A friend of mine over on another forum board pointed out this article, and in reading through it I felt it was my duty as a Star Wars fan who loathed the "prequels" to share it with you.
http://www.nomachetejuggling.com/2011/11/11/the-star-wars-saga-suggested...
Now I may have to go back and waste an afternoon trying this out!
I refuse to ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever sit through Return of the Jedi ever again. It is a terrible movie. Terrible.
That said, if I was in a situation where I couldn't gnaw my own leg off and had to watch them, I think I'd try it in "Machete Order."
My oldest son and I talked through this order and we think it may actually improve Return of the Jedi. We plan on trying it shortly.
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When I read the linked article, the argument for this viewing order made so much sense that I wanted to pass it along. Star Wars is and always will be the best film of the series, so it makes perfect sense to start there. Empire is the riposte to Star Wars, the middle act where the heroes get into serious difficulty.
To me, "Jedi" always felt like it was a half-baked pastiche of bits from the first two movies. There was a lot in there I didn't like--Lando having been the Falcon's captain before Han being in the top five--and there wasn't much new or fresh material.
It also felt off that Luke was able to take some sort of Jedi home-study course (does the University of Phoenix have Jedi training?) in order to present himself as this badass Jedi at the start of the film. How much time elapsed between the end of "Empire" and the beginning of "Jedi?" Luke told Lando he'd "meet him on Tatooine." So I guess Luke was just posing as a badass Jedi.
But if we then insert the two prequel films to give a flashback to how Anakin went down the dark path, then suddenly "Jedi" makes a lot more sense, visually and thematically. It explains how Darth Vader came to be, and has that knowledge fresh in the viewers' minds as "Jedi" starts and then addresses Luke's conflict with Vader.
It's really a stroke of genius to arrange the films this way, and also gives an excellent excuse for throwing "Phantom Menace" in the hopper. It's totally unnecessary to the narrative, even moreso if you watch "Clones" and "Revenge" as flashbacks rather than prequels.
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