For The Newcomers

What is the hype?

If you are anything like me, if a lot of people love something, you probably hate it by default.

Why would people care so much about this show or this movie? It can't be all THAT great. It took me four years to finally watch Breaking Bad, only to binge the entire final season in the two days leading up to the series finale.

I never watched Tiger King. I just watched through Queen's Gambit, and yeah, I liked it. It was good. But I don't think Queen's Gambit is going to launch an entire Expanded Universe off of that series (especially since it was marketed as a limited series).

So when I meet people who tell me I have to watch something, my knee-jerk response is, "but do I?"

Other people have found this with Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, the MCU, etc. But it is a big ask. Read a book series. Watch 22 films. It'll be worth it, I promise.

And that really is what Star Wars revolves around for me:

the time and patience is worth it.

I don't recommend binging these movies for your first viewings. It's overload.

I recommend weekly viewings.

When these movies aired, you have to wait two years between episodes.

That gives you time to fully absorb and reflect on what you have experienced.

Because it is an experience that George set out to deliver.

He did not let movie theaters show Star Wars unless they had THX-level sound systems that could deliver the sound effects and music as well as the visual.

He puts an entire journey into two hours and change, with profound lessons learned along the way.

Expectations.

We all have expectations now.

And George knew how to subvert them.

If you go in expecting something, and you get everything you wanted, you leave the theater satisfied.

If you go in with expectations and they are not met, you leave unsatisfied.

But if you go in with expectations, and they are fulfilled in a way that you never could have imagined?

That creates a fandom.

A following.

Because something not only entertained them,

But entranced them.

Something resonated on a deeper level.

Somehow, an escapist sci-fi movie with laser swords and aliens, turned into not the distant and forgotten, but the here and now.

History repeats itself.

Stories repeat themselves.

There is only one narrative:

Good versus Evil, and what that means.

Within stories are blueprints

Blueprints for success, or for failure

Luke faces three movies of temptation, and yet still resists the Dark Side.

Anakin faces three movies of temptation, and gives in.

In the Father and the Son, you have the same soul go on different journeys.

George shows us what happens with each one.

And in the sequel trilogy, we have Rey go on a similar journey.

Rey goes from hoping she is Somebody, to accepting that she is Nobody, to learning that she is actually the Daughter of Evil, to renouncing that title to continue on the Good Guy legacy.

Listen.

These movies have a lot to offer you.

I recommend you watch them with a nerd.

Watch in this order:

1. A New Hope

2. The Empire Strikes Back

3. Return of the Jedi

4. The Phantom Menace

5. Attack of the Clones

6. Revenge of the Sith

and the, get ready:

7. The Empire Strikes Back. Again.

8. Attack of the Clones.

That's right.

Again.

and then, get ready:

9. THE LAST JEDI

that's right.

and then,

10. A New Hope

11. The Phantom Menace

12. THE FORCE AWAKENS

and now to bring it home:

13. Return of the Jedi

14. Revenge of the Sith

15. THE RISE OF SKYWALKER

That is my viewing order.

The middle, the beginning, and the end.

And that gives you fifteen weeks

Three and a half months!

To spread it out and enjoy it.

Now, you've seen The Mandalorian, and you've seen the entirety of the Skywalker Saga.

Now watch Rogue One.

And then watch Solo.

And then watch Genndy Tartakovsky's 2-hour Clone Wars compilation on YouTube

and then watch The Clone Wars

and then watch Rebels

and then watch The Mandalorian AGAIN!

and if you don't get a more enriching watch for every single episode

now that you have the entirety of the canon behind you

then i guess you just don't like Star Wars.

but that's the only way i'll believe you.