There was a very specific, geeky pride that welled up in my chest when my eldest daughter said, “I need to watch the Star Wars movies.”
Oh, she’s seen them before. Sometimes whole movies at a time. But mostly just out of the corner of her eye, while playing with LEGOS or doing some other wholesome (and not at all geeky) activity.
Now that she’s 14 and watched The Force Awakens, she figures it’s time to seriously watch the previous six episodes… Which is a great opportunity for me to test out the Machete Order.
For the uninitiated, the Machete Order was proposed back in 2011 by Rod Hilton. He suggested that by watching the Star Wars movies in the right order, you can create a better, more cohesive and dramatic experience. That order?
Episodes 4, 5, 2, 3, and 6.
No, there’s no Episode I on the list. As Hilton says, he doesn’t skip it because it’s bad, but because it’s irrelevant; nothing that happens in that movie actually matters in the later films. (Actually, he says a lot of very insightful things about the order, and if you haven’t read the post, you really should.)
Anyway, now that summer is here, I’ve decided this is the week we’ll tackle the Star Wars saga. Will I be creating another life-long fan? Or will she just roll her eyes at her old dad’s silly obsession and return to more important things, like top 10 lists on YouTube? Follow me on Twitter to find out!
