Universal Monster Army

What order should my 7 year old view the Star Wars saga?

Definately watch them in the order they were released. That's the way we all fell in love with them and that's the way my kids have fallen in love with them too.

I agree with frankenstein73!! 

I'd probably do release order as well; If they hang with the older flicks then they'll probably be fine with the over the top-video game aspect of the newer trilogy (which is probably more what they are used to) but on the other hand if you show them the prequels first they may find the original trilogy boring.....even with Lucas' CGI tinkering!

Take the prequels and dump them in the nearest trash can. That easily solves any problem regarding viewing order!  ;D

Quote from: Moonshadow on July 04, 2011, 07:18:12 PM
Take the prequels and dump them in the nearest trash can. That easily solves any problem regarding viewing order!  ;D

I second that.

U.P. thirds that!

Quote from: Moonshadow on July 04, 2011, 07:18:12 PM
Take the prequels and dump them in the nearest trash can. That easily solves any problem regarding viewing order!  ;D

Go with release order. Same thing with the Raiders films.
On a related note,  I think its a bit sad we never found out what happened to Short Round.

Quote from: Gillfan on July 05, 2011, 06:31:45 AM
Go with release order. Same thing with the Raiders films.
On a related note,  I think its a bit sad we never found out what happened to Short Round.

Sure we did! He moved to the goon docks in Astoria Oregon. Went searching for one eyed willie. Made BOOTY traps, fought and helped capture the Fratellis, and saved the neiborhood from the evil expanding country club!

If that fit in the timeline I'd be willing to accept than answer! Even with Asians having a tendency to look younger than they are, I don't think that jives.

Quote from: Gillfan on July 05, 2011, 11:56:45 AM
If that fit in the timeline I'd be willing to accept than answer! Even with Asians having a tendency to look younger than they are, I don't think that jives.

Perhaps Short Round moved to America, became an inventor and spawned a Goonie.

Since Episode I (and almost II and III) do not exist in my little twisted universe, go with IV-VI like we saw as kiddos.

I, II, III could be better films if George would just tinker with them like he did the original trilogy;

Phantom Menace; take out Jar Jar-put anything in his place or maybe just redo his voice?  For the love of the Jedi wipe out any reference to Anakin as "Annie".

Attack of the Clones; Way to many over the top "video game" sequences; Padme running thru that factory, Obi Wan riding that lizard around...I'm sure there are others but I don't recall.....

Revenge of the Sith; Jedi are killed way to easy in this film, they only pull off a couple of moves before they are just wiped to the floor.

For I-III; redo all of those silly accented voice overs, I'd much prefer reading subtitles than hearing these silly vocals.  Take out all the attempts at cartoon humor; the original series had its comical moments without really trying to have them, something sorely lacking from I-III.  Ton down some of those cities/ships; You can definitely tell the technological differences between the two films making IV-VI look like they should take place eons before I-III instead of I-III being set 20 (or however many years it's supposed to be) before the others.

Of course the easy answer is just don't watch them but today's youth don't have the advantage of only having 3 films they'll know Star Wars as a sextuplet and sad to say some of them may even enjoy I-III more than IV-VI.

Quote from: long live kong on July 05, 2011, 01:09:22 PM

Perhaps Short Round moved to America, became an inventor and spawned a Goonie.

I'm willing to accept that.
Tonight...for the 1st time in years, I shall sleep soundly.

Just show them Star Trek TOS and be done with it rather than starting at the bottom. :D

Watch them in order of release. That way your 7 year old can understand why the series was so popular in the first place, then learn the important lesson of what can happen when you take yourself too seriously.  ;)

My 2 year old daughter has seen all the Star Wars films. Of the six her favourite is Return Of The Jedi. She likes the Ewoks. She loves Jabba. She regularly finds the DVD and implores me to put it on. She becomes bored very quickly with the prequels. Of the 100s of films at her disposal the ones she watches again and again are Labyrinth, with David Bowie in the shockingly tight pants (this is her absolute favourite), Return of the Jedi, Toy Story and Jurassic Park.

She has seen a few mild 'horror' movies, such as Gremlins, Ghostbusters, that sort of thing. She was indifferent to the scary scenes but the other night she was awake quite late and 'The Creature From The Black Lagoon' was on telly. I had to turn it off as it freaked her out! She did not like the creature's hand when it emerges from the water with the loud orchestral music! There is a geometric creature model kit on a shelf in my bedroom which she now calls 'the meany fish!'

Quote from: long live kong on July 06, 2011, 03:14:14 PM

My 2 year old daughter has seen all the Star Wars films. Of the six her favourite is Return Of The Jedi. She likes the Ewoks. She loves Jabba. She regularly finds the DVD and implores me to put it on. She becomes bored very quickly with the prequels. Of the 100s of films at her disposal the ones she watches again and again are Labyrinth, with David Bowie in the shockingly tight pants (this is her absolute favourite), Return of the Jedi, Toy Story and Jurassic Park.

She has seen a few mild 'horror' movies, such as Gremlins, Ghostbusters, that sort of thing. She was indifferent to the scary scenes but the other night she was awake quite late and 'The Creature From The Black Lagoon' was on telly. I had to turn it off as it freaked her out! She did not like the creature's hand when it emerges from the water with the loud orchestral music! There is a geometric creature model kit on a shelf in my bedroom which she now calls 'the meany fish!'

That is awesome!

I think from now on here at the UMA, we should have to refer to Creech as "the meany fish"!!

The original trilogy is the best way to go first. I enjoyed some of the newer trilogy but not as much as the original. I would say watch the original first because they are such classics and should be appreciated more than they really are. Plus you can get her more interested in the older trilogy instead of the modern one which is totally dominated-interest wise by most kids and teens nowadays. I was baffled to hear from a younger kid that George Lucas should remake the original trilogy and add-in the modern CGI and special effects  :o you can imagine the reaction I posed.

Quote from: Scatter on July 05, 2011, 10:16:41 PM
Just show them Star Trek TOS and be done with it rather than starting at the bottom. :D

No comparison between the two (besides that they are set in space) and that is neither a good thing nor a bad thing, it just is!  I grew up with Star Trek/Lost in Space reruns but those shows never really grabbed my attention the way that Star Wars did; I didn't even see a Star Wars flick until well after Empire was out, which was actually the first one I saw and I was an instant fan.  I saw every episode of Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers religiously, well before I ever saw Star Wars and those movies just blow all of those shows away in my opinion.

Gotta admit, I LOVED the first SW movie in '77. Don't know why but I never got around to seeing any of the other ones. But personally, I think the best of the Star Trek motion pictures are better than the original SW. SW is too cartoonish for my tastes.

I would recommend giving Empire Strikes back a chance, it has always seemed to me to be the darkest flick of the original trilogy!  But if you think the original flick was cartoony then definitely avoid Return of the Jedi; those Ewoks will have you setting your phaser for disintegrate/kill.

Quote from: zombiehorror on July 06, 2011, 11:57:27 PM
I would recommend giving Empire Strikes back a chance, it has always seemed to me to be the darkest flick of the original trilogy!  But if you think the original flick was cartoony then definitely avoid Return of the Jedi; those Ewoks will have you setting your phaser for disintegrate/kill.

That seems to be the consensus........."Empire" is supposed to be really good. Yeah, and I already hate the freaking Ewoks just from the pics. I can't stand cutsie crap like that.

I've always heard that originally the whole Ewok episode was supposed to be Wookies but it was deemed unfeasible to make that many Wookie costumes; you know with Ewoks George doubled his onscreen "aliens" since 2 Ewok suits could be made from the same material as 1 Wookie.  This vision of a Wookie inhabited planet of course would be realized (unfortunately) in one of the new Star Wars flicks!  The Wookies getting their revenge on the Empire would have been way more poignant seeing that in Star Wars lore the Empire totally decimated (or so they thought) the Wookies during the raid on their planet.

Oh and of course the other realization of a Wookie planet was seen way back in 1978 during the Star Wars Christmas Special~

The Star Wars Holiday Special - "Happy Life Day" (1978) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXcb7VPw59s#)

This may be further evidence that a planet of Wookies was to appear in Empire as Lucas obviously had alot of Wookie heads laying around!

Quote from: Scatter on July 06, 2011, 11:52:12 PM
But personally, I think the best of the Star Trek motion pictures are better than the original SW.

Definitely. But the original SW flicks are still classics IMO.

"Jedi" is the weakest, but thanks Zombiehorror for the Ewok/Wookie info. I always thought the Ewoks were a contrived toy tie-in. Jedi's distinction for me was seeing the Emperor in his glory.

While I agree that the Ewoks suck, I still enjoy Return of the Jedi solely for the Luke stuff, seeing him become a bad ass jedi and the redeem his father. Part of the reason I don't care for the prequels that much (besides the terrible acting of Hayden Christenson, Jar jar, the terrible voices, "younglings", Yoda fighting, did I mention Hayden Christenson's acting?) is because Lucas has insisted that the entire Star Wars saga, all 6 films, is really about Darth Vader. Clearly, the original three films are Luke's story. As a young person when they came out, I could empathize with Luke -his desire to be a part of something bigger, to get away from his mundane life. He has a wonderful character arc through the three films, as he grows from boy to man. I would have loved to see later films where Luke rebuilds the Jedi. But I guess Vader was more appealing to the general public, and Lucas.

We watched Episode IV together.  My 3 year old calls it 'the Darth Vader movie'...

QuoteJust show them Star Trek TOS and be done with it rather than starting at the bottom

I have to agree with scatter. even as a kid I thought ST was way better than SW. It is like comparing apples to oranges but I always did and still think ST has much better writing and character development than SW, good as SW (the original trilogy anyways-dump the 3 useless prequels) is. I would also say Doctor Who is better than Sw as well as long as we are talking about the major sci-fi franchises. The writing, backstories and everything is just so much better in both Trek and Who than what i always found contrived and heavily influenced by other sources in SW.

I was never a big fan of SW (even when it was new). I warmed to it a bit after knowing that GL worked some of Joseph Campbell's studies on mythology into the story (and that it drew some inspiration from Kurosawa's Hidden Fortress). I might pick up the blue ray set of the first three films. I recall enjoying the visceral impact of the second film (I chose to be chemically altered for that one)  :). The reviews of the PQ and AQ are good, so I may grab 'em. I don't really consider it science fiction. It's more like cops and robbers that happen to be in space. For me the core sci-fi element is a confrontation with the unknown. ST TOS certainly dealt with that essential element, although they often lapsed into the cops and robbers stuff as well (to say the least).

Quote from: dlhenderson on September 29, 2011, 08:23:37 PM
I was never a big fan of SW (even when it was new). I warmed to it a bit after knowing that GL worked some of Joseph Campbell's studies on mythology into the story (and that it drew some inspiration from Kurosawa's Hidden Fortress). I might pick up the blue ray set of the first three films. I recall enjoying the visceral impact of the second film (I chose to be chemically altered for that one)  :). The reviews of the PQ and AQ are good, so I may grab 'em. I don't really consider it science fiction. It's more like cops and robbers that happen to be in space. For me the core sci-fi element is a confrontation with the unknown. ST TOS certainly dealt with that essential element, although they often lapsed into the cops and robbers stuff as well (to say the least).

Seeing Star Wars when it opened in theaters as a 10 year old puts me at a distinct enjoyability advantage over folks who saw it in a different setting.

You are totally correct, Sean. Anything you see between the ages of 10 and 12 plants a seed in the psyche that stays and grows. That's why I'm still a Monster Kid.

I saw the original Star Wars at the theater...........and LOVED it. A great movie experience. But now? Meh.

Quote from: Sean on October 05, 2011, 08:17:26 AM
Seeing Star Wars when it opened in theaters as a 10 year old puts me at a distinct enjoyability advantage over folks who saw it in a different setting.

I was 9 and it was like it was the first movie I'd ever seen.