*This article contains spoilers if you’ve somehow kept in the dark about the events of the original Star Wars trilogy*
With the final installment of Disney’s Sequel trilogy mere days away, I feel that its the right time to assemble my version of the ultimate marathon of the Skywalker Saga. I’ve been doing marathon viewings of Star Wars for over 25 years and the watch order has always been a constantly evolving process. It was easy when it was just the Original and Prequel trilogies but now it’s a lot more complicated with 10 released films and an 11th well on the way. It might seem easy enough to just watch the movies by the numbers and call it a day but where’s the fun in that? It took some thought but I think I’ve managed to come up with a decent watch order to add to the many popping up online in the lead up to IX.
Without further ado, my ultimate Skywalker Saga marathon is this: Rogue One, IV, V, I, II, III, VI, Solo, VII, VIII, and finally IX.
At first glance it might look a bit crazy with Rogue One going first and the Prequel trilogy jammed between V and VI but trust me, it all has a place and a purpose. After weighing other opinions and a lot of tinkering, I feel like this is the best reflection of the Star Wars Saga in its current entirety. There are a lot of different variables that can be considered when assembling a Star Wars marathon.
Theatrical vs Modern Release
Many people are surprised that this is at all important but it matters more than you might think. A fun little piece of Star Wars trivia is that there have been 6 versions of the Original trilogy over the years. The first major changes occurred in 1997 when the Special Edition was released. After that, George Lucas would make multiple revisions over the years in an attempt to make the films as close to his original vision as possible. Most of the changes were minor but there are some major changes that have big implications for the story and characters. Thankfully the Prequel trilogy was never subjected to this much retroactive editing.
A mildly annoying side effect of having different versions is that some watch orders have conflicting elements depending on what changes were made. The prime example is at the end of VI when the Force ghosts of Obi-Wan, Yoda, and Anakin appear to Luke on the forest moon of Endor. Any version of VI released after 2004, young Anakin played by Hayden Christensen shows up next to Ben Kenobi and Yoda a few minutes after we saw Sebastian Shaw’s face under Darth Vader’s helmet. For someone not familiar with the Prequel trilogy, this would be really confusing.
I could go on for a while about this particular part of the debate but that’s for another time. The modern re-releases definitely have their merits but if it’s my choice, it’s always the original theatrical edition. There’s a particular charm with the Original trilogy that I feel gets lost amongst all the changes in the re-releases.
Release vs Chronological Order
The advantage to doing a viewing in release order is getting to see the franchise unfold that same way that audiences have gotten to over the years. This order is a bit wonky in the Disney era since the Anthology films really have nothing to do with the Sequel trilogy and disrupt the story’s flow when viewed in release order. This way of watching the franchise is also most susceptible to the issues I mentioned previously concerning the various releases.
The chronological order is how the story was meant to be seen and also neatly arranges the films into four distinct eras. This is probably the most “correct” way to view the franchise when you consider Lucas’ original vision for Star Wars. His goal was to have 3 distinct trilogies that would be watched in order to reveal his grand space opera. My primary complaint about this order is that it ruins the big reveal in V about Vader being Luke’s father but that spoiler is almost 40 years old so maybe it isn’t such a big deal except for first time watchers or purists like me.
Whenever I would do my own marathon, chronological order was the option I favored most heavily. It made the most sense story-wise and seemed like the way it was meant to be seen. As the years past, new ideas on how to order the films emerged and gave fans like me a chance to view the franchise in a new light.
The Machete Order
In 2011, the famous Machete Order post was uploaded by Rod Hilton to his blog, Absolutely No Machete Juggling, and quickly became one of the most popular viewing orders amongst Star Wars fans. I highly recommend you read Hilton’s original post but the order that he ultimately suggests is: IV, V, II, III, VI. Since it was conceived before Disney bought Lucasfilm, it only deals with the first two trilogies.
His thought is this watch order best reflects the Original trilogy’s premise that Star Wars is Luke’s story and also preserves the surprise Vader reveal. This version became my standard watch order after I first learned about it because it was a fresh way to look at the films and provoked a lot of discussion. Again, you should definitely read his article because it is a great dive into his thought process behind the design of the Machete Order.
My only disagreement is that I think I has its place in the Saga and always keep it in the mix. Sure, midichlorians and Jar Jar Binks make us roll our eyes but without I, we don’t get to see why Anakin has abandonment issues or how his training was supposed to go before Qui-Gon Jinn’s death. These parts of the early story play a key role in showing Anakin’s motivations as a Jedi and provides a beginning for his turn to the dark side. Hilton created the Machete Order around his premise that Luke’s journey is the heart of the story, while my idea is that Star Wars is about the ultimate destiny of the Skywalker line. To me, VI serves as a conclusion for Anakin’s story as well as a beginning for Luke’s journey into the future.
For years, the Machete Order has been the gold standard in the Star Wars community and it was a major influence on my final watch order. It made me open to viewing the films in a different way and made me more amenable to mixing things up a bit more radically with the movies from Disney.
What To Do With Disney?
With Disney’s adding so much to the franchise, it’s time to get a bit creative with my watch order. Not only is there the Sequel trilogy to contend with but also the Anthology films, Rogue One and Solo. (The Anthology designation is Disney’s way to differentiate films that aren’t part of the primary story.)
Disney has been very vocal about how the Sequel trilogy is meant as a conclusion to the previous story while transitioning into the new era. This makes it super easy to just drop episodes VII, VIII, and eventually IX at the end and call it a day for the numbered films. Luke’s adventure comes to an end and with it concludes the Star Wars Saga with the future films produced by Disney that compose their main storyline becoming the new Saga.
The Anthology movies are a bit trickier because they both take place in that gap between episodes III and IV and almost bridge the gap between the Prequel and Original trilogies. It could almost be the beginning of a new trilogy that centers around the transition from the Republic to the Empire but unless we get another movie for this period like a sequel to Solo, this doesn’t feel right.
Jumping back to the Machete Order for a minute, Hilton released an update to his original concept addressing the new films. Essentially, he agrees that the Sequel trilogy just lands at the end and thinks that all the other Star Wars titles like the Anthology movies and the TV shows can be done in any order after the Sequels. I think that the Anthologies have a bigger role to play than just being tacked on at the end.
With Rogue One, it might seem weird to put one of the newest movies first but I think its the fits brilliantly. The key strength of the movie is how great it is at portraying the Empire as the dominant force we were supposed to see it as when the story of the Original trilogy begins. Other than Vader and Grand Moff Tarkin, the Empire doesn’t seem that intimidating in IV but the tragic ending of Rogue One leaves us on the edge of our seats after witnessing the real power of the Empire. IV has more intensity with the fresh knowledge of what the Empire is capable of. Also, Gareth Edwards did a tremendous job crafting Rogue One to reflect the 70’s feel of IV which also help with the transition between the two. I mean, come on… You have to admit that those mustaches were glorious.
Solo was the hardest one of the batch. Due to its placement in the timeline, the film ends up isolated from both the Original and Prequel trilogies but has obvious connections to both. One blog I found suggested placing it between III and VI as a bit of a palette cleanser to break up the “darker” movies. My issue is that those two films together are the climax of the Skywalker Saga and should be kept together to maintain the momentum of the story. Since Solo doesn’t really add anything to the overall Saga except backstory, I started thinking a little meta about its place in the storyline and it hit me. If Solo is looked at as Han sharing his backstory with Luke and Leia, I figured it would work great between VI and VII. In my head canon, Han sat down sometime in the 30 year gap after VI and told his story to maybe Luke or Ben. The only part that doesn’t quite line up is the Darth Maul reveal at the end. It brings up a pretty big question regarding Maul’s influence on events in the Original trilogy and leaves that hanging but that would be an issue no matter where you stuck it in the order. In the future, maybe a Solo sequel will expand on that and I’ll have to re-evaluate its placement.
This is Where the Fun Begins
After all that, we haven’t even gotten to the best part which is actually watching all these amazing movies. My plan is to make my first run through of this new watch order the day before the release of Rise of Skywalker to be as prepared as possible for the final installment. Including the breaks that I’ve scheduled in between movies, the whole thing should take exactly 25 hours start to finish. Definitely my longest marathon ever and it doesn’t even include IX which is the second longest Star Wars film ever made.
My watch order isn’t meant to be perfect for everyone but I hope it will entertain and inspire people to take a look at Star Wars from a new angle. If you have opinions, criticisms, or questions about my watch order, I’d love to hear them. Make sure you also keep an eye out for my review of IX after the film’s release on December 19th.
What Are You Talking About? 