I mean, truth, I tried watching Fate in chronological order and couldn’t get past the first episode of /Zero bc I couldn’t understand how this one guy got around so much and THEN I realized it was THREE DIFFERENT GUYS
only got back into it bc Today’s Menu with Emiya Family
Best place to start would really be the Fate route of the VN, because Unlimited Blade Works has so much happen that relies on Fate-exclusive exposition to be understood.
Also it makes sense if you play Tsukihime and read Kara no Kyokai before finishing Heaven’s…
Wait no don’t do that don’t go that far that way lies being a nerd.
Oh, and fun fact – TMwEF takes place in either the Hollow Atraxia pocket dimension (because all masters and servants are inexplicably alive) or in whatever crack dimension Carnival Phantasm takes place in.
I wasn’t bragging about being a hipster. I was making fun of myself for bragging about being a long-time fan.
I am NOT a hipster, generally speaking, but I do sometimes get a bit fandom braggy when I’m a first adopter of something. Like the Fate franchise, since I played the game when it was first fan translated.
Of course, there are fans who have been around since Tsukihime (the Fate-universe game before Fate/Stay Night came out) and they can hipster brag at me. So goes the circle of hipster bragging.
The true truth is to read a summary of the Fate route, watch Zero, then watch UBW, then watch the Heaven’s feel movie trilogy.
And then go to the college course that is understanding whatever F/GO is (other than a veritable porn farm)
My way is just get in and everything will sort out eventually but I realize that might not be everyones way, so… if you couldn’t start with Zero you can try with unlimited (but the ufotable series not the deen movie, avoid everything with deens name while you are at it) and if you manage to get inside a few episodes then return to zero, watch them alternatively and hopefully the Heaven’s feel movies will be over by then and hopefully in a accesible format like streaming and not at over 70 bucks.
Everyone glosses over Kaleid Liner because of fluffy magical girl stuff but it has some amazing action sequences. Plus everyone got a happy ending cause Iri and Kiritsugu said “screw this grail war stuff we’re going to have a happy family and even adopt this red haired kid”
I’ve only seen Stay Night and Zero at this point, and honestly, Zero’s repeated violence towards women in its final few episodes just made me sick to my stomach and I got so angry with it. Shiro’s an ass in Stay Night, but at least he never throttled a woman to death. Are any of the other anime/movies better about that, or should I just nope out forever?
you should play hollow ataraxia, i wouldnt say other things are meaningfully “good” but zero is absolutely the most bizarrely misogynistic given that it
was written by urobuchi
As someone who got into Fate with Zero…I don’t get it. I’d understand if the 40+ minutes of exposition and jargan turned you away, but which characters did you think were one guy? Kirei, Kiritsugu, and Tokiomi? I still vouch for chronological order for Fate, because UBW kinda assumes you’ve already seen Zero, and then Heaven’s Feel assumes you’ve seen them both.
Admittedly I was half paying attention the whole time (though that’s most of my streaming since I primarily watch while on the elliptical or when making dinner) so yeah, the three brown hair dudes that look surprisingly alike given that I can easily distinguish most of the “normal” coloured characters in Ace of Diamond
I give the kid who summoned Berserker props, he was the mosti retesting part of Zero, though some of it was the episodes were SO LONG
(first and last, that ended up being my watch strategy if I couldn’t get into it by the second ep)
The confusion is part of the experience. If you have all the pieces of the story from the beginning there’s no sense of mystery. The problem wasn’t that release order wasn’t chronological, it’s that it spanned two decades and 7 platforms and most people weren’t able to experience at least one game in the series in the release order.
Seriously, I replayed the entire franchise in release order just before KH3 and the plot finally made sense to me then.
I guess if you want to be deliberately confused and need it to be a mystery, release order could work. You could also roll a d10 and pick the order based on that, for basically the same experience.
There are also so many retcons in KH that you need to play release order just to understand when they retconned what. I’m with Ferret on this, having played everything but the mobile game.
I love stuff where you can pick an order. I’ve seen Redwall in release, chronological and, the way I do it, whichever book I get in my grubby little hands first.
I always start with either Redwall (because, c’mon) or Mattimeo (Personal fave) though.
(tl;dr for that list: Season 1 jumps back and forth within itself a couple of times up until the season finale; Season 1 finale, Season 2, and the first half of Season 3 is a hot mess while the second half onward is all chronologically-ordered – with the exception of the Season 5 premiere, which was meant to be placed in the second half of the season but Cartoon Network insisted on it being the premiere for the season regardless of chronological ordering)
So, bye-bye, this here Anakin guy,
Maybe Vader, someday later,
Now he’s just a small fry,
… sayin’
Someday I’m gonna be a Jedi,
Someday I’m gonna be a Jedi.
I just skip 1, start with 2 and 3 if I’m going to bother with the prequels, but otherwise it’s Solo, Rogue One, then 4-9. And I won’t watch 4-6 unless they’re the despecialized or theatrical editions.
I used to have some rips of the old Laserdisc editions which were _just_ right. A couple of cleanups and tweaks but nothing goofily so. Although I was ok with the special edition of empire, because again, no /goofy/ tweaks.
Ah gotcha. So you’re saying I should watch each of the 362880 possible viewing orders, carefully measure my happiness after each one, and then I will know which one makes me most happy.
See you in 750 years. I wonder if the cast will have graduated by then.
Not quite. You have to record your happiness progressively as you go through a viewing order and then you have to have electroshock therapy to erase the memory so that you can watch the next viewing order uncontaminated. Anything else would be unscientific.
**reads comments for context**
Oh. People are talking about the mainline Star Wars movies. I thought this “Skywalker Saga” must be some spinoff I hadn’t heard about.
Skywalker Saga was a bullshit marketing term that was all over the last Disney’s movie trying to rationalize Disney’s production decisions as if they were coherent and part of a larger pattern when they were clearly just a random spur of the moment kind of thing.
It’s a bullshit marketing term I suppose, but it’s a term that kind of needs to exist. Something to distinguish the trilogy of trilogies from other movies in the larger setting. More and more so as they continue making new ones.
Release order is usually the best way, but I think it’d be interesting to see what someone thought of it who didn’t go that route.
It’s at least easier to follow than if you tried that with something else. If you watched Zeta Gundam before Mobile Suit Gundam, it’d probably be really incoherent for a lot of people unless they already had a vague understanding of who Char Aznable and Amuro Ray were.
Bright Noa, you’d benefit from knowing, too, along with ones like Fraw Bow, but they tend to not have as much baggage associated with them.
As a stern proponent of chronological order I might be able to give some insight… (I watched them 1 2 4 5 6 3, because German television showed them chronologically leading up to the release of 3. Go figure that weirdness.)
What it boils down to is 1-6 has an entirely different focus than 4-6, 1-3. One that makes for the better story, I find. Release order is just Luke’s story, and then some prequel background for vader. Two disjointed things. Chronological order, however, gives you the story of Anakin, the chosen one, collapsing under the pressure of that role, falling, and ultimately being redeemed. While the prequels absolutely *tell* their story worse, the idea is the more interesting one to me *by far* as opposed to a pretty straightforward heroes journey of the original trilogy.
Machete order is the biggest nonsense, however. It’s trying to be chronological, just preserves a twist that everyone and their mom already know through pop culture, so… why sacrifice the superior story arc for it?
Oh cool. Sometimes I feel like I’m the only one who thinks that there are a ton of better things to consider than preserving that one twist. Some people claim it’s the best twist of all time and whatnot, and though it’s cool, I don’t remember it making that big of an impact on me. Though it’s possible I was too young.
Anakin’s more complex arc being far better than a simple hero’s journey is a great point. I also think it’s Palpatine’s story, which is also a really interesting arc, moreso than that super pure telling of the hero’s journey. Another thing I feel is that any order that doesn’t put Rogue One right before A New Hope is missing out on a great set up that adds a ton of weight to the Death Star plans.
I also don’t understand the desire to remove episode one. Do people not care about the reason why Obi-wan is training Anakin despite clearly not being ready? Who Qui-gon is? What the deal with Anakin’s mother is? The whole Chosen One and prophecy? There’s a ton of context that you throw out the window if you skip it, and I think people take that context for granted.
Yeah, especially since the twist just *isn’t one*, because people know it already. Like, you’re not even preserving anything!
Palpatines story is an interesting view I hadn’t considered. And yes, I am with you that leaving Episode one out misses a lot. Qui Gon is great. Honestly, neither movie is particularly *amazing*, they’re neat, 7 is best (or maybe 8, I’m unsure). Mostly I can enjoy the prequels for their potential, and they are okay. The memetic hatred is definitely overblown.. Though Jar-jar is a lot more tolerable in German, for what it’s worth, and I have a perspective on media informed by enjoying writing and literary analysis. Chrono order just has so much more to offer, and ironically, the prequels and episode 8 *shine* there. (I get prequels aren’t like, good movies, but they’re *interesting* conceptually).
Last I watched them, Rogue one wasn’t out yet (I was prepping my boyfriend for Episode 7. He has opinions that are just hilariously blasphemous in nerd circles, even moreso than mine, and I love him for it). Absolutely include it, yes.
I mean, it would be weird, but it isn’t the worst one I’ve heard mentioned for Star Wars. Granted, all of the worse ones were intentionally terrible, but…
Now ask her if she accepts the fact that “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” is actually a prequel to “Raiders of the Lost Ark”. (it totally is, by the way)
It doesn’t make sense as a prequel to me at all. In Raiders, Indy doesn’t believe in the supernatural and has to be convinced. But in Temple, there’s a whole lot of supernatural shit going down that he sees firsthand. Did he just forget? Or did he, like me, conveniently pretend the movie didn’t exist?
Giving serious side eye to anyone who includes the Clone Wars movie as if it’s on the same level as the other movies but not the Clone Wars TV show. The movie is just 4 episodes of the show stitched together, and not even particularly good episodes.
I like the Clone Wars movie, but most people I know don’t consider it part of the Skywalker Saga. That’s episodes I-IV, not any of the side stories (Solo, Rogue One) or Tv Movies (Clone Wars, any of the Rebels ones).
Even if it wasn’t some of the weakest Clone Wars content, it’s just weird that there’s people with a viewing order of all the live action movies, plus 4 episodes of a 100+ episode series. An official viewing order that has Ahsoka’s introduction and then leaves out all her character development isn’t that great from a storytelling perspective.
I prefer the order stated by Dan Shive/Justin Tolkiberry: watch episodes 4 and 5, then episodes 2 and 3 (1 is optional), and then episode 6. As for the new movies, release order.
My theory is that amazi-girl killed blaine and toedad and hid all three bodies because this has never happened to her before. Its the reason noone knows that mike is dead.
In order:
Star Wars (stay away from me with that “A New Hope” crap)
TESB
ROTJ
Read the Thrawn Trilogy
Read Barron/Vatine comic adaptation of “Heir to the Empire.”
Watch “Troops” fan video.
Watch HISHE version of “Revenge of the Sith.”
Star Wars Holiday Special
Pick and choose from the rest as you please.
I wish someone would find Chinese bootlegs for Episodes 1 and 2 with English subtitles as hilarious as the infamous “Backstroke of the West” subtitles for Episode 3. Then all of the prequels would be watchable.
There’s currently an ongoing project to (deliberately) do that with all of the Star Wars films. Sort of like the Google Translate Sings YT series, but with movies.
I find release order more convenient also the new ones wouldn’t look alienated as much as things look more or less recent… then get more retro looking, then get recent again.
(I’ve only seen 3-6, but release order is still best for those, and get the despecialized editions of the original trilogy. Ol’ George retconned a surprising amount of stuff between 4 and 5.)
Love the three original Series one, never made it through the prequels even using fast forward. When I watched “the Force awakens” in a cinema, I sorely missed fast forward, because so little story in so much special effects.
I might read a book to learn how the stories unfold, but the film are special effect overkill as far as i’m concerned.
Willis is trolling us again.
If you must include TPM, at least watch The Phantom Edit so you’re exposed to as little Jar-Jar as possible. (Or just play the pod racing game instead. 95% of the movie doesn’t tie in with the rest of the saga anyway.)
The Despecialized Editions of the OT are fantastic, BTW. I’d watch those instead of the official releases.
If you’re watching the Phantom Menace, goddamn watch the whole movie to be able to judge what people are complaining about. It’s not a deadly poison. It’s an okay space adventure movie with pacing issues.
I feel like a lot of what people say about the prequels is less honest criticism and more of a meme repeated without any real thought given.
This…is basically how I feel. (Of course everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but I personally like the prequels, a few cringe- or meme-worthy scenes aside.)
Though if you’re watching through the series again, you don’t have to watch the parts you don’t like again every time just to judge what people are complaining about.
I still think it’s hilarious how he wrote most of it based off Internet spoilers, which turned out to be so accurate that he only needed to make minor changes after watching an advance screening.
Dark Forces, Jedi Knight, Jedi Outcast, Jedi Academy, X-Wing, TIE Fighter, X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter, X-Wing Alliance, Knights of the Old Republic, The Sith Lords.
Oh, you meant the movies? 4, 5, 2, 3, 6, 7. Machete order, with TFA as an epilogue showing the entire story coming full circle. Everything else is superfluous.
Honestly when she first showed up I thought Malaya’s annoyance of her was completely unfounded, but yeah, I get it now. She decides that you’re friends and acts like you’re friends and have been friends for a while despite the body language, irritated tone, and even clearly articulated rebuttals from Billie and Malaya.
1, 2, 4, 5, 3, 6, 7, 8, I haven’t bothered with anything that may have come later.
I got the order of the first six from Parenting Stack Exchange, and it’s really geared for little kids. That having been said, I’m not sure I’d re-watch Star Wars except if I was tasked with introducing someone to it, and I have a difficult time imagining someone getting to adulthood in this day and age without having seen it.
No human should call it the Skywalker Saga. That’s the worst marketing thing.
Also that’s like 20 hours of movie, you’d lose track of everything somewhere along the line of wasting a whole day watching it all, so watching order is mostly irrelevant.
Also I guess it’s a really low bar for nerddom; having an opinion on one of the biggest movie series of all time with the biggest marketing push of all time, with ads on everything from cheese-its to lettuce.
The term nerd is less of an outcast identity of some sort these days and more of a random label to various content that hopes to conjure obsessive fans to consume more of it. Not that I’m convinced that it was ever a real social dynamic in the first place, it seemed like one of those things that was a shorthand for high school stories written by people over 30 who only vaguely remembered their own experiences.
Having opinions about the viewing order of a series to the point that you can’t keep silent even at the expense of your non-nerd cred is a very nerdy thing though.
Just an opinion in the sense, “Oh yeah, those were good movies” or even having opinions about specific characters, movies or plot points is one thing. Spitting out a viewing order on cue goes beyond that.
And that’s leaving out the earlier fan fic EU character revelation.
Some day in the far future I will selectively watch certain episodes of Dr. Who in what would be chronological order for River Song, to see if it makes any sense that way.
Probably not. There may have been a plan in place during Russell T Davis’s time, when we reached the Moffat era, I got the impression that they were making it up as they went along and it got harder and harder to make sense of, even setting aside the fact that the two characters’ time-lines were reversed compared to each other.
Enterprise, Discovery, Original Series, Animated Series, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 (need booze here), 6, Next Gen Season 1-6, then alternate episodes with DS9’s early seasons, Generations, Alternate DS9 and Voyager, Insurrection, Nemesis, ST 2009, Into Darkness, Beyond, Picard…
The correct way to watch it is OT, Clone Wars (2008), RotS, Rebels
(I know its popular to hate on the sequels right now cause “mah SJWs(women) ruin everything” but I just genuinely don’t like them and think they don’t add anything needed)
I agree. I don’t dislike the prequels because it’s fashionable, I dislike them because they’re cheap cash grabs that add little-to-nothing to what came before.
What’s actually kind of amazing is how much they added to Star Wars lore that even those who loathe them have absorbed. Pretty much everything about the Sith, for example. (Or it came later, building on what was in the prequels.)
PM- Boring, and Jar Jar is annoying
AotC- Mostly just meh, Yoda fight scene is cool
RotS- If you cut out every scene where Anakin and Amadala share screen time it isn’t terrible
NH- A good, simply action romp
ESB- Dark, cool stuff on Degobah, a little compromised by not having a real ending
RotJ- A bit goofy, good climax (although considering what Anakin did to the Younglings I don’t think five minutes of guilt should qualify him for holy space ghost status…)
FA- New characters are interesting, bit to much of retread of NH, Solo’s death felt flat
I haven’t seen any of the other new movies or the cartoons. I’ve got a job and kids, I can barely keep up with the MCU movies…
Mandolorian- A better space western than Firefly. Yes I said it. Change my mind.
It also succeeds in keeping all references to The Force, Jedi and Sith at a minimum (I don’t think they ever actually use any of those words). Turns out there are other interesting things in that far away galaxy than the ninja space monks.
“Jedi” was name-dropped in the first-season finale (as the ancient order of enemy sorcerers which opposed the warrior Mandalorians), but not the other words you mentioned as of yet.
The only real problem I have with the Mandalorian is that it really feels like they had this idea for a 2-3 hour movie, and then decided to chop it in half, stretch it the hell out and then have a tv series take place between the first half of the movie and the second half.
Depends on the definition; I was taught that primes are numbers only divisible by “itself and the number one” – which “1” technically adheres to – and specifically listing 1-2-3 as the first three primes.
That’s the grade school definition; one I encountered in higher-level classes was numbers with exactly two distinct factors (which comes out to exactly the same thing except in the case of 1).
A hundred years ago, the same rabid enthusiasm was expressed about Sherlock Holmes episodes.
I remember reading the comments on my gas-fired Smart-o-Phone.
I have heard it said that you can cut out Phantom Menace from that viewing order, and the only thing of importance lost is Darth Maul. And even then, you can just watch it after everything else is a bonus. That way you come into Attack of the Clones with much stronger parallels between Luke and Anakin.
Except for the E.R.Eddison Zimiamvian Trilogy (Mistress of Mistresses, A Fish Dinner in Memmison, The Mezentian Gate). Yes, publication order is writing order, and yes, he died midway through writing the third but.
But even so, the books are so rich and lush, and the first book so in media res, that it’s much easier and more satisfying to read them starting with the third book, where you actually get introduced to Lessinham (and be slightly frustrated with the chapters told in summary because they were recreated from the author’s outline and notes), then the middle book, and only finally the first published book now that you know who these people are and what the stakes were.
It’s out of date, but I’d also skip over Shards of Honor when starting the Barrayar books and come back to it later. However, since it’s now most commonly found as part of Cordellia’s Honor, and Barrayar, the second half, is one of the strongest books n the series, it’s fine to start with that omnibus (but then you’re still not reading in Release Order — as Barrayar was originally released as the 8th book in the series and Shards the first).
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I mean, truth, I tried watching Fate in chronological order and couldn’t get past the first episode of /Zero bc I couldn’t understand how this one guy got around so much and THEN I realized it was THREE DIFFERENT GUYS
only got back into it bc Today’s Menu with Emiya Family
Best place to start is Unlimited Blade Works.
It spoils parts of Zero, but since Zero was a prequel, it was always meant to be gone into spoiled.
Best place to start would really be the Fate route of the VN, because Unlimited Blade Works has so much happen that relies on Fate-exclusive exposition to be understood.
Also it makes sense if you play Tsukihime and read Kara no Kyokai before finishing Heaven’s…
Wait no don’t do that don’t go that far that way lies being a nerd.
Well, VN is the BEST place to start, but that thing is hard to find these days and most people don’t have the patience.
If you only have Netflix or Crunchyroll to work with, UMB all the way. Then Zero. Then anything/everything else.
Oh, and fun fact – TMwEF takes place in either the Hollow Atraxia pocket dimension (because all masters and servants are inexplicably alive) or in whatever crack dimension Carnival Phantasm takes place in.
Welcome to Nasuverse, where canon is made up and the stat ranks don’t matter.
I’ve been here since the fantranslated visual novel of Fate BEFORE the release of Zero. The lightnovel, I mean.
/hipster
“/hipster”
…. Wait a minute. People /brag/ about that?
I thought the key point of being a hipster was so there was more things to brag about.
I’ve given up on trying to figure out what being a hipster consists of
I wasn’t bragging about being a hipster. I was making fun of myself for bragging about being a long-time fan.
I am NOT a hipster, generally speaking, but I do sometimes get a bit fandom braggy when I’m a first adopter of something. Like the Fate franchise, since I played the game when it was first fan translated.
Of course, there are fans who have been around since Tsukihime (the Fate-universe game before Fate/Stay Night came out) and they can hipster brag at me. So goes the circle of hipster bragging.
*Nods and smiles*
The true truth is to read a summary of the Fate route, watch Zero, then watch UBW, then watch the Heaven’s feel movie trilogy.
And then go to the college course that is understanding whatever F/GO is (other than a veritable porn farm)
My way is just get in and everything will sort out eventually but I realize that might not be everyones way, so… if you couldn’t start with Zero you can try with unlimited (but the ufotable series not the deen movie, avoid everything with deens name while you are at it) and if you manage to get inside a few episodes then return to zero, watch them alternatively and hopefully the Heaven’s feel movies will be over by then and hopefully in a accesible format like streaming and not at over 70 bucks.
All of you are neglecting the Einzbern Consultation Room from your lists! Between what Zero episodes do you watch which one, dare I ask?!
Everyone glosses over Kaleid Liner because of fluffy magical girl stuff but it has some amazing action sequences. Plus everyone got a happy ending cause Iri and Kiritsugu said “screw this grail war stuff we’re going to have a happy family and even adopt this red haired kid”
UBW does that
I’ve only seen Stay Night and Zero at this point, and honestly, Zero’s repeated violence towards women in its final few episodes just made me sick to my stomach and I got so angry with it. Shiro’s an ass in Stay Night, but at least he never throttled a woman to death. Are any of the other anime/movies better about that, or should I just nope out forever?
Every time I’ve asked for advice on this I get told “wELl WhAT dId YOu eXPEct lOL?”
Better. I expected better.
you should play hollow ataraxia, i wouldnt say other things are meaningfully “good” but zero is absolutely the most bizarrely misogynistic given that it
was written by urobuchi
Thanks! Appreciate the rec!
Yeah, I LIKE Urobuchi’s other work (Madoka is my favorite anime), so that’s honestly why I was so thrown.
For me it’s Thunderbolt Fantasy. Urobuchi + Korean Puppets. So Amazing
As someone who got into Fate with Zero…I don’t get it. I’d understand if the 40+ minutes of exposition and jargan turned you away, but which characters did you think were one guy? Kirei, Kiritsugu, and Tokiomi? I still vouch for chronological order for Fate, because UBW kinda assumes you’ve already seen Zero, and then Heaven’s Feel assumes you’ve seen them both.
Admittedly I was half paying attention the whole time (though that’s most of my streaming since I primarily watch while on the elliptical or when making dinner) so yeah, the three brown hair dudes that look surprisingly alike given that I can easily distinguish most of the “normal” coloured characters in Ace of Diamond
I give the kid who summoned Berserker props, he was the mosti retesting part of Zero, though some of it was the episodes were SO LONG
(first and last, that ended up being my watch strategy if I couldn’t get into it by the second ep)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnVwcUhxt1k explains the entire Fate franchise. (note: humor)
Haaaaa,
Yeah, Billie seems like the type to watch things in the order they came out.
Well yeah, it’s like Kingdom Hearts.
You CAN play in chronological order, but it makes more sense in release order.
Nope. Nope nope nooooope. Release order is what confused everyone to begin with. I will die on this hill.
The confusion is part of the experience. If you have all the pieces of the story from the beginning there’s no sense of mystery. The problem wasn’t that release order wasn’t chronological, it’s that it spanned two decades and 7 platforms and most people weren’t able to experience at least one game in the series in the release order.
Seriously, I replayed the entire franchise in release order just before KH3 and the plot finally made sense to me then.
I guess if you want to be deliberately confused and need it to be a mystery, release order could work. You could also roll a d10 and pick the order based on that, for basically the same experience.
There are also so many retcons in KH that you need to play release order just to understand when they retconned what. I’m with Ferret on this, having played everything but the mobile game.
Then Perish
I love stuff where you can pick an order. I’ve seen Redwall in release, chronological and, the way I do it, whichever book I get in my grubby little hands first.
I always start with either Redwall (because, c’mon) or Mattimeo (Personal fave) though.
You ever see a pack of Discworld fans start arguing reading order?
There’s *flowcharts*.
A simple set of options
https://www.discworldemporium.com/content/6-discworld-reading-order
Chronological vs release also applies to Narnia. (release)
Obviously the only way to read Discworld is by sticking your hand in the Luggage for a book and see what comes out. (if any)
Chances are good that your hand won’t come out.
Yep. I’ve seen them.
But the bigger question: do you watch The Clone Wars in between II-III, or after all the films?
The tv series, or the theater-released movie?
The movie is just the first four or five produced episodes fused into a theatrical release, so
(And there’s also the question – do you choose to watch TCW in release order, or in chronological order)
I’m showing my boyfriend release order but he hates that its anachronistic so I might show him chronological order at some point.
If it helps any, here’s the official chronological ordering for TCW which I’ve been using to introduce my family to the series: https://www.starwars.com/news/star-wars-the-clone-wars-chronological-episodeorder
(tl;dr for that list: Season 1 jumps back and forth within itself a couple of times up until the season finale; Season 1 finale, Season 2, and the first half of Season 3 is a hot mess while the second half onward is all chronologically-ordered – with the exception of the Season 5 premiere, which was meant to be placed in the second half of the season but Cartoon Network insisted on it being the premiere for the season regardless of chronological ordering)
I saw it! It’s really cool and I might make use of it once the new season’s all done.
Is “Watch EVERYTHING in release order, including Rogue One and episodes of The Clone Wars/Rebels/The Mandalorian” a valid answer?
My personal viewing order is 4, 7, 8.
You monster.
4, 5, Wrath of Khan.
Finally someone sane.
Oh, yay, Lucy is annoying.
(No but really, Lucy. If Billie wants to talk nerd, she’ll talk nerd. Don’t annoy people.)
Good, I’m not the only one who thinks this.
451236789
45236789. Fixed that for you.
trufe
458, repeat
AKA Machete Order. The one true order.
“What about Phantom Menace?”
“What ABOUT Phantom Menace?”
6345789, that’s my number 6345789 uh yeah. Ah! Blues Brothers 2000. The music is still great.
8675309
I feel like I’m reading people’s credit card numbers
Only if your name is Jenny?
12345.
Same combination as my luggage.
not hatchet order?
Do you mean Machete order?
No, you’re thinking of Jackknife order.
Put them all on screen at the same time and watch them shotgun order.
*plays some The Great Luke Ski tunes on the hacked Muzak*
So, bye-bye, this here Anakin guy,
Maybe Vader, someday later,
Now he’s just a small fry,
… sayin’
Someday I’m gonna be a Jedi,
Someday I’m gonna be a Jedi.
By the third one released I was thinking, what am I doing here? Never went back.
Stranger: Who are you?
Rey: Rey. Rey Skywalker
Mike: Rude
At least the word for Jakku in the language of the original aboriginal inhabitants wasn’t Sunshine. Because then she would be ….
I just skip 1, start with 2 and 3 if I’m going to bother with the prequels, but otherwise it’s Solo, Rogue One, then 4-9. And I won’t watch 4-6 unless they’re the despecialized or theatrical editions.
I used to have some rips of the old Laserdisc editions which were _just_ right. A couple of cleanups and tweaks but nothing goofily so. Although I was ok with the special edition of empire, because again, no /goofy/ tweaks.
whichever one makes you happiest
Ah gotcha. So you’re saying I should watch each of the 362880 possible viewing orders, carefully measure my happiness after each one, and then I will know which one makes me most happy.
See you in 750 years. I wonder if the cast will have graduated by then.
Not quite. You have to record your happiness progressively as you go through a viewing order and then you have to have electroshock therapy to erase the memory so that you can watch the next viewing order uncontaminated. Anything else would be unscientific.
**reads comments for context**
Oh. People are talking about the mainline Star Wars movies. I thought this “Skywalker Saga” must be some spinoff I hadn’t heard about.
Skywalker Saga is every movie but Solo and Rogue One.
Okay. Solo, Rogue One, 4, 5, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, Baby Yoda.
Solid.
So it includes Caravan of Courage and Battle for Endor?
Oh, hush. 😉
What I want to know is where the Star Wars Christmas Special fits in all this?
Not at the end, friend. If you’re a friend, friend.
Skywalker Saga was a bullshit marketing term that was all over the last Disney’s movie trying to rationalize Disney’s production decisions as if they were coherent and part of a larger pattern when they were clearly just a random spur of the moment kind of thing.
It’s a bullshit marketing term I suppose, but it’s a term that kind of needs to exist. Something to distinguish the trilogy of trilogies from other movies in the larger setting. More and more so as they continue making new ones.
ESPECIALLY if they intend these movies to get away from the Skywalker clan.
I nominate the term “Fractrilogy”.
Now we just need 18 more films so we can have a trilogy of trilogies of trilogies.
4, 5, 6. That’s all.
Finally someone who makes sense.
I would add maybe 7, 8, but I am indeed a fan of “only the good ones”.
The only correct order.
You could even call it the First Order, but please don’t.
Sounds about right.
Release order is usually the best way, but I think it’d be interesting to see what someone thought of it who didn’t go that route.
It’s at least easier to follow than if you tried that with something else. If you watched Zeta Gundam before Mobile Suit Gundam, it’d probably be really incoherent for a lot of people unless they already had a vague understanding of who Char Aznable and Amuro Ray were.
Bright Noa, you’d benefit from knowing, too, along with ones like Fraw Bow, but they tend to not have as much baggage associated with them.
*Smiles and nods*
As a stern proponent of chronological order I might be able to give some insight… (I watched them 1 2 4 5 6 3, because German television showed them chronologically leading up to the release of 3. Go figure that weirdness.)
What it boils down to is 1-6 has an entirely different focus than 4-6, 1-3. One that makes for the better story, I find. Release order is just Luke’s story, and then some prequel background for vader. Two disjointed things. Chronological order, however, gives you the story of Anakin, the chosen one, collapsing under the pressure of that role, falling, and ultimately being redeemed. While the prequels absolutely *tell* their story worse, the idea is the more interesting one to me *by far* as opposed to a pretty straightforward heroes journey of the original trilogy.
Machete order is the biggest nonsense, however. It’s trying to be chronological, just preserves a twist that everyone and their mom already know through pop culture, so… why sacrifice the superior story arc for it?
Oh cool. Sometimes I feel like I’m the only one who thinks that there are a ton of better things to consider than preserving that one twist. Some people claim it’s the best twist of all time and whatnot, and though it’s cool, I don’t remember it making that big of an impact on me. Though it’s possible I was too young.
Anakin’s more complex arc being far better than a simple hero’s journey is a great point. I also think it’s Palpatine’s story, which is also a really interesting arc, moreso than that super pure telling of the hero’s journey. Another thing I feel is that any order that doesn’t put Rogue One right before A New Hope is missing out on a great set up that adds a ton of weight to the Death Star plans.
I also don’t understand the desire to remove episode one. Do people not care about the reason why Obi-wan is training Anakin despite clearly not being ready? Who Qui-gon is? What the deal with Anakin’s mother is? The whole Chosen One and prophecy? There’s a ton of context that you throw out the window if you skip it, and I think people take that context for granted.
Yeah, especially since the twist just *isn’t one*, because people know it already. Like, you’re not even preserving anything!
Palpatines story is an interesting view I hadn’t considered. And yes, I am with you that leaving Episode one out misses a lot. Qui Gon is great. Honestly, neither movie is particularly *amazing*, they’re neat, 7 is best (or maybe 8, I’m unsure). Mostly I can enjoy the prequels for their potential, and they are okay. The memetic hatred is definitely overblown.. Though Jar-jar is a lot more tolerable in German, for what it’s worth, and I have a perspective on media informed by enjoying writing and literary analysis. Chrono order just has so much more to offer, and ironically, the prequels and episode 8 *shine* there. (I get prequels aren’t like, good movies, but they’re *interesting* conceptually).
Last I watched them, Rogue one wasn’t out yet (I was prepping my boyfriend for Episode 7. He has opinions that are just hilariously blasphemous in nerd circles, even moreso than mine, and I love him for it). Absolutely include it, yes.
2, maybe 3, 4, 6… Wait, that’s Star Trek.
I mean, it would be weird, but it isn’t the worst one I’ve heard mentioned for Star Wars. Granted, all of the worse ones were intentionally terrible, but…
Now ask her if she accepts the fact that “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” is actually a prequel to “Raiders of the Lost Ark”.
(it totally is, by the way)
It is confirmed, but there’s a fourth wall breaking joke with the two swordsman as a callback to the previous movie.
swordsmen*
Eh, you could pretty much watch those movies in any order.
It doesn’t make sense as a prequel to me at all. In Raiders, Indy doesn’t believe in the supernatural and has to be convinced. But in Temple, there’s a whole lot of supernatural shit going down that he sees firsthand. Did he just forget? Or did he, like me, conveniently pretend the movie didn’t exist?
Was that explicit in movie or something pieced together after the fact?
I don’t remember it at all, but then I haven’t seen Temple of Doom since it came out.
Giving serious side eye to anyone who includes the Clone Wars movie as if it’s on the same level as the other movies but not the Clone Wars TV show. The movie is just 4 episodes of the show stitched together, and not even particularly good episodes.
I like the Clone Wars movie, but most people I know don’t consider it part of the Skywalker Saga. That’s episodes I-IV, not any of the side stories (Solo, Rogue One) or Tv Movies (Clone Wars, any of the Rebels ones).
Pilot movies to TV series are often pretty rough, since none of the characters have really found their footing yet.
Even if it wasn’t some of the weakest Clone Wars content, it’s just weird that there’s people with a viewing order of all the live action movies, plus 4 episodes of a 100+ episode series. An official viewing order that has Ahsoka’s introduction and then leaves out all her character development isn’t that great from a storytelling perspective.
I guess if you want to include all the movies, it makes sense, but yeah, it leaves out the rest of the series.
Machete Order… but honestly, I haven’t gotten around to seeing ROS yet.
I prefer the order stated by Dan Shive/Justin Tolkiberry: watch episodes 4 and 5, then episodes 2 and 3 (1 is optional), and then episode 6. As for the new movies, release order.
I have nothing against episode 1, I am just pointing out that Justin doesn’t consider it.
My theory is that amazi-girl killed blaine and toedad and hid all three bodies because this has never happened to her before. Its the reason noone knows that mike is dead.
That sounds vaguely familiar…
Who’s Mike?
The worst order to watch, of course, is 66.
(so much made more painful by TCW)
Machete order:45236
One of us, on of us, one of us!
In order:
Star Wars (stay away from me with that “A New Hope” crap)
TESB
ROTJ
Read the Thrawn Trilogy
Read Barron/Vatine comic adaptation of “Heir to the Empire.”
Watch “Troops” fan video.
Watch HISHE version of “Revenge of the Sith.”
Star Wars Holiday Special
Pick and choose from the rest as you please.
Holiday Special with or without booze?
With or without acid?
To quote Rifftrax: “Even in Modesto, was there really enough pot to make this special happem?”
happen. frig.
I wonder what order Mike prefers.
He paid his nickel, he get’s whatever order he wants.
Whatever order you hate.
I wish someone would find Chinese bootlegs for Episodes 1 and 2 with English subtitles as hilarious as the infamous “Backstroke of the West” subtitles for Episode 3. Then all of the prequels would be watchable.
There’s currently an ongoing project to (deliberately) do that with all of the Star Wars films. Sort of like the Google Translate Sings YT series, but with movies.
Don’t you mean ‘The Palapatine Saga’?
I prefer to think about it as the r2d2 saga
The Sheev Saga.
I find release order more convenient also the new ones wouldn’t look alienated as much as things look more or less recent… then get more retro looking, then get recent again.
I thought it was “execute order”…
(I’ve only seen 3-6, but release order is still best for those, and get the despecialized editions of the original trilogy. Ol’ George retconned a surprising amount of stuff between 4 and 5.)
I always watch the Star Wars in in-universe chronological order, with Solo and Rogue One in between 3 and 4.
Love the three original Series one, never made it through the prequels even using fast forward. When I watched “the Force awakens” in a cinema, I sorely missed fast forward, because so little story in so much special effects.
I might read a book to learn how the stories unfold, but the film are special effect overkill as far as i’m concerned.
Willis is trolling us again.
“Willis is trolling us again.”
Yup yup. Truly a master either way, but I could even see him making this to drop ahead of the buffer /just/ to break up the comments about Mike.
KOTOR1, KOTOR2, SWTOR…
This one gets it!
Undermining her further, she’s browsing Clone Wars final season teasers on her phone even now.
For some reason, I can visualize Lucy chanting: “One of us! One of us!”
Gooble-gobble! Gooble-gobble!
Fake nerd. True nerd wouldn’t watch that garbage.
Stop playing Mario, you fake gamer girl.
OFC it’s “Release order”! 😉
Well done Billie 😀
The real question is which order to watch Suzumiya Haruhi no yuuutsu.
No, the real question is what order to watch FLCL, if we’re going east.
I was unaware anyone watched Fooly Cooly in anything other than broadcast order. Please elaborate!
unless Progressive (the new season) has some weird stuff, the original 6 OAVs are in straight chronological orders.
There’s a new season!?
You watch it in broadcast order in one sitting, get a meal, then watch it again in chronological order.
4, 5, 6, 1*, 2*, TCW, 3
(*Fast forwarding past the most cringe inducing Anakin parts)
If you must include TPM, at least watch The Phantom Edit so you’re exposed to as little Jar-Jar as possible. (Or just play the pod racing game instead. 95% of the movie doesn’t tie in with the rest of the saga anyway.)
The Despecialized Editions of the OT are fantastic, BTW. I’d watch those instead of the official releases.
If you’re watching the Phantom Menace, goddamn watch the whole movie to be able to judge what people are complaining about. It’s not a deadly poison. It’s an okay space adventure movie with pacing issues.
I feel like a lot of what people say about the prequels is less honest criticism and more of a meme repeated without any real thought given.
This…is basically how I feel. (Of course everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but I personally like the prequels, a few cringe- or meme-worthy scenes aside.)
I like The Clone Wars and I won’t apologize for it.
I meant Attack of the Clones, kill me.
I don’t really mind Clone Wars story wise, the animation style hurts my eye meats to look at though.
Though if you’re watching through the series again, you don’t have to watch the parts you don’t like again every time just to judge what people are complaining about.
Really just watch the Weird Al “The Saga Begins” music video. It’s the best version of Episode 1.
I still think it’s hilarious how he wrote most of it based off Internet spoilers, which turned out to be so accurate that he only needed to make minor changes after watching an advance screening.
My Star Wars order is this:
Dark Forces, Jedi Knight, Jedi Outcast, Jedi Academy, X-Wing, TIE Fighter, X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter, X-Wing Alliance, Knights of the Old Republic, The Sith Lords.
Oh, you meant the movies? 4, 5, 2, 3, 6, 7. Machete order, with TFA as an epilogue showing the entire story coming full circle. Everything else is superfluous.
I hate everything coming full circle as if none of the original trilogy struggles meant anything. All hope is pointless.
You forgot The Empire Strikes Back for the Atari 2600, and the Famicom game where Darth Vader turns into a giant scorpion inside the sandcrawler.
‘Leave me alone’ means LEAVE HER ALONE, Lucy!
Honestly when she first showed up I thought Malaya’s annoyance of her was completely unfounded, but yeah, I get it now. She decides that you’re friends and acts like you’re friends and have been friends for a while despite the body language, irritated tone, and even clearly articulated rebuttals from Billie and Malaya.
(why do I never check out the autofill aaaarrrgh)
Surely you recognise there is an implied license to bug siblings, roommates and close friends.
No. As someone with all three, no.
1, 2, 4, 5, 3, 6, 7, 8, I haven’t bothered with anything that may have come later.
I got the order of the first six from Parenting Stack Exchange, and it’s really geared for little kids. That having been said, I’m not sure I’d re-watch Star Wars except if I was tasked with introducing someone to it, and I have a difficult time imagining someone getting to adulthood in this day and age without having seen it.
No human should call it the Skywalker Saga. That’s the worst marketing thing.
Also that’s like 20 hours of movie, you’d lose track of everything somewhere along the line of wasting a whole day watching it all, so watching order is mostly irrelevant.
People who acknowledge that the new trilogy exists call it that. Which, presumably, means that Matt hamel doesn’t 😛
Also I guess it’s a really low bar for nerddom; having an opinion on one of the biggest movie series of all time with the biggest marketing push of all time, with ads on everything from cheese-its to lettuce.
The term nerd is less of an outcast identity of some sort these days and more of a random label to various content that hopes to conjure obsessive fans to consume more of it. Not that I’m convinced that it was ever a real social dynamic in the first place, it seemed like one of those things that was a shorthand for high school stories written by people over 30 who only vaguely remembered their own experiences.
Your comment has been deleted because it Breaks Capitalism.
Billie doesn’t just watch the movies. She was writing fic about a character who’s whole character is in the EU.
And yeah, nerd these days just means someone who’s really into a specific thing.
Having opinions about the viewing order of a series to the point that you can’t keep silent even at the expense of your non-nerd cred is a very nerdy thing though.
Just an opinion in the sense, “Oh yeah, those were good movies” or even having opinions about specific characters, movies or plot points is one thing. Spitting out a viewing order on cue goes beyond that.
And that’s leaving out the earlier fan fic EU character revelation.
Panel 3: if someone looked at me that way, I’d get the police ASAP.
Also, machete order all the way.
Some day in the far future I will selectively watch certain episodes of Dr. Who in what would be chronological order for River Song, to see if it makes any sense that way.
Probably not. There may have been a plan in place during Russell T Davis’s time, when we reached the Moffat era, I got the impression that they were making it up as they went along and it got harder and harder to make sense of, even setting aside the fact that the two characters’ time-lines were reversed compared to each other.
I totally agree.
So… is “The Skywalker Saga” what the kids are calling the Star Wars movies these days?
No, it’s what Disney are calling Episodes 1-6 and their apocrypha.
Enterprise, Discovery, Original Series, Animated Series, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 (need booze here), 6, Next Gen Season 1-6, then alternate episodes with DS9’s early seasons, Generations, Alternate DS9 and Voyager, Insurrection, Nemesis, ST 2009, Into Darkness, Beyond, Picard…
I’m sorry what were we talking about?
Shit, I forgot, First Contact goes after Generations (can’t believe I left out the best Next Gen movie…)
Booze or head trauma before ST VI. Either works
I more meant that booze would be needed to get through Star Trek V: Kirk v Group Therapy
“Liking popular movies doesn’t make you a NERD Lucy, you’re only a nerd if you pay attention to all that Expanded Universe crap!”
“Isn’t that called Legends now?”
“Holy shit, don’t get me started on that, how could Disney be so stupid as to retcon all their… WAIT, FUCK YOU LUCY!!!”
The correct way to watch it is OT, Clone Wars (2008), RotS, Rebels
(I know its popular to hate on the sequels right now cause “mah SJWs(women) ruin everything” but I just genuinely don’t like them and think they don’t add anything needed)
I agree. I don’t dislike the prequels because it’s fashionable, I dislike them because they’re cheap cash grabs that add little-to-nothing to what came before.
What’s actually kind of amazing is how much they added to Star Wars lore that even those who loathe them have absorbed. Pretty much everything about the Sith, for example. (Or it came later, building on what was in the prequels.)
Well, I actually meant the sequels, but typed the wrong thing by mistake. Not sure how that happened, but I’ll blame the booze.
PM- Boring, and Jar Jar is annoying
AotC- Mostly just meh, Yoda fight scene is cool
RotS- If you cut out every scene where Anakin and Amadala share screen time it isn’t terrible
NH- A good, simply action romp
ESB- Dark, cool stuff on Degobah, a little compromised by not having a real ending
RotJ- A bit goofy, good climax (although considering what Anakin did to the Younglings I don’t think five minutes of guilt should qualify him for holy space ghost status…)
FA- New characters are interesting, bit to much of retread of NH, Solo’s death felt flat
I haven’t seen any of the other new movies or the cartoons. I’ve got a job and kids, I can barely keep up with the MCU movies…
Mandolorian- A better space western than Firefly. Yes I said it. Change my mind.
It also succeeds in keeping all references to The Force, Jedi and Sith at a minimum (I don’t think they ever actually use any of those words). Turns out there are other interesting things in that far away galaxy than the ninja space monks.
“Jedi” was name-dropped in the first-season finale (as the ancient order of enemy sorcerers which opposed the warrior Mandalorians), but not the other words you mentioned as of yet.
The only real problem I have with the Mandalorian is that it really feels like they had this idea for a 2-3 hour movie, and then decided to chop it in half, stretch it the hell out and then have a tv series take place between the first half of the movie and the second half.
Clearly the best order in which to watch the Skywalker Saga is increasing non-primes, then decreasing primes.
468975321?
1 is a non-prime.
Depends on the definition; I was taught that primes are numbers only divisible by “itself and the number one” – which “1” technically adheres to – and specifically listing 1-2-3 as the first three primes.
That’s the grade school definition; one I encountered in higher-level classes was numbers with exactly two distinct factors (which comes out to exactly the same thing except in the case of 1).
1 is divisible only by itself and 1. Sounds prime to me.
It’s really kind of a philosophical question. One is a special case.
Which one is a special case?
I always thought that one is the loneliest number.
You can’t hide anymore Billie
A hundred years ago, the same rabid enthusiasm was expressed about Sherlock Holmes episodes.
I remember reading the comments on my gas-fired Smart-o-Phone.
I’m sorry if my spark gap transmitter cut out the ignition in your gas-fired phone.
Did you spend your time demanding Doyle bring Holmes back after he killed him off and then bash the story where he did?
DoA Book 10: But Now There’s Some Important Questions We Need Answered.
The best way to watch it is clearly, 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9.
That way you get “No, Luke, I am your Father” and then the prequels serve as an extended flashback.
I have heard it said that you can cut out Phantom Menace from that viewing order, and the only thing of importance lost is Darth Maul. And even then, you can just watch it after everything else is a bonus. That way you come into Attack of the Clones with much stronger parallels between Luke and Anakin.
I just love how Lucy’s grinning face looks like it’s in a cutaway circle of the blanket in the final panel there.
It makes me happy. 🙂
I’m with Billie. All about release order.
Except for the E.R.Eddison Zimiamvian Trilogy (Mistress of Mistresses, A Fish Dinner in Memmison, The Mezentian Gate). Yes, publication order is writing order, and yes, he died midway through writing the third but.
But even so, the books are so rich and lush, and the first book so in media res, that it’s much easier and more satisfying to read them starting with the third book, where you actually get introduced to Lessinham (and be slightly frustrated with the chapters told in summary because they were recreated from the author’s outline and notes), then the middle book, and only finally the first published book now that you know who these people are and what the stakes were.
It’s out of date, but I’d also skip over Shards of Honor when starting the Barrayar books and come back to it later. However, since it’s now most commonly found as part of Cordellia’s Honor, and Barrayar, the second half, is one of the strongest books n the series, it’s fine to start with that omnibus (but then you’re still not reading in Release Order — as Barrayar was originally released as the 8th book in the series and Shards the first).