I've done the Star Wars mega-marathon, and walked away with some thoughts...



During Thanksgiving weekend, I was able to do something I think a lot of Star Wars fans have been planning to do probably since the prequels were officially announced -- sit down and watch all six movies, straight through. It was a lot of fun, and I'd definitely recommend it to any fans who haven't had the chance to do it yet (plan out your day in advance though, because 13 hours is a long time to try and do anything! ).


Anyway, aside from just having fun watching SW, doing the marathon really gives you a sense of the 6 movies as a coherent, single story, and you notice a varirety of different things. I started a thread on my forums about it, and I wanted to share a few of those thoughts here.


The prequels really, truly feel like such a well-crafted, comprehensive story when you view all three together. Even moreso than the OT (mostly because, even though those three work together extremely well, ANH has always had a stand-alone feel due to outside forces). I've always loved the prequels, and their place in the saga, but watching everything together, I felt particularly impressed.


TESB was the movie that felt most "changed" by being integrated into the six part whole. I've always felt the impact of new prequel movies on ROTJ was very obvious and as I said, ANH still has a slightly stand-alone vibe. But watching TESB, it felt very much like a true continuation of the story of the prequels, and I think it was the first time I saw TESB as the fifth part of a six part movie -- for the first time, I really felt as though the "surprise" of Vader's reveal at the end wasn't a surprise to the audience at all and wasn't meant to be presented as such, which changes some of the dynamic of the film overall. Without the "I am your father" surprise moment, I really saw the focus on Vader's story clearly for the first time. It's just as important that he knows about his son, and its just as important that he find Luke as it is to watch Luke go through his training on Degobah and get the shock of his life when he finally confronts the man he thinks killed his father. The newly-added-with-the-DVD dialogue between Vader and the Emperor definitely adds to that, and Vader seems very "Anakin" in this film to me, even more than I felt he seemed before. Empire was a pleasant surprise for me.

ROTJ, always my favorite, is made stronger by seeing the whole story. I don't know what to say about the Luke-Vader (and Palpatine) confrontations -- we all know they're great. Aside from that, Vader and Emperor now come across as familiar, whereas before the saga was finished, the Emperor's appearance in ROTJ was such a huge deal -- "Now we get to the EVIL EMPEROR who controls Darth Vader and the galaxy" -- as opposed to now, where it's just a matter of seeing him in action again and observing how his relationship with Vader has changed/not changed over the years.

The Vader-Kenobi duel in ANH works from a storytelling POV quite well, whatever one thinks of the actual choreography. I also noticed much more forcefully that the years on Tatooine (and the time alone after everything goes to hell in the prequel era) have not been kind to Obi-Wan. I felt bad for him watching ANH. Also, I'm starting to look at Vader in this film as just being a shattered, shell of himself after the events of ROTS...but the events during and after ANH energize and motivate him for perhaps the first time in about 20 years.

Forget Anakin and the Skywalkers...R2 is really what binds the saga together.

Qui-Gon's profound impact on the entire saga and so much of what occurs is really clear. If he doesn't die, there are about a million different things that don't happen the way they do in the prequels.


Those are just a few thoughts...I'm sure new things will come up every time I attempt such a marathon going forward.



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