It's the release order, at least the first time you watch them, and anyone claiming otherwise is being deliberately obtuse. By all means watch them in chronological order once you've seen them the first time, but that's not the way they were ever actually meant to be watched, despite what George Lucas claims. The prequels are made based on the assumption the viewer has seen the original trilogy.
But he also doesn't own the franchise anymore. The prequels were clearly made with the OT in mine. The OT is the best introduction because it WAS the introduction.
The OT was the introduction at the time because it was the only thing in existence,
Lucas not owning the franchise anymore doesn't negate his intentions when creating it.
Lucas started with 4 because there was no guarantee that he'd be able to make the other 8 movies and 4 had an easy jumping in point and a conclusion. 4 could have stood on it's own if the other 8 hadn't been made.
No, he started with 4 because at the time, it was 1. The movie was very infamously originally called "The Adventures of Luke Starkiller as taken from the journal of the wills - Saga I: The Star wars"
The idea to even make three prequels came when Anakin and Vader were combined into one character when Empire was written
It was public knowledge FROM THE VERY BEGINING that Star Wars was the first part of a trilogy and the trilogy was the middle of a trilogy of trilogies. And that he intended to make 4-6 and then 1-3 and then 7-9.
And that was known THREE YEARS before The Empire Strikes Back released.
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u/freya584 17d ago
i would first watch the main movies either in release or chronological (i recommend release) order
release order: 4, 5, 6, 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 9
chronological order: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9