absurd. Ep I sold remarkably well because it was the first iteration of one of the world's most storied franchises to be put out in decades. For kids who grew up on those movies, this was practically the second coming of Jesus. That's not to say there aren't fans of Ep I or that they're wrong, but sales numbers don't tell the whole story.

What's silly is you deriding everyone for their personal lists and then putting forth your own unambiguous criteria for the only true list.

So if you want more Star Wars movies/toys/games/etc you would actually pray for more like Phantom Menace. Unfortunately when it comes to posts like this, most people prefer to be angry than to think rationally, so people hate on the new trilogy too much.

So your favorite was The Phantom Menace?

Everyone has their favorites. Much as I think Empire was a better movie than Star Wars, I still find the first is my favorite. Nostalgia probably plays a big part of that but I'm okay with that.

I like Star Wars. I want more Star Wars movies. If I was introducing someone new to Star Wars, I would not use the machete order, or start with the old trilogy, I would use episode order. My favorite does not really matter, per the first line of my orginal comment.

When I introduce people to movies, I'm trying to share with them something that was special in my life. I wouldn't show them Episode I because it's chronologically the first. I'd show them Episode IV, because it's where I fell in love with the series and I find the prequels to be largely garbage.

When I introduce people to movies, I'm trying to share with them something that was special in my life. I wouldn't show them Episode I because it's chronologically the first. I'd show them Episode IV, because it's where I fell in love with the series and I find the prequels to be largely garbage.

I love the PT, but I would still start with E4. That "big reveal" in E5, and it's pretty much almost unparalleled in moviedom, is completely destroyed if you show the movies chronologically.

waste of a thread.

I find this logic rather silly. I don't like the original Star Wars trilogy because they have the Star Wars branding. I like them because I like them as movies. Suggesting that we should be rooting for more movies we don't like because they're successful and carry the branding is ludicrous. You're suggesting that I should pray for more movies that were like the movies I don't like so that the franchise can continue in a direction that doesn't appeal to me?

What's silly is you deriding everyone for their personal lists and then putting forth your own unambiguous criteria for the only true list.

When I introduce people to movies, I'm trying to share with them something that was special in my life. I wouldn't show them Episode I because it's chronologically the first. I'd show them Episode IV, because it's where I fell in love with the series and I find the prequels to be largely garbage.

I am fully glad that you find my opinion silly and that you proceed to insult it. Thank you for making my original post as correct as Dante and Oddball did.

Insulting an opinion does little more than weaken your standing. Saying "silly" rather than some expletive does not make it any less rude BTW.

I am glad that you have an opinion, I could care less if it is different from mine. Is yours "silly" ? no. Is mine silly? no.

Thank you for participating in this "only my opinion matters and heck with everyone else" thread. /sarcasm

Chip on your shoulder much?

I'm having a discussion. I do find the opinion silly, and that's unfortunately something you just have to deal with when you state your opinions with such earnest objectivity. If you're offended by that, then I'm sorry, but it doesn't make me retract my original statement.

I don't think anything in the content of my argument suggests that "only my opinion matters". I felt like I rather clearly explained why your statement didn't fit in with my perspective. If you can't handle any dissenting opinions, maybe message boards aren't the place for you.

It seems to me that the source of this "flame war" (and that really strikes me as an overdramatic flourish) is your insecurities, not the "hot button issue" of viewing order.

When I introduce people to movies, I'm trying to share with them something that was special in my life. I wouldn't show them Episode I because it's chronologically the first. I'd show them Episode IV, because it's where I fell in love with the series and I find the prequels to be largely garbage.

I love the PT, but I would still start with E4. That "big reveal" in E5, and it's pretty much almost unparalleled in moviedom, is completely destroyed if you show the movies chronologically.

Yeah, I can see that. Inasfar as the prequels work, I think they work because they're explaining the context of the OT. It seems to me that Vader's arc works better when you see him first as this menacing cipher and then slowly peel the layers of the onion back.

Just for grins, here is my list:

1) Return of the Jedi

2) Revenge of the Sith

3) Empire Strikes Back

4) Attack of the Clones

5) The Phantom Menace

6) A New Hope

Sometimes I rank A New Hope in the #5 spot because it is the movie that started it all. But if given the choice between the two I would watch TPM over ANH. Even though I was old enough when Empire came out, RotJ is the first one I remember seeing in the theater, so that movie will always be what defines Star Wars for me.

New hope in last? What the f@£$&! ?

Well let's see, it's incredibly slow paced, Luke and 3PO are annoying (Luke is my fav character out of all 6 movies despite ANH), it has a horrible lightsaber fight, and it has a horrible and boring space battle. The attack on the Death Star puts me to sleep every single time. If it weren't for Alec Guinness and Peter Cushing and the fact that the movie changed movie making in general AND launched the saga that I love, well, that's why sometimes it makes it into the #5 slot. Sometimes.

Although, I would never do something as foolish as to show my kids chronological order! That's just silly. OT then PT for them for sure!

Just for grins, here is my list:

1) Return of the Jedi

2) Revenge of the Sith

3) Empire Strikes Back

4) Attack of the Clones

5) The Phantom Menace

6) A New Hope

Sometimes I rank A New Hope in the #5 spot because it is the movie that started it all. But if given the choice between the two I would watch TPM over ANH. Even though I was old enough when Empire came out, RotJ is the first one I remember seeing in the theater, so that movie will always be what defines Star Wars for me.

New hope in last? What the f@£$&! ?

Well let's see, it's incredibly slow paced, Luke and 3PO are annoying (Luke is my fav character out of all 6 movies despite ANH), it has a horrible lightsaber fight, and it has a horrible and boring space battle. The attack on the Death Star puts me to sleep every single time. If it weren't for Alec Guinness and Peter Cushing and the fact that the movie changed movie making in general AND launched the saga that I love, well, that's why sometimes it makes it into the #5 slot. Sometimes.

Although, I would never do something as foolish as to show my kids chronological order! That's just silly. OT then PT for them for sure!

Yeah, New Hope can definitely be a bit ponderous, but it's kind of hard to start with Empire.

Let's calm things down a little, guys. Since we're all adults here, I think we are perfectly capable of having discussions without wild accusations.

"Attack the opinion, not the person," is a very good and widely-accepted rule of thumb when having a civil debate, whether formal or informal. So let's ease off on the accusations and give each other the benefit of the doubt. When I started assuming "no offense intended," I was amazed at how many things started to roll off my back.

Please, let's lighten up and have some good conversations with good people. I don't think anybody is trying to start a flame war; in fact, most of the posts I've read here in this very thread have been interesting and non-incendiary. I don't agree with all of them, but that doesn't mean that certain people are trying to flame the ones I do agree with.

People liked Attack of the Clones more than Phantom Menace? I'd have never guessed that.

Sure. If anyone read my opinion as incendiary, I'm sorry.

My apologies, GMRhino. I didn't intend for my opinions to hurt you personally, and I'm sorry you took umbrage with them. I don't agree with your opinions, but I supposed I shouldn't have called them silly. My intent wasn't to offend you, but I sometimes forget that different people have different limits when it comes to taking offense.

I should clarify that my use of the word "silly" was simply in response to you using it as a descriptor for people's personal lists.

Although, I would never do something as foolish as to show my kids chronological order! That's just silly. OT then PT for them for sure!

This is why I like the Machete Order (I think that was mentioned several posts back). My boy is turning 5 next month and he's seen Episode IV a few times, but he's finally at the point where he's really empathizing with story characters in books and movies, and so I've got an Episode V screening all set up a couple weeks from now.

He believes firmly that Darth Vader killed Anakin (all those the Jawas), and he has seen a good chunk of The Clone Wars series (I haven't shown him the Mortis cycle or anything to do with Dathomir yet), and he was very sad the last time he watched Episode IV and Obi-Wan said "he betrayed and murdered your father."

I can't wait to see his reaction at the end of Episode V.

This back and forth is so stale it's not worth bothering. I will say can't wait for the new arguments on how 7-9 compare.

Well let's see, it's incredibly slow paced, Luke and 3PO are annoying (Luke is my fav character out of all 6 movies despite ANH), it has a horrible lightsaber fight, and it has a horrible and boring space battle. The attack on the Death Star puts me to sleep every single time. If it weren't for Alec Guinness and Peter Cushing and the fact that the movie changed movie making in general AND launched the saga that I love, well, that's why sometimes it makes it into the #5 slot. Sometimes.

I can definitely see that...still, it's got some really rich character moments in it, even aside from Peter Cushing and Alec Guinness.

My "preference list" of Star Wars movies is in reverse-order, chronologically:

1. Return of the Jedi
2. The Empire Strike Back
3. Star Wars
4. Revenge of the Sith
5. Attack of the Clones
6. The Phantom Menace

I consider Episodes III and IV to be tied in terms of how I favor them, but the direction of Episode III is so lackluster in comparison to Episode IV's campiness that I have to put all the OT ahead of the PT in terms of how much I enjoy them. Even though I do enjoy the PT as well. Like GM KnowledgeRhino said, I get a smile on my face any time I put a Star Wars film on to watch.

And purely objectively, the prequels were bad movies.

They weren't "bad starwars movies". They were poorly made movies.

Regardless of why people went to see it or how "bad" the movies were/are I get a smile on my face every single time I put in ANY of the six Star Wars movies. With that, and the "value" of the brand I am happy they ALL exist.

That's really nice for you but I fail to see how this is relevant to the discussion.

I get a great big smile on my face every time I put an episode of Red Dwarf in, but I would never argue that they're well made, or even good.

They're funny. And they're crappy.

But that's ok, because I like them anyway.

And it's ok for you to like the prequels. I'm just saying they're not good movies (as in well made). And the fact that they sold a ton is absolutely no proof of them being good.

Transformers sold a ton of tickets.

The Twilight movies sold a ton of tickets.

But I doubt anyone can argue that they're good movies because of that.

(In fact, I would argue that Ep. 1 sold a ton of tickets purely on the fact that there had been no new star wars movies for decades and the fans were hungry for one. Add to that the pure fact that there are A: many more movie theaters these days and B: many more people, and you'll see why the modern star wars movies sold about as much as the old ones)

My original comment stated these kind of threads turn into flame wars. You and Dante have proven my point. I see this as 100% relevant to the Original Post

Keep in mind, if it wasn't for the massive success of The Avengers movie we would not have the current crop of comic book movies from Marvel AND DC. It wasn't that Avengers was a good or bad movie (it was quite good) it was that it made TONS of $$$ for them.

Money drives the decisions. To say that the $$$ success of the prequel trilogies is irrelevant if they are good or not is confusing.

BTW your comment about Episode 1 selling a lot due to the length of time of no new Star Wars is negated by the success $$$ wise of Episode 2 and 3. Also confusing why they were willing to spend $$ on making a cartoon in this same timeline that was popular for 5 seasons.

So Simon Pegg dislikes the prequels, lots of people do. Apparently they hated it so much they spent tons of money seeing them, which is awesome. Hate-watch more of them!

I am wildly confused why people are so offended that some people DON'T hate the prequels.

That's funny, because it seems to me that you're the instigator of the so-called flaming. Posting things that you know will make people argue with you.

As for the other Prequels, it actually kinda does account for it. People went to watch Ep2 because they were hoping it would be better (and a TON of kids went to watch it, dragging their parents with).

While, Ep3, arguably the better of the three, didn't draw nearly as many people.

As for why they'd make a cartoon... well... for economic reasons, of course. Just the star wars brand is guaranteed to bring in a profit, even if the cartoon turned out to be horrible. Personally, I never liked it, but plenty of other people did. So it was not a failure.

However, alot of the people who like the cartoon actually dislike the prequels.

And that has alot to do with the fact that Lucas directed the prequels, but not the cartoon.

And yes, they did hate-watch the prequels. I kinda explained that to you already.

You really should watch "The people vs George Lucas". It's really good and informative.

Also, I'm wildly confused as to why you think I'm offended by you liking the prequels?

Or was that just another attempt to start a flamewar?

Ps. It wasn't the Avengers that set the ball rolling. It was Iron Man.

waste of a thread.

waste of a thread.

Ps. It wasn't the Avengers that set the ball rolling. It was Iron Man.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchises/chart/?id=ironmanfranchise.htm

if you are going to claim Ironman at least claim the right one... aka Iron Man 3 (the First movie produced by marvel studios)

But look at this wonderful 2012 article.

http://www.mtv.com/news/1684992/marvel-avengers-dc-comics/

Seems I am not the only one that thinks Avengers was the catalyst and should be important.

The funny thing about the Machete Order is people think it solves everything, unfortunately it creates hiccups as well.

As outlined on a page PRAISING the machete order, http://www.nomachetejuggling.com/2011/11/11/the-star-wars-saga-suggested-viewing-order/

• Watching OT then PT is bad because of listed reasons
  • This method, ruins some of the reveals of the PT.
• Watching PT then OT is bad because of listed reasons
  • This method, ruins some of the reveals of the OT.
• Watching 4/5/1/2/3/6 is bad because of listed reasons
  • This method preserves the reveals of OT and PT, but somehow it still leaves things people dislike in there.
• Watching Machete order is bad because of listed reasons
  • This method makes half of Anakin's story make little to no sense.

What can be concluded is "people like Star Wars, there are issues with the movies, and yet most people ignore those and still have fun".

I don't understand your reasoning for the last two there.

I mean, 4/5/1/2/3/6 is bad because the first movie is superfluous (as explained in the very page you linked, which btw. isn't a page that "likes the machete order", but is actually the page that introduced the machete order).

Like he says:

So nothing really lost there.

As for the machete order making half of anakins story make "no sense", I don't understand where you're getting that from either.

I gather you mean when he goes back to Tatooine?

If so, then that is hardly half of his story... it's a pretty small part of his overall story, to be fair.

But again, just judging from your tone of writing in these posts, you seem more interested in stirring up controversy and aggression than actually having a discussion.

I've always (subconsciously, I realize) view the OT as 1 continuous story, and not three separate but movies, so ranking them individually doesn't work for me. I simply don't think of them that way. The PT I can divide up, but I don't really care to. I was enthused about them when I was young because Star Wars, but now they don't hold up for me as well as the OT. Too many flaws; too many explanations for everything in the OT, too much politics, other stuff I can get into but I don't really want too. (Not enough Christopher Lee.)

As for the above, I see absolutely nothing wrong with showing them by release. It's only an issue with total n00bs anyway. One scene shouldn't make a difference if you know how to explain what a prequel is, and even without that visual, if the person has two brain cells to bounce off each other they should be able to make the connection anyway. ("Anakin Skywalker? Isn't that what Luke called Darth Vader in the end of the last movie? I see where this is going...")

Ps. It wasn't the Avengers that set the ball rolling. It was Iron Man.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchises/chart/?id=ironmanfranchise.htm

if you are going to claim Ironman at least claim the right one... aka Iron Man 3 (the First movie produced by marvel studios)

But look at this wonderful 2012 article.

http://www.mtv.com/news/1684992/marvel-avengers-dc-comics/

Seems I am not the only one that thinks Avengers was the catalyst and should be important.

Iron Man 3 was made after The Avengers. Almost a full year after, in fact.

Iron Man 1 was the first film in Phase 1 of MCU.

I'll let the fact that you didn't even know that Iron Man 3 was released a full year after The Avengers speak for itself.

I suggest people reporting GM Rhino and further ignoring him. There just is no end to the discussion and he even takes it to private messaging to try and "be right". There is pretty much nothing to be gained in engaging him in a discussion...

I've always (subconsciously, I realize) view the OT as 1 continuous story, and not three separate but movies, so ranking them individually doesn't work for me. I simply don't think of them that way. The PT I can divide up, but I don't really care to. I was enthused about them when I was young because Star Wars, but now they don't hold up for me as well as the OT. Too many flaws; too many explanations for everything in the OT, too much politics, other stuff I can get into but I don't really want too. (Not enough Christopher Lee.)

As for the above, I see absolutely nothing wrong with showing them by release. It's only an issue with total n00bs anyway. One scene shouldn't make a difference if you know how to explain what a prequel is, and even without that visual, if the person has two brain cells to bounce off each other they should be able to make the connection anyway. ("Anakin Skywalker? Isn't that what Luke called Darth Vader in the end of the last movie? I see where this is going...")

Luke never calls Darth Vader Anakin in Episode IV.

Episode V is where Darth tells him he is his father.

Then you watch Ep 2-3 since the big reveal is already done.

​

Accidental double post

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-HFv6Ms1lw

About a minute twenty in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-HFv6Ms1lw

About a minute twenty in.

In episode 6, yeah... which is the last movie you watch... after episode 2 and 3.

So you already know that Anakin IS Vader.

What was the confusion here?

I feel like there was a confusion.