The circle is now complete

I thought that I would dash off a hasty note to acknowledge that the thing has been accomplished: After six years of talking about it, I have succeeded in watching all six Star Wars films in chronological order, in a fairly rapid period of time — six films in slightly over six days. I started Phantom last Friday, but was called away early on (before the Jedi had even landed on Naboo), and carried on with the bulk of it the next day. I finished Return of the Jedi yesterday (Thursday) afternoon around 5:45 p.m. Watching with we was my wife and daughter. So what was started with The Phantom Menace as a solitary act became, by the end of the project, a family affair.

I was surprised by how engrossing I found some films (my top three were Empire, Sith and Clones, in that order). I was equally surprised how detached I was for others; particularly the original Star Wars, which has always nipped at the heels of Empire as my all-time favorite. There's always another day, however, and I expect the next time I see Phantom, A New Hope and Jedi, I'll get more out of them.

One thing that was reassuring was how very much I enjoyed the experience overall. If you are a Star Wars fan, and you have not watched the Saga as a cohesive whole, then you owe it to yourself to do so. There are things in the prequels that seemed like mere imitations of elements from the Classic Trilogy when the prequels were first released. When placed in the context of the whole saga, they take on the feel of recurring themes and elements.

The great surprise for me was how easily I was able to accept James Earl Jones/Dave Prowse's Darth Vader and Hayden Christensen's Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader as the same person. While I was watching the prequels as they were released, I saw flashes of Vader in Christensen's performace, but when I would watch the Classic Trilogy, and I saw Vader, I saw what I had always seen — the shell. The black breath mask, the helmet, the cape. All of the accoutrements I've come to love, but no trace of the living being beneath.

This time, with the Prequels under my belt, I was able to imagine, in glimpses, the man trapped inside the armor. I would see Anakin in a gesture, or hear him with a line. I could almost literally see the younger Anakin's face. It was, for me, the essential piece of the puzzle I needed to meld the two trilogies together into one complete story. Before, I never quite believed that the Jedi Knight in Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith was the Sith Lord from The Classic Trilogy. Now, I kind of do; or at least, I'm starting to.

Now if I could only convince myself that Jake Lloyd's Anakin could conceivably look anything like Hayden Christensen when he grows up...