Improvised Trilogies
Dec. 10th, 2012 06:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krpalmerOne thing I was promising myself to follow finishing commenting on all the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes would be to watch the Star Wars movies, not right after but soon after. There was the small but perennial question, though, of what order to watch them in. Last year, I had watched the new Blu-Ray set in strict "production order," driven most of all by nameless fears occasioned by the latest fit of arm-flapping over the movies not quite being exactly what they had been before, but perhaps finding an odd bit of sustenance in the thought that, even if the added words in Return of the Jedi indeed brought the whole thing shattering down, I'd still have the three (not as "different") new movies to watch afterwards. This year, though, having gone to see The Phantom Menace at the movies in 3D somehow made watching in "numerical order" seem like "repeating things to start with." I resolved to try out the third option, of watching the new movies in between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi as an "extended flashback." Even if I've wondered if this clings to trying to preserve two moments of surprise I didn't actually manage to experience for myself back in 1980, it's still interesting to consider.
The first time I had tried this new order, I had watched one movie a week and been left wondering if it really felt different. The next time I tried it, I managed to fit all six movies into one weekend, which seemed to work better, but with Christmas approaching I wasn't quite as ready to take up almost all of a weekend again. I decided on the fly to stretch things out to two weekends, which did leave me with two unconventional "trilogies" in keeping with recent thoughts that it's better to try and view the whole thing as one. There was also the thought that a whole decade of "in-story time" is supposed to separate The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, but I suppose I was troubled to start off the second weekend and have the feeling I wasn't quite as engaged. Fortunately, things picked up the next day (as I even managed to pity somewhat those whose sole reaction to the final duel of Revenge of the Sith is to complain that it's "unrealistic" that both Anakin and Obi-Wan didn't immediately burst into flames getting close to what would admittedly be pretty unhealthy red-hot lava in the "real world"), but I wondered the day afterwards if the old-fashioned "glow" animations of Return of the Jedi were something I needed to get used to again. In any case, with the whole thing over I did begin to contemplate that things would be different next year, with both Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith returning to theatres in 3D but separated by a few weeks, and would presumably be different the year after with the three old movies spoken of as all getting their own 3D releases, and different again the year after that with promises of the new new movie...
The first time I had tried this new order, I had watched one movie a week and been left wondering if it really felt different. The next time I tried it, I managed to fit all six movies into one weekend, which seemed to work better, but with Christmas approaching I wasn't quite as ready to take up almost all of a weekend again. I decided on the fly to stretch things out to two weekends, which did leave me with two unconventional "trilogies" in keeping with recent thoughts that it's better to try and view the whole thing as one. There was also the thought that a whole decade of "in-story time" is supposed to separate The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, but I suppose I was troubled to start off the second weekend and have the feeling I wasn't quite as engaged. Fortunately, things picked up the next day (as I even managed to pity somewhat those whose sole reaction to the final duel of Revenge of the Sith is to complain that it's "unrealistic" that both Anakin and Obi-Wan didn't immediately burst into flames getting close to what would admittedly be pretty unhealthy red-hot lava in the "real world"), but I wondered the day afterwards if the old-fashioned "glow" animations of Return of the Jedi were something I needed to get used to again. In any case, with the whole thing over I did begin to contemplate that things would be different next year, with both Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith returning to theatres in 3D but separated by a few weeks, and would presumably be different the year after with the three old movies spoken of as all getting their own 3D releases, and different again the year after that with promises of the new new movie...