On the 4th of July, I wrote the Definitive Star Wars Saga Watch Order.
There is another.
What is the correct order to watch the Star Wars Saga?
In brief:
Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Episode II: Attack of the Clones
Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
Episode IV: A New Hope
Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
Episode VII: The Force Awakens
Episode VIII: The Last Jedi
Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker
At length:
We overthink things. We complicated the uncomplicated. We call tech support when we just need plug the damn thing in.
In the great debate over the Star Wars Saga’s watch order, we do the same thing.
There are good arguments to be made that the order in which to watch Star Wars is Release Order. Those arguments try to recreate the experience of watching the Star Wars films when they were released.
But Star Wars was not meant to be frozen in carbonite that way. Instead of trying to recapture a feeling that cannot be replicated for a new viewer, the better approach is to lean into the completed Saga as it exists and watch the journey as it unfolds. The story starts at Episode I and ends with Episode IX.
It seems obvious, but is it? The story was not released in order. Yes, Episode I was called, in the first draft, “The beginning…” but it’s a film that came out 22 years after the original Star Wars and 16 years after the story had ostensibly concluded. Would a purist really want to begin the story with the fourth film that was released in cinemas? The question of watch order is really, simply, where to put the prequels? In the middle? Or in the beginning?
(Interestingly, releasing prequels in the center of the narrative is a path the High Republic publishing series has chosen to take as an homage George Lucas’s approach. The High Republic is therefore a story that starts in the past, then goes even even further back, and will conclude by going a little-less-far back in time. Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey.)
When in doubt, listen to your heart. I know what mine wanted.
It had been a dream of mine to watch all six films in order, and later, all nine films in order. When I finally got my copy of the home release of Revenge of the Sith, I sat in the basement of my apartment in Brooklyn, laying all the DVDs in front of me, like stacks of ill-gotten bills from a bank heist. I thought about how many years I’d imagined watching the full story, finally complete.
Where did I start?