So my oldest just turned 8, and I want to introduce him to the Star Wars movies and see if he's interested.  What I'm not sure of, is do I show him the movies in original order, a la IV V VI I II III?  

Or do I go in chronological order?  I watch them in chrono order, but I wonder if starting with Episode I might be better for a young kid, with the more modern production qualities.  I'm afraid the older movies might bore him.

I want to start with just the 6, and leave the others for later if he's still interested.  If anyone else has done this, what did you do and how did it go?  I'm not sure he's quite ready yet, or will have the interest or attention span to stick it out, but I want to try.  

you want to start him off w/ Jar jar?

id say do Original order  ;)

Watch the original 3, skip the rest.

Watch Speed Racer and Jonny Quest.

OH heck yes.  Dump the PC sh!t.

I know about "Machete Order" but it's still just lame.  Original three, then tell him to never venture further or risk losing faith in humanity.

Two years ago I was teaching in a wonderful college prep K-12 Christian school.  Graphics art teacher went to a conference in CA for a few days, and I talked to her when she got back. She said I high point for her was meeting the person who created Jar Jar Binks. I immediately thought:

"And you stabbed them in the eye?"

Then I recalled where I was and said, "That must have been awkward."

She said, "Oh it was awesome."

I didn't speak to her again. I don't work there any more.

Maybe add in Rogue One.  That was decent.

I made the kids do IV-VI, then I and II.  Held off on III and RO cuz they're a little 2 dark (youngest isn't quite 7).

They have seen Solo, which IMO is crap, but it's relatively low violence.

Start with Rogue One, then a New Hope, then ESB and end with Return of the Jedi, then watch the Mandalorian EDIT:  removed book of boba felt.  Added clone wars cartoon

Just watch them in order.
The kid doesn't know about woke PC BS so don't make noise about it.
If they really get into SW, like my kid is, doing it chronologically will be beneficial.
My son's been watching for ~3yrs now and he hasn't been fooled. He knows Ep5 is the best and where the writing changed.

This is where I'm leaning, I don't want to taint his view by preaching about wokeness at this point with him especially with something that supposed to be fun and entertaining.  I understand the PC crap, but I don't really see a lot of overly woke crap in the prequels?  I never really understood the raging hate for Jar Jar either.  Sure, he's a dumb character and meant more for comic relief but he alone doesn't ruin the prequel movies for me.  I also haven't seen all of the new movies yet, but I didn't think Rouge One or Solo was that bad, either, but maybe I'm just not as fiercely critical as some.  I'm the same way with the "new" Star Trek.  I don't like it because it's not like the older ones, but I'll still watch them.  

Yeah, I'm not a stickler for a lot of the older vs. newer stuff. If the writing/directing/acting is good, I'm content.
I usually go , by some of the shit SW people argue about, but the writing in some most of the last 3 episodes was horrible.
Solo and Rogue One were far better than any of the last 3...or Ep1 & 3.

Also, my son is huge into the Clone Wars. He's trying to read all of the stories, but there's a bit of a difference between the pre-Disney and Disney stuff (as I gather from his questions and comments).

This is the way. If you need a bit more content Rogue One and Solo are ok.

About a half a dozen or so years ago I did nearly exactly what you are doing: I waited until each of my kids were about 7 or 8 to introduce them to Star Wars.
I started with Star Wars: A New Hope Episode 6 and I have no regrets.  
I think the audience was meant to dropped into the middle of the action.  I remember wondering things like: What are the Clone Wars?  Who is Jabba? How are they going to save Han Solo?  Darth Vader is Luke's father?!?

By the way, that moment in Empire Strikes Back is priceless. Each of my kids were floored.  

Do not show them the prequels before the original trilogy. It just wouldn't be the same.

As for your concerns about kids and more modern special effects, don't worry about it too much.  My kids never even mentioned it.

This is a pic of my son and I watching A New Hope for his first time on a Mac because his sisters commandeered the TV that night for a sleep over.  He's been hooked since.

You are absolutely correct.  The homage to 30s-50s serials like Commando Cody and being dropped into the middle where the mystery of the other parts of the story is part of the adventure was a huge reason why the movie were successful, and totally what they drew off of.

The image we might've had in our minds of "what was the clone wars" was probably more interesting and far grittier than what we got.

The crawl set up the story, we had to make up the rest of it in our minds until the movie started, and then we got rolling.

Absolutely the way to introduce someone to Star Wars.

Also works with adult audiences who've just never cared about Star Wars (mainly girls).  They know some basics, but if you dump them into the prequels (which do suck, just not as bad as the sequels) you end up with people who don't care when they get to the real movies.

Tragically it's kind of hard to get ahold of the non-special editions.  Not sure if the "despecialized" edition is still out there.

I would also advise introducing people to the last bit of pre-prequels old-school Star Wars:

There you go...

Zombie Thread:

I am going to be showing Star Wars to my 6yo this summer, I like the concept of "Machete Order" we're not going to watch the Sequel Trilogy

i grew up on star wars and hollywood movies more than most. from what i now know id say introducing your children to hollywood movies on purpose is like knowingly signing them over to pedophiles. hollywood is run by pedos and each following movie inserts more slightly out of place stuff.

like disney for example. disney just bought lucasfilm ltd star wars etc. they target kids and your kids will love it whether you put it on their lap or not. better off reading them a good book and teaching them stuff they will hold dear.

train up a child in the way he should go, when he is old he will not depart from it. disney just came out in an expose as purposefully hiring lgbts that injected fagotry into all recent disney flicks at every level consiously and subconsiously. now you know why the movies just arent the same and get weirder over time. its the agenda. the prime target audience of the agenda is the children.

Problem is if you watch any prequels, you already know about the Vader-Luke relationship before it even starts.  You know about Leia, you know about how all the characters are tied together, and very quickly, it just doesn't make much sense.  [plinkett voice]Also why can't R2 fly and shoot fire anymore?  Did something happen between movies?  Did he forget?  Or is it just bad writing?[/plinkett voice]

All the surprises that happen throughout the original trilogy aren't just foreshadowed, they're outright stated in the prequels, because the viewing public had already had decades to digest them.

For a new viewer, the surprises are going to be there if they watch them in the order they were released.

Yeah that's where I was when I was trying to decide the order, I was like "The prequels ruin the dramatic reveal" (he already knows, but I think he might forget in the heat of the moment)

The machete order seemed to be the best way to preserve the big reveal, while not ignoring (most of) the prequels entirely. IDK if you're familiar with it, but you watch episodes 4 and 5, then go back and watch episodes 2 and 3, skipping episode 1 (Anakin is roughly the same age, or thereabouts as Luke and see the path he took and how relatively easily and quickly he turned) and then watch episode 6 knowing Vader's backstory, and see the conclusion to his redemption arc.

Vaders "backstory" in the prequels is just 3 movies worth of shoehorning him into the suit.  Not worth it, also interrupts the gritty realistic practical effects feel of the original trilogy.

I'd forgotten machete being 4523, and remembered it as 23451 or something.

Problem still exists mixing a couple decade's worth of change between the movies and associated sfx quality.

It also, again, destroys some mystery.  Generations grew up with just 3 movies, and filled in the backstory themselves.   The value of allowing the imagination to fill in the blanks, again like Lucas' childhood serials, is what helped instill that wonder and really made it an epic that had such broad appeal.

There were decades worth of everyone loving Star Wars, and now it's just an "intellectual property" instead of being a modern myth/universal culture.

The experience so many viewers had as children, young adults, or adults with the movies was because of the same chronological introduction.  Change it and you may change the nature of how someone appreciates it, or at least understands why it was a thing, and how fatigue has set in now and why so many people don't like Star Wars now.

To look at it a different way...would anyone think to introduce  Star Trek by showing 2009 Trek and the JJ Abrams BS first instead of ToS and movies in order?  Would anyone say "start with Enterprise and then STD"?  Would anyone say with Xmen to watch... okay, that continuity is so messed up I can't even meaningfully jumble it further.

I guess the question to ask is, knowing yourself and your audience, would the same order you saw it chronologically be the best, and is the question to explain the whole story in some way, or to have the same experience and take the story as it evolved over time?

I mean, I caught ROTJ on cable at my grandma's house when I was 5 or 6 and was amazed. Then my dad blew my mind when he was like "You know there's more of these movies right?" So I may not be the authority on watching them in the correct order, haha.

I get what you're saying though, it is kind of jarring to see the original CGI, even the "retouched" versions of the original trilogy, and would be even more jarring to go from the original trilogy, to the prequels, and then back to the originals. I haven't watched "A New Hope" on Blu-ray and didn't know that they somewhat improved Jabba's appearance in the tacked on scene on Tatooine. It still looks like shit and adds nothing to the movie though.

He mostly paid attention to the movie but obviously had some questions about why people were doing stuff and what certain things were, I still haven't made up my mind fully where we're heading after Empire, we may just go to ROTJ.

He asked me why Chewbacca didn't get a medal at the end of A New Hope. I thought it was funny that that was what he focused in on.

Don't.

Why?

Nerd garbage.

To be honest, I never noticed it nor cared as a kid.  I'm guessing that since Chewbacca didn't wear clothing, it never occurred to me that not having a medal was incongruous.

There's also the despecialized edition that can kinda sorta be found.  Removes the unnecessary "I have cgi I must do something" changes that were meaningless and stupid and clog up the screen, keeps the cleanup of the gray boxes around TIE fighters and X-wings.

I guess it's both a story in the movie setting and a story in the real world, and a kid may end up with interest in both.

For a quick look at how much someone can be influenced in a positive way both by story and filmmaking, check out Raiders The Adaptation.



ETA: I think this clip may have been copyright struck for music.  But you get the idea.

Play the Clone wars cartoon first

Lookup the best episodes and start from there.

Only show him the good ones.






The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett.

You say that as a joke…. but my son wasn’t really interested in any SW stuff at all until he peripherally watched some of the Mandalorian with me.

After that, he wanted to watch Boba Fett and only then had an interest in the movies. We watched 4 and 5, then he didn’t want to watch any more for a while.

Ultimately, he ended up watching the prequels and sequels before watching Jedi. I don’t think it hurt the story for him - he’s eight. If you are concerned about the big reveal, I would have him watch 4 and 5 soon. Popular culture will tell him all the secrets if you wait too long.

My 2.5 year old is loving the Ewok Adventure movies.

He's going to be so screwed up when he finally watches the trilogy and sees the Ewoks at the end.

He'll think they're the spinoff.

4, 5, 6 and call it a day.

Let him fill in the backstory in his own imagination like we did back in the day and then he can come around to all the other movies when he feels like it.

I'll stand pretty firm on the point that Star Wars (1977) is the starting point for that universe no matter what.  It would be a real shame to miss the opportunity to see Star Wars for the first time coming in fresh without any details filled in ahead of time.  

It'd be like watching the original Matrix movie after seeing the sequels and reboot first.  You'd be depriving yourself of the opportunity to have that fictional universe unveiled the way it was meant to be unveiled.  

My boys are 9 and 11. We did 4, 5, 6, 2, 3, 7, 8, 9 and they love 5 and 3. We skipped Episode 1.

Or spare him and never expose him to the absolute shit fest the entire franchise has become.
Do right and get him into Herbert's DUNE or Asimov's Foundation series.