i have a few plot twists in my story that i'm having trouble getting out, and the only way i can describe them is the darth vader issue in the star wars movies. if you watch the original movies, it's shocking to learn that vader is lukes father and luke and leia are siblings. but then you know that anakin becomes darth vader and episodes 1-3 lose emotion. but if you watch them in order seeing cute little anakin fall from grace is heartwrenching..... but then you know everything about the kids.
so, what order would you have someone who has never seen the movies watch them? i swear it will help me organize.
Posted by Matt Lust (Member # 3031) on :
It entirely depends on why they want to watch them.
I personally will not expose my children to the "first" trilogy( they will of course eventually see these horrible movies but not at my hands), opting instead to provide them the chance to experience the greatest space opera every produced on the silver screen for themselves.
Others may insist on being "canonical" and provide their children the movies in "chronological order."
This is a writing question not a reading question. What story are you needing to tell? That is how the story must be structured, according to the needs of the story.
Readers will always choose their own ways. Just go to the other side of the Hatrack forums, say "I read the enderverse books X (order published, chronological etc) way because its the best" and watch the debate set off.
Posted by Grant John (Member # 5993) on :
I would probably tell them to watch them in the order they were made, just as I would tell someone to read books in the order they were written, for example David Eddings Belgariad, Mallorean and prequels (Belgarath the Sorcerer and Polgara the Sorceress) in the order they were written even if the prequels end before the Belgariad begins because it would ruin things.
So my vote is strongly for release order.
Grant
Posted by wrenbird (Member # 3245) on :
I'd start with the beginning. In the case of Star Wars, I felt that the first three movies were more like "here is an interesting little tidbit in case you want to know." That said, I know I probably stand alone on the matter, but I actually liked the first three a lot. Even still, they didn't feel really important because we knew the way it would all end. Besides, we can still have a sense of dramatic irony watching movies 3-6 because, while we know who Vader is, Luke still doesn't.
[This message has been edited by wrenbird (edited August 14, 2007).]
Posted by Zero (Member # 3619) on :
I would certainly have them watch the older ones first, and if they feel like getting let down they can watch the newer ones after that. And then we can have long discussions about why the new ones are plot-pathetic.
Posted by JeffBarton (Member # 5693) on :
Does a flashback work for your writing problem?
That would be like watching Star Wars 4 (the first), 5 (discover siblings and father), 1-2-3 (the flashback) then 6 (the finale).
Posted by Balthasar (Member # 5399) on :
I think the original trilogy has a better emotional impact that the prequels. Of course, it's hard for me to say because I saw the original trilogy first.
So the real question is this: What story do you want to tell -- the hero's journey, or a tale of corruption and damnation?
Both are valid character arcs, and both can carry an emotional wallop.
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
Well, I thought the appearances of Yoda in the "prequels" sabotaged the surprise of his appearance in "The Empire Strikes Back"...
Stick with the way they came out. Four, Five, and Six, followed by One, Two, and Three.
Posted by annepin (Member # 5952) on :
Hm... in a book, though, I think you might run into the danger of the revelation being a bit gimmicky-- he's your father, and oh wait, he wasn't always this evil! It works for the movies because by the time we find out about darth vadar's being luke's dad, we've been exposed the the concept that he was once a gold-star jedi, who succumbed to the dark side (if my memory is correct). So then the prequels are more mileu stories than character stories, at least that's how i see them. i suffered through the prequels because i wanted to return to that world, not because i was so interested in anakin's descent into the dark side (though this may have had more to do with bad acting and dialogue than anything else). But I'm not sure how well this structure would work in a book--of course, it all depends on how you do it.
Anyway, just wanted to give you one more perspective on the issue.
Posted by Kakichi (Member # 5814) on :
It's funny to see the thoughts on the Star Wars movies here. I don't think anyone here was born after the new prequels came out so it's probably safe to say we all saw the original trilogy first. In terms of writing, if you happened to be writing the same story, it would probably be a little more dramatic starting later in the story (like 4,5,6) then going back and telling how that war with the Rebels v.s. the Empire came to happen. You'll lose something either with seeing Yoda or by seeing Anakin from the beginning.
Something similar was done with the Metal Gear video game series where two games were released in modern day times, and then the newest game took us back to the 70's cold-war era and told the beginning of the story for what would become a good/bad guy. Same idea, different story, and both Star Wars and Metal Gear pulled it off well.
Posted by Tara (Member # 4638) on :
What???? Darth Vadar is Luke's father????!!!
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
Something that's not implicit in the first and original "Star Wars" movie. (The only movie I've ever gone to see in theaters three times.)
Posted by Christine (Member # 1646) on :
This is a tough one, because far from being "heart wrenching," episodes 1-3 of Star Wars suck pretty badly and completely fail to show, in any meaningful way, a fall from grace. As far as I'm concerned, 1-3 don't exist. I never feel the need to watch them again.
So, it's easy to say that I would have my children watch the original Star Wars trilogy first.
Let's pretend, for a moment, that George Lucas can write to save his life and that he really had shown a young man turning to evil. In that case, I think it would be better to watch in order so that we don't know for sure that he will become evil. It makes the transformation that much worse to watch. Yeah, we'd lose something in the, "Luke, I am your father," bit but really, I think we can imagine what it must feel like for a young man to learn his father is a monster. Meanwhile, we'd know more than he that his father had once been a good man.
I tend to think that, everything else being equal, chronological order is the way to go.
Posted by Christine (Member # 1646) on :
P.S. I just wanted to add that if you did show this story in chronological order, you would probably emphasize the father/son brother/sister relationship in different ways since the audience already knows. It will then be key only that the *character* doesn't know.
Posted by Wolfe_boy (Member # 5456) on :
I didn't mind terribly the new Star Wars movies... but rather than discuss the merits of George Lucas as a writer, we're discussing your situation.
Knowing everything about one situation doesn't have to ruin the other. The fall of Anakin in itself is heartwrenching (or, it should have been). The fact that he never finds out who his son is, and his son never finds out who he is, is terrific tragedy. If you watch the movies in numerical order, watching Luke and Vader struggle against one another for three movies is tragic. If you watch them in order of when they were made, then Anakin's story is tragic.
I guess my point is, I don't see what the problem is. Either way, the story has a fair amount of emotional impact, and if you're going to write the whole story arc, one can reasonably expect the same quality of writing from one side and from the other, so this debate about the quality of the first trilogy vs. the second becomes moot.
Jayson Merryfield
Posted by Zero (Member # 3619) on :
On the contrary, I think if we can identify what disappointed us so profoundly we're one step closer to avoiding such an error in our own fiction.
Posted by Balthasar (Member # 5399) on :
The fundamental problem with writing a fall-from-grace story is getting your readers to sympathize with the person who is falling.
Lucas almost did it by showing us Anakin's fear of Padme's death -- a fear rooted in the death of his mother. This didn't work because the Jedi council came off as a bunch of morons; Anakin's and Padme's romance and marriage was never convincing; and neither were all of the events surrounding the death of Anakin's mother.
So any fall from grace -- that is, any tragedy -- must hold together better than any other story for the simple fact that you're demanding so much from the reader.
PS -- Lucas' No. 1 mistake with the prequels was starting Anakin off as a 9-yr.-old boy. He broke the cardinal rule of not starting in the middle of things -- i.e., the middle of Anakin's story. Everything about Anakin in Ep. I is nothing but back story.
