Why the Prequels coming out first would not have worked

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[SomeYank]

If you were to watch them chronologically without knowing Vader is Luke’s father, that reveal scene wouldn’t be nearly as cool.

[SgtAJ]

As a writer myself, I don’t think if the Prequel Trilogy came out first, it would've worked. I say this because the Original Trilogy works as a stand-alone story. Meaning, you can watch these 3 movies with no prior knowledge of what Star Wars is, and you can understand what the story is about without needing much more exposition. Now, as much as I love the Prequels, they wouldn’t work as a stand-alone trilogy because of how each film ends on a cliffhanger. I mean, hypothetically, say we saw TPM first, we would be left wondering, “did Anakin bring balance to the force.” I mean, you feel satisfied that Naboo is free, but Anakin is the main character, and his arc isn’t complete. Then we watch AOTC, and again we’re left with a cliffhanger because The Clone Wars has begun. Lastly, ROTS ends with our Heroes defeated and the Jedi Order destroyed. Of course, there’s a new hope but, you’re left hanging and not feeling satisfied by the end. Now we wait 2 decades later, and we finally get the ending, where the new hope emerges and destroys the Empire. Some people may not be as interested because it took way too long for the creators to show us how the story ends. I mean, there are TV episodes that do end on cliffhangers, but they usually take a few weeks or even several months to show us how their story ends, and people generally can wait that long. Waiting 20 years, though, that is way longer than anyone would want to wait. So, in short, I don’t think releasing the Prequels first wouldn’t have worked because they don’t work as a stand-alone story compared to the Original Trilogy.

[Milothemighty]

The amount of praise the prequels have been getting is nothing short of magical. I have always loved these movies but something that I’m tired of seeing is that some people (not all obviously) say “the only reason you like the prequels is out of spite for not liking the sequels”.Quite frankly that makes my blood boil. I remember seeing revenge of the sith years before the force awakens let alone the first teaser came out and I loved it and I still love revenge of the sith. The sequels have nothing to do with my view of the prequels…

[Mpiewizard]

In terms of the watch order, I’ve always said if the person who’s never seen the films already knows the big reveal, start with the prequels. If they somehow don’t know, start with the originals.

I do agree that starting with the prequels wouldn’t have worked but I also find myself wondering how the 6 films might have been different if George knew he’d be able to make all six. I feel like he would have saved the Death Star being destroyed for the final movie. I don’t know how New Hope would’ve ended but that would make the most narrative sense.

[SiriuslyBlack]

When watching the prequels, i realized that in ESB, Yoda, the leader of the Jedi council of thousands of Jedi across the galaxy, wasn't just some little crazy green swamp-dwelling alien with a thing for "hand lamps", but actually a powerful well learned Jedi who was actively trolling him to get under his skin, in a sense, to "test" Luke to see if he was the type to judge a book by it's cover, and to see if he had a calm demeanor for patience..Of course Luke initially failed, but the fact that Yoda was putting on an act was that much more hilarious when you know what he was really like just barely 17 years ago..His experiences throughout the Clone Wars, how many Jedi of different species across the galaxy that he taught from very young children to fully matured adults..I enjoyed The Empire Strikes Back so much more and alot harder with him fighting R2-D2, screaming "MINE!MINE!MINE!MINE!

[rogerpalsgrove]

Hey Thor maybe an interesting topic would be the behind the scenes of the prequels. The beauty and detriment of Lucas was his ability to "fly by the seat of his pants". His legacy is so monumental basically the father of the blockbuster franchise. Then the wizard of pushing the boundaries of film-making. At the time the audience and Luke had no idea about the Vader reveal in ESB but I think it still works from Luke's perspective if you watch the films in chronological order. Lucas could have benefited greatly with less yes men during the making of the prequels. They do encompass the overall arch nicely but did create a few plotholes. Ever since Empire of Dreams I got fascinated by the behind the scenes of the films. The prequels get a lot of flak for the CGI but there's so much practical that people don't realize.

[GoldeneyeDoubleO]

Even with the point of recontextualizing the OT. The prequels don't necessarily stray too far or drastically do things differently from the OT. It essentially lines up pretty well unlike the sequels

[alistairgrey]

I agree that it wouldn't work if they were flipped as is. Obviously if they were flipped the stories would have been vastly different but that's a whole different story.

I actually loved how the OT didn't have to explain the back stories of everyone. It just showed you who they are for the most part and went from there. Palpatine was just the emperor and his past was a complete mystery. Han had a character defining moment with Greedo which showed only a fraction of what his backstory was but it was enough to get us invested in the character. There are tons of examples of this in the OT. I actually don't like how many audiences now expect back stories for everyone. Not every character needs one.

[MatthewChenault]

Even the plot elements you bring up that aren’t “touched upon” in the Original Trilogy are addressed… from a certain point-of-view.

Those things don’t have to be brought up again in the Original Trilogy nor need to be edited into them because the overall assumption is that this is addressed by the ending.

The prophecy - something Luke wouldn’t be able to fully comprehend or understand - is brought to fruition through Vader’s actions of defying his dark master and bringing an end to him. That doesn’t need to be addressed as the audience, when watching it in chronological order, would be going into the Original Trilogy knowing Vader forsook the prophecy and Luke would be largely unaware of it himself. It isn’t necessary to be brought up again as we, the audience, already know about it.

In other words, the film’s plot addresses the plot elements by having those plot elements fulfilled without uttering a single word.

This is what makes the Prequels such a good prequel to the Star Wars saga: they seamlessly tie into the Originals without having to completely gut the Originals in the process.

[Valkanna.Nublet]

Showing the PT before the OT would work if the PT had three changes:
1: No Padme birth scene. Make the audience believe the kid(s) died with her.
2: Luke didn't have the same damn name as Anakin/Vader.
3: The PT features a Jedi who is related to Owen, and gets killed by Anakin.

Unfortunately there's no amount of editing the PT that would stop spoiling the reveals of the OT. Even deleting the birth scenes leaves the problem of the name, so would only stop one reveal.

[Hanoua]

What I did with my wife when I introduced her to Star wars, was to start with episode 3 : Revenge of the sith (I was scared she would give up after attack of the clone or Jarjar binks) its action pack and it directly link to the OT. She never saw any of the original movies, but already knew that Vader was Luke's Father. But the cool thing is... She didn't know Anakin was vader. So when sidius said: "you will be known as Darth... Vader !". It actually blew her mind

[ariesroc]

A "PT first" would have likely had an already teenage Anakin with a slightly older Obi-Wan both from Tatooine as per the earlier PT backstory. We can see this because in "The Star Wars" Annikin Starkiller is far more Anakin than Luke and General Luke Skywalker is effectively a PT Obi-Wan. The Star Wars is the bridge story that is both parts PT and OT from which both trilogies start from.

[Kevin_Street]

Gen X represent! Luke will always be our main hero.

But yeah, the prequels flipped that by making Anakin the central character. His decision to save Luke in Return of The Jedi is still the climax of the entire saga, but for a different reason than before. Before it was the story of Luke growing into a Jedi and learning to love a person he hated and feared - and now it's that plus the rise, fall and last second redemption of his Dad.

Looking at it honestly my emotions have always been dominated by nostalgia for the original interpretation, but reason says the series works better now. Back in the 80's Darth Vader's redemption never felt believable to me. This character who was a literal monster does _one_ good thing and suddenly he's no longer a creature of the Dark Side? Pshaw. But now we see his entire story from the beginning and watch him become that monster, and that makes his sacrifice at the end more meaningful. He did do good things once. He knew both nobility and love, once. This was him regaining a little of the personal agency that was taken away by the Emperor.

[JaminBro]

From 2004 to 2007, I spent countless hours on the Star Wars Forums. To me, this was the voice of the fandom. And there was not a hate against the prequels. It didn't exist there. It was mainly created and spread by the media while fans thoroughly enjoyed it. (This was before social media was a thing so you couldn't add your voice to the media craze.)

The OT made sense, for the most part, story wise. The PT added and fleshed out those details and stayed a coherent story throughout. This is what makes me the most sad about the ST. They had a chance to flesh more out with an even better coherent story... And it bombed.

My son is two. In a year or two, I will introduce him to Star Wars. We will start with 4 because I want him to feel the same way I felt with the ending of episode 5. I probably will show him Clone Wars and Rogue One. But I don't know if I will show him the ST. They will be the equivalent of the badlands in the Lion King. "Stay away!"

[staroceans]

I think like you, the original trilogy stood on its own and had great merit, a relative beginning and dramatic end. However, the mystique was that the iconic villain Vader was so overwhelmingly popular that people wondered who he was, why he became the way he did, and what was his beginning that caused him to become so twisted and hateful.
I think that precipitated the prequels.

[ShlupGitto]

Hey Thor you should do a video comparing the legends and cannon clone wars stories

[Travis_Hackney]

Ummm

I always thought of the OT as the story of the redemption of Darth Vader: he comes in stepping over bodies and choking people to death, and ends as a smiling old force ghost amongst friends because of the goodness in the son he didn’t know he had…

[LumVaughan]

The crazy yet wonderful thing about the SW franchise is that it continues to grow and expand every year, growing more and more complex. The original three movies were basic, sort of sci-fi. Lucas wasn't worried about expanding anything in the 1970s. He waffled all over the place with the original SW script -- you can google some of the earlier drafts and see how crazy and unsure of what A New Hope would even be and there was no way he could weave together six or even three movies until he had clear in his mind what ANH was going to be. For Lucas, just getting ANH filmed and released was a huge achievement. It was an uphill battle the whole way and only then did he start looking at TESB. He even had a contingency plan if ANH was not as popular as it turned out to be. Allen Dean Foster's novel "Splinter of the Mind's Eye" would have been the follow-up to ANH if he had a limited budget due to ANH not making much money at the box-office. That is why it was released as a book before TESB came out. It was the first book of what is now the Star Wars Legends series. Watching the prequels before seeing the original three movies for the first time would spoil reveals such as who Darth Vader really was and who his children were. Personally, I think a first time viewer needs to watch the original trilogy then the prequels and if they are desperate, the sequels. If they want the whole experience, go through everything in the canon, but only after seeing the original trilogy first. I've watched everything, even the goofy Holiday Special and the non-canonical cartoon Clone Wars series and Lego stuff (which are really fun to watch for laughs). But it all starts with the original trilogy; everything else has been built around them.

[marvelstarwarsfan]

If the original trilogy had come out later I think people would have been confused because it’s similar to the response the sequel trilogy, they would be confused of the changes from midiclorians to just the force being an energy field that sorrounds all life forms, and so on, but also if the prequels had come out first I think it would have made a little more sense.

[ariesroc]

It would have worked fine but obviously it wasn't possible on a tech level. It would have been different because Lucas put the final PT story together in retrospect of the final OT story. If he had started with the story of Anakin and Obi-Wan first then by the time of ANH it would have been done differently with both Luke and Leia finding out about their father.