Movie Not-a-Review: The Star Wars Movies

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars. All rights go to their proper owners.

Yo Yo Yo, welcome back, everybody! (Or welcome if this is your first time here ever). Today is May the Fourth, so what else can I talk about today? Of course I will be talking about the Star Wars movies!

Now, this will be a bit different from my other reviews on here. If you've been on this blog in the past, you know that a few weeks ago I did my very first movie review. I am in the process of preparing a review of a cute family film next (which might seem strange immediately following a review of one of the darkest movies I've ever seen, but hey, it works for me), but since today is May 4, I have to do something Star Wars related.

But this will be different from what my reviews will normally be, in that I am not going to review each film in-depth. I am simply going to give my opinions on the movies without going scene by scene. This is because I am not really the biggest fan of Star Wars. Yes, I do like the films a lot, and I do think they deserve their status as classic well-known films, because they are really good, but I really have not watched the films very many times. Probably once a year at most.

This is most likely because I didn't really grow up watching these movies. I didn't have any of them on VHS or DVD when I was a kid, and I didn't see any of them until I was in high school, when my family got the Original Trilogy on VHS. So, it really would not be fair for me to do an in-depth review of these films, because I am not that knowledgeable about them, and there are many many other people who would do a much better job than me, and I would rather have you read their reviews of the movies than mine.

I saw the original trilogy first, and, quite happily, they were the theatrical versions on VHS, and not the so-called Special Editions that are widely available today. So I got to see Han be the only one to shoot, not have conspicuous CGI dinosaurs walking around in the desert, have Jabba be properly introduced in Return of the Jedi without that redundant deleted scene in A New Hope, the original song in Jabba's palace and not that weird new one, the ghost of Anakin Skywalker not being Hayden Christensen, and so on. I really liked it.

Later, my family got the movies on DVD, and kept the VHS tapes as well for the very reason that I didn't like most of the changes. I liked some of the changes though. The addition of windows in Cloud City was nice, and some other minor changes were wonderful. The rest of them though just seem kind of pointless (and stupid in some cases).

I also have seen the prequels on DVD, and I like the second and third ones. I don't really care much for the first one, and I usually skip it when I watch the Star Wars movies. You don't really miss anything all that important by skipping it, as characters introduced in that movie are either re-introduced in the next or killed off and hardly ever mentioned again.

I have not seen any of the new Star Wars movies yet, and I have heard mixed reviews on them. I will likely watch them someday, but right now I'm okay with just the ones I've seen.

So, I should probably answer the two questions that people probably want answered:

1. Do I recommend these films?

Yes, I do.

2. Which order do I recommend watching them in? Release order, or chronological order?

Neither order. Watch them in Machete Order. 4, 5, 2, 3, 6. (Yes, you do skip Episode 1) It is, in my opinion, the best way to watch the films. It has a great plot structure, and it works better than any other order does, in my opinion. It brings out a lot of things you don't notice about the characters if you watch in any other order. The extended "flashback" that you get between episodes 5 and 6 also creates a nice mirror of Luke's and Anakin's stories. I don't think you'll be disappointed. Read the article I linked to for more details on why this order works so well.

That's really all I have to say about these movies for now. Sorry if you were expecting something longer and more detailed, but I really just don't have much I can say about the movies. So watch them yourself (hopefully taking my advice and doing it in Machete Order), and see how good they are.

Oh yeah, and the Ewoks are really cool!