I increasingly see that question on other forums and it drives me up the wall. That question is a perfect storm of two things: ▪︎the mindless consumer fanboy-ism that has destroyed all major film franchises ("it contradicts the lore, is objectively miserable, and an active waste of my time, but it has Star Trek in the title, so I'll watch it.") ▪︎developmentally stunted inability to fill in any blanks whatsoever
I promise you, Pee Pee Poo Poo: The Musical: Season 1 has absolutely no key nutrient you have to absorb to comprehend season 2. In fact, if we're talking one of these shows that go through three showrunners a season, it might be more comprehensible if you skip the earlier stuff.
I saw someone on another forum mention that they were trying to put together a large convoluted watching order for Star Wars content for their kids.
What a retarded clown world, when the answer isn't simply: The original trilogy and maybe the prequels. But no, some parents just "have" to groom their kids into cons00ming all the endless garbage. Just like their NPC parents already do.
The Expanded Universe had a lot of good books. Comics too but not everyone is into reading
Aye, absolutely. I'm sure we've talked about that once or twice in the last year or two actually, lol.
I have stupidly wasted time with Disney shills who say “well it’s not canon”. I’m like so what. Seeing Luke rebuild the order and mentor students vs seeing him as a grumpy hermit
Oh dear lords, I was talking to an old friend a few weeks ago who's total gone full NPC and he just would not shut up about all the "positive" things happening post-Kathleen Kennedy, no matter how many times I told him I wasn't interested.
He was practically drooling at the prospect of any EU type content being converted over into new-Disney format. I've never in my life wanted to be deaf as much as I did in that moment. Especially when he starts bringing up Disney's idea of "canon".
I do agree that I would've liked faithful adaptation of EU content, but Disney was never ever going pull that off. Not even sure if LucasFilm under George Lucas would have either, but at least I wouldn't have been as instantly jaded and cynical at the prospect.
True. All Disney had to do was have a separate continuity and let 3rd parties write new books or do animated adaptations. At least with Lucas I can appreciate he doesn’t hate Star Wars. Disney has a very clear agenda
Indeed. And I always thought that the way he managed and compartmentalized different tiers of canon was pretty solid and effective.
Where-as Disney's decision making process falls under one of two main camps: "How can we use it to drive our agenda", or "Fuck it, who cares? Just throw some money and some people at it, the details don't matter."
Not sure if you saw my mention of it a while back but check out Darth Angelus on YouTube. He is doing an Heir to the Empire animated adaptation. Sucks he can’t get paid for it
Heaven forbid they just watch what looks interesting.
Aye, or that.
I've always had mixed feelings about trying to deliberately pick out and select what media to feed to your kid (not for content reasons, but to try and ensure kids develop a lot of the same interests). In some ways it can be a little benevolent, but in certain respects it can be a little self-centered and creepy.
I think there's a middle ground to be had, but trying to plan out full-blown movie playlists is clearly not a moderate approach.
And no, I'm not bashing on religion or otherwise trying to instill healthy values in your kids, that's perfectly normal and usually healthy. Nor am I bashing on trying to share a few interests with your kids. But handpicking an entire Marvel watchlist for them when they're not even teenagers yet is just a little... weird, but maybe that's just me.
Clone Wars is pretty good too
I believe everything made before Disney bought it is fine. I watched the movies in order of the Original trilogy first and then the sequels, and I enjoyed pretty much every film (although II felt lacking). Read quite a bit of the EU books and they're decent, although New Jedi Order is a bit convoluted and sprawling, and Legacy of the Force is okay (really what the sequels should have been with some reworking). A good chunk of the Lucasarts games are great.
I'd say start with the movies and both Clone Wars series then let the kids go from there.
How would you rework LOTF? Would you still have Mara die? I didn’t like them killing off Anakin but I heard George Lucas made them
Mostly just cut some of the fat out of it. Bloodlines could either function as it's own side series, or not translated it at all. From there you could have a trilogy of Betrayal/Tempest, Exile -> Inferno, Fury -> Invincible. It's been years since I read the books, so not sure about exact cutoffs.
Also I'm not sure about having Mara die still but I do notice that the EU tries to kill off at least one or more major characters each big series (e.g. Chewy in New Jedi Order), which was a common trope from the original saga.
Sometimes the sequel is completely different and deviates from the original show to follow the manga more closely. Think Hellsing vs Hellsing Ultimate.
I mean, if you expected any less from Higurashi then that's more on you for not learning from the original anime being "in the next season, at least 20 episodes from now, will you learn wtf just happened."
Fullmetal Alchemist and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood is the same situation.
"You don't need to see any of them because everything sucks anyway."
Yeah, I should've just written that.
That and faggots whining about spoilers. Spoiler! The cgi good guys beat the cgi bad guy and save the cgi city/planet/multiverse!
But what happens to adorable/murderous animal??
If the first one has no direct connection to the sequel, then it shouldn't be a sequel. Either make it its own separate thing rather than parasiting off the "brand value" or make it clear that its just "X character in a new adventure!" rather than brand it like its a straight continuation of the previous adventure line.
So I genuinely have the opposite issue you have. Where I find the dumbing down of sequels to make sure you can skip the first part to be actively detrimental to the quality. Whether by overtly explaining obvious shit everyone should know (to catch you up), creating obnoxious flashback chunks, or just retreading the same shit just to hammer in some development you might have missed.
Because god forbid the consumer have to actually want to consume the product. Better dumb it down endlessly so that no one feels left out or gatekept (and they can reach broader audiences to milk their shekels) and its as easy as possible for them to just rich in a bin and pull out a random chunk of it and be instantly able to comprehend everything.
The only time I feel otherwise is when creators decide to mass diversify the story across multiple mediums and genres. Star Wars is a great example, both EU and whatever the fuck the new one is. As is Kingdom Hearts because it shouldn't take 6 consoles and 7 types of games to get a full story.
After playing Tears of the Kingdom, I was left wondering what was the point of even playing Breath of the Wild when everyone treats Link like a stranger. The devs got rid of all the Sheikah shrines, towers, and Guardians, and when asked in an interview where the hell they went, they blatantly said, "Don't worry about it lol."
That one is even more egregious because its not even a sequel, and closer to a straight expansion pack. Where it even more so should be interconnected, with half the draw being getting to see how the world changed after the Calamity Boi left.
I have more respect (deep respect) for those making a watch list of what's required for One Piece, Gundam and the Fate franchise than any of this artificial 'required watching' by rabid consumers.
The former is trying to help newcomers get into decade long franchises, the latter is by desperate people trying to insist they are still relevant.
I mean it's still basically just watching in release order for those franchises. (Unless you want to watch Fate's anime series only and not read the original VN for some reason (a mistake), in which case you probably wanna start with Fate/Zero)
Is there a path to get caught up on the story and plot quickly to watch current stuff or do you need to watch in release order?
As I know One Piece and Bleach fans made a guide of which episodes are required so people can skip fillers and catch up.
There's not many filler episodes/arcs in One Piece, it's just kinda slow-paced. You can just google a filler guide for when it comes up though.
If you want to get "quickly caught up", just read the manga as it's way faster. But it's all one story, you aren't really supposed to "skip" anything, release order is the way the story is structured.
In Bleach that's fair, there's a lot of filler episodes, they make entire filler arcs and you can just google a filler guide for that too, but other than skipping the filler arcs/episodes, release order is intended. (Although Bleach is weird, because the first filler arc they have is gigantic, and it's so huge they actually reference it in the anime canon material afterwards presumably just to make the viewer not feel like his time was wasted lol). Though on that note, besides the Bount arc, Bleach filler arcs are actually good somehow imo. Other anime filler is often terrible but I've always enjoyed Bleach's.
Ayh roht ah meuwzickulll