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I decided not to start with The Acolyte, as it\u2019s mostly irrelevant to the Skywalker Saga. Instead, we started with The Phantom Menace. We watched it on a sunny Saturday morning, which I think helped. The slightly grainier visual quality made it feel like a 90s film that you\u2019d stick with if it popped on the TV over the weekend and you\u2019ve nothing better to do, giving it a slightly nostalgic feel. A little like how it would feel to watch Home Alone for the first time as an adult in your 30s; it\u2019s fun but you\u2019re very aware that your friends all watched it when they were kids, and there\u2019s a cultural importance attached to it that\u2019s keeping you engaged.<\/p>\n
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For what it\u2019s worth, my friend absolutely loved it. I\u2019m not sure if she really cared about the disputes around the taxation of trade routes, but the podrace, the Battle of Naboo and the Darth Maul fight at the end left her pumped for more. She even watched the first season of Tales of the Jedi by herself directly after (I encouraged her to do so as it would give her greater knowledge of both Qui-Gon and Count Dooku) and really enjoyed that too.<\/p>\n
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She enjoyed Attack of the Clones too, particularly the Battle of Geonosis and the confrontation with Count Dooku and Yoda (as a New Zealander, she also appreciated Temuera Morrison playing a large role). However, it wasn\u2019t until we watched Revenge of the Sith that I got a hint of how she really felt about the trilogy\u2019s middle film.<\/p>\n
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\u00a0<\/p>\n By the time you get to the final act of Revenge of the Sith, you\u2019ve seen Count Dooku get killed, General Grievous introduced and killed, Palpatine revealed as Darth Sidious, Anakin turned to the dark side and Order 66 issued. When Mace Windu died, my friend turned around to me and said \u201cWow, load\u2019s happening in this film, eh?\u201d. I got the impression that she felt Attack of the Clones was a bit slower by comparison, which is a commonly held opinion.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n At the end of the prequels, she declared that Revenge of the Sith was the best of the three films she\u2019d seen so far. We opted to skip The Clone Wars as getting through all seven seasons would likely take a year in itself and she isn\u2019t particularly interested in animation. I still recommended a collection of Ahsoka-heavy episodes from the series to watch by herself, so she knew who the character was by the time we get to Ahsoka. As far as I\u2019m aware, she still hasn\u2019t watched them.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The Disney Prequels<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n For the same reasons as The Clone Wars, we sadly skipped The Bad Batch and Tales of the Empire (Tales of the Underworld hadn\u2019t come out yet, but that would have been skipped too).<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n That meant the next one on the docket was Solo! She really enjoyed the film, appreciating the lighter tone compared to the prequel trilogy. There was plenty of laughter and she declared this was her favorite so far as it was the most fun, which is fair; that film has plenty of gags and quips and a genuine sense of adventure that the prequels don\u2019t have. I think she would have signed a #MakeSolo2Happen petition if I\u2019d asked her!<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Next up was Obi-Wan Kenobi. In the interest of time, I suggested that she watch it by herself. She had a sense of momentum at this point and watched it all over the course of a week. From what I remember, she enjoyed the series, particularly the showdowns between Darth Vader and Obi-Wan, though she didn\u2019t offer much more insight than that.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n That freed us up to get going on Andor. We watched this one together and I had hoped to get through Season 1 just in time before Season 2 started coming out, but we only finished the first season shortly after the Season 2 finale had aired. Due to schedule clashes, it took us most of 2025 to watch both seasons of Andor.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Thankfully, it was worth the wait. Though she had to get used to the show\u2019s slower pace (I tried to organize watches of three episodes at a time to match the release cadence, but sometimes that wasn\u2019t possible and we\u2019d only have time to watch one or two), she was thrilled when each story arc came to a head; particularly the Narkina-5 prison break and the Ferrix revolt, and she was fully locked in to everything from the Ghorman Massacre onwards.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n However, Andor threw up a surprising issue in this activity.\u00a0We watched Rogue One pretty soon after finishing Andor, and while she appreciated the narrative throughline provided by the returning Director Krennic and Cassian, she was shocked that every hero died by the end of the film, though she thought the decision to kill them was cool. She was also beginning to see just why the Death Star had been so hyped, and why it has become so iconic in pop culture.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n However, the film\u2019s pacing gave her a bit of whiplash. At this point, my friend had gotten so used to the slow build up and long-form storytelling of Andor (and Obi-Wan Kenobi before that to a lesser degree), that the pacing of the next few films took her by surprise. Rogue One itself does struggle with irregular pacing, but after 24 episodes of slow dramatic build-up in the series, it felt as though everything was happening too quickly in the film. It\u2019s almost as if it would have been more natural to tell the story of that film over a few more episodes of Andor, rather than as a film itself (obviously that\u2019s not possible, but it was interesting to note).<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n She turned to me multiple times throughout the movie to say something along the lines of : \u201cWow, everything\u2019s happening so quick in this film isn\u2019t it?\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The Original Trilogy<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n That brings us to the original trilogy. It\u2019s worth pointing out that watching all this in chronological order did provide some benefits, but ultimately I think the negatives outweighed the positives.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n My friend enjoyed A New Hope. Though she saw Obi-Wan\u2019s death coming as soon as he stepped onto the Death Star, it still had a far greater emotional impact than it would have if we had started with this film. Watching this character through so many stages of his life with Ewan McGregor meant she had a proper attachment to him, and that wouldn\u2019t have been the case if she were watching this without knowing his life story.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n She was also saddened when I informed her that Bail Organa and his wife were now dead after the Death Star blew up Alderaan. Following the deaths of all the Rogue One heroes, she noted with surprise once again that everyone was getting killed off; a sentiment I found quietly amusing, considering the very real problem many people have with Star Wars often bringing characters back from the dead.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Unfortunately though, I think her enjoyment of the film was tinged with disappointment. After the best part of a year watching Andor knowing that the big terrible Death Star was coming, she was really surprised to see that it was destroyed in the first film of the original trilogy. All of this build up, and just like that it was over. Sure, it destroyed a planet, but she had expected the battle station to be a huge threat across the entire trilogy.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n If we had started with A New Hope, then this simply wouldn\u2019t have been an issue. But watching the prequel series first created a false expectation in her head, one to which the original film was never going to live up. It was the pacing problem teased in Rogue One writ large. We\u2019d gone from 24 episodes of slow build to two films where it felt like huge events were happening in a short space of time. I suspect she felt everything was a bit rushed in comparison.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n On to The Empire Strikes Back, which of course she thought was great. I\u2019m not sure where it ranks in her personal favorites, but she could see why everyone tends to regard it as the best Star Wars film. Though I think she did question Yoda\u2019s odd behavior at first, she was satisfied with my head-canon explanation that he was testing Luke\u2019s character before revealing his true identity. She loved everything else about the film.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n She also loved Return of the Jedi. She\u2019d been asking me when the Ewoks were going to turn up for ages. She told me that she remembered her brothers watching Star Wars when she was little, and seeing the cute little teddy bears running around whenever she walked past the TV. She was entertained whenever they were on-screen, and was enthralled at the Battle of Endor and the lightsaber battle between Luke and Vader.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I had kept the reveal of the second Death Star quiet in the naive hope that it would help her get over the disappointment of the first one, but after an initial sense of surprise that there was another Death Star, it didn\u2019t register any excitement from her.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n While she was surprisingly excited to see Vader take his helmet off at the end, she didn\u2019t exactly spend time musing over Vader\u2019s redemption arc afterwards, which perhaps flies in the face of one of the reasons you\u2019d watch all this chronologically in the first place. While one of the goals of the prequel trilogy was to present Darth Vader as a tragic figure, his journey didn\u2019t seem to figure too much in her mind by the end.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Was Watching Star Wars in Chronological Order Worth it?<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>Cassian Andor (Diego Liuna) in Lucasfilm\u2019s ANDOR Season 2, exclusively on Disney+. Photo courtesy of Lucasfilm. \u00a92025 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n