Watch Star Wars In The Best Order To Avoid Spoilers

What's the right way to watch the Star Wars movies?

The Force Awakens is episode 7 in the film series. If you're seeing the previous parts for the first time or introducing the saga to your children, you might be wondering where to start.

Spoiler warning: This article mentions a major plot twist involving the character Darth Vader. The twist is well-known, but I'm being extra cautious as this post is partly aimed at first-time viewers with little knowledge of Star Wars, such as young kids (or adults who've paid no attention to popular culture over the past 35 years). A major plot twist for The Force Awakens is hidden on page 2 of the desktop site, but appears at the bottom of the mobile page.

Two viewing orders are usually proposed: as Star Wars creator George Lucas originally intended, beginning with episode 1 of the 'prequel' trilogy (I: The Phantom Menace, II: Attack of the Clones, III: Revenge of the Sith) or according to release date, starting with the 'original' trilogy (IV: A New Hope, V: The Empire Strikes Back, VI: Return of the Jedi).

• Episode order (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
• Release order (4, 5, 6, 1, 2, 3)

The right way to watch Star Wars is release order. If you haven't seen the first 6 films, come back later. For everyone else, I'll now explain how I came to that conclusion.

The avoiding spoilers approach

Every recommendation for a particular order (as far as I'm aware) relies on personal opinion and subjective arguments. I wanted an approach that's as objective as possible. Is there a scientific way to determine the correct viewing order?

The approach I describe aims to minimize spoilers and thereby maximize the impact of plot twists. My rationale is that twists play an important role in creating an enjoyable story. If scenes from one movie spoil a big reveal in another episode, the whole series becomes less fun to watch.

Arguably the biggest twist in Star Wars is that Darth Vader is Luke's Skywalker's father. The idea that viewing order should protect this reveal has been championed by software engineer Rod Hilton, who argues that "The problem with Episode Order is that it ruins the surprise that Vader is Luke's father."

Hilton proposed a variant of the Ernest Rister sequence (4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 6) that excludes episode 1, known as Machete order (4, 5, 2, 3, 6). Both orders treat the prequel films as an extended flashback within the original trilogy. That's fine for those who've seen Star Wars before, but such a long 'flashback' (4-6 hours!) interrupts the flow of narrative and introduces a host of new characters, which some first-time viewers would find confusing. As a consequence, the movies should not be split.

And Hilton's suggestion that the saga "is really about Luke's journey" is flawed. A character who doesn't appear in half the series can't be the hero of a story. George Lucas believes the first 6 episodes are about Darth Vader – Anakin Skywalker. Again, wrong. Even if that was indeed his intent, that doesn't come across in the original trilogy, in which Luke is clearly the protagonist.

It's impossible to avoid all spoilers, but instead of protecting a single plot twist, we should consider several twists. So which trilogy has spoilers we should try and avoid? To answer that, we must ask another question: What is Star Wars about?

The Force-Skywalker method

The Star Wars saga revolves around a mysterious, intangible 'Force' that gives certain individuals – Force users – magical powers. It's a classic tale of good versus evil: Jedi knights use the 'Light side' of the Force, whereas individuals such as Sith lords and Kylo Ren draw power from the 'Dark side'.

On a deeper level, Star Wars is about relationships. Whether a Force user follows the path to the Light side or the Dark side is influenced by who they were mentored or manipulated by (Jedi knight and padawan, Sith master and apprentice). Family relationships also play a pivotal role, especially between members of the Skywalker family.

To avoid as many spoilers as possible, we'll concentrate on relationships between prominent characters: Force users and the Skywalker family. We further narrow-down spoilers to those that ruin plot twists of significant events: when a character reveals their true identity or allegiance (e.g. Jedi or Sith), their relationship to another character (e.g. father and son), or when they're affected by a death. I've chosen an arbitrary number of twists (10) from each trilogy. This is the most subjective aspect of the 'Force-Skywalker method'.

Not all twists are created equal, however, we also need a mathematical value for how much we care about the characters involved. To do that we borrow a concept from genetics called the 'coefficient of relationship', which measures the similarity between two related individuals. Because you share roughly half your DNA with your father, for example, you carry 50% of the same genetic variants – a relationship coefficient of 0.5.

The relationship (R) value uses a mathematical weight to reflect the emotional impact of a twist. We apply the same principle to relationships between Force users, so a biological parent and Force 'parent' (master) both get a value of 0.5. Because the hero of the Star Wars saga is ambiguous, Anakin and Luke Skywalker both get values of 1, regardless of trilogy. When more than one character is involved in a twist, we use the highest value, for the individual we care most about (i.e. 1 if both Luke and his father or master are involved).

Each plot twist (T) has one of two values – 1 or 0.5 – to represent whether the other trilogy ruins the surprise, or doesn't spoil the twist. Think of these as major and minor spoilers. The spoiler score (S) is then the product of multiplying a twist (T) by its relationship (R) value. (I like to think that spoilers are measured in 'Shyamalans'.) This gives a simple equation:

S = R x T

The list of top 10 twists appears on the next page. Let's show our working using Vader-is-dad as an example. This reveal occurs in episode 5 (original trilogy) and is ruined by watching episode 3 (prequel), so the twist value (T) is 1. Both Anakin and Luke have relationship values (R) of 1. Plugging those figures into S = R x T (1 x 1) gives a spoiler score of 1. We perform the same calculation for the 10 twists in each film and sum S to get the total spoiler score (ΣS) for each trilogy:

ΣS = S1 + S2 ... S9 + S10

The viewing order result

So what's the best order to watch Star Wars? The approach I've used aims to maximize the impact of plot twists and minimize spoilers. The method focuses on twists featuring Force users and the Skywalker family, calculating values for the impact of 10 twists in each trilogy (original and prequel) to get a total spoiler score (ΣS). Here's the result:

• Prequel ΣS = 4.750
• Original ΣS = 5.375

The original trilogy has a higher total spoiler score. That means watching the prequels before the originals has a greater impact on plot twists overall. So if avoiding spoilers is important to you, watch the movies in release order (4, 5, 6, 1, 2, 3).

The Force Awakens has one major twist that ruins the Vader-is-dad reveal in both the original and prequel trilogies. But apart from that, it doesn't really create spoilers for the first 6 episodes. And so even if you've already seen the new movie, you should still watch Star Wars in release order.

NEXT: List of 10 plot twists from each trilogy and weaknesses of the Force-Skywalker method. Spoiler warning: The next page also mentions a major twist from The Force Awakens.

Relationship (R) with Force user

• Luke Skywalker (1)
• Anakin Skywalker / Darth Vader (1)
• Obi-Wan Kenobi: Anakin and Luke's Jedi 'father' (0.5)
• Yoda: Luke's Jedi 'father' (0.5)
• Qui-Gon Jinn: Anakin and Luke's Jedi 'grandfather' (0.25)
• Palpatine" Vader's Sith 'father' (0.5)
• Darth Maul: Vader's Sith 'brother' (0.5)
• Count Dooku: Vader's Sith 'brother' (0.5)

Relationship (R) with Skywalker

• Luke Skywalker (1)
• Anakin Skywalker (1)
• Shmi Skywalker: Anakin's mother (0.5)
• Padme Amidala: Luke's mother (0.5)
• Leia Organa: Luke's sister (0.5)
• Owen Lars: Luke's uncle* (0.25)

Twist (T) in prequel

• Anakin had no father (0.5)
• Maul is a Sith (0.5)
• Padme is Amidala (0.5)
• Maul kills Qui-Gon (0.5)
• Shmi dies (0.5)
• Dooku is a Sith (0.5)
• Palpatine is a Sith (1)
• Obi-Wan kills Anakin** (1)
• Anakin becomes Vader (1)
• Vader is Luke and Leia's father (1)

Twist (T) in original

• Obi-Wan is a Jedi (1)
• Owen dies (0.25)
• Obi-Wan dies (0.5)
• Obi-Wan becomes a ghost (0.5)
• Yoda is a Jedi (1)
• Vader is Luke's father (1)
• Leia is Boushh (0.5)
• Leia is Luke's sister (1)
• Vader kills Palpatine (0.5)
• Vader becomes a ghost (0.5)

*Owen is technically Anakin's step-brother, but he raised Luke so we'll value him as if he were related by blood (genetic uncle).

**Anakin/Vader isn't technically killed by Obi-Wan, but would have died if Palpatine (Darth Sidious) hadn't saved his life.

Weaknesses of the method

The Force-Skywalker method isn't perfect. For example, it distills the value of each twist down to a quantity and doesn't consider the quality of the twist. For example, the Vader-is-Luke's-father revelation has a huge impact in The Empire Strikes Back, but it's almost a footnote in Revenge of the Sith. The twist is powerful because Empire drops few clues and yet, once revealed, it makes perfect sense.

A potential criticism of the method is it can't account for the fact that the Vader-is-dad reveal is so embedded in pop culture that for many adults (and some kids), it's not really a twist. I recently hosted a movie marathon (original trilogy) where several audience members hadn't seen the films. When I asked whether they were surprised by the reveal, their reply was along the lines of: "Everyone knows that." Nonetheless, there are still many people – such as children – who have never been exposed to the spoiler. And as we're taking a scientific approach, we should assume no prior knowledge.

Although the Force-Skywalker method is a (mostly) objective way to determine the best viewing order, you might still want to base your decision on subjective arguments. For instance, my personal opinion is that you should introduce newcomers to Star Wars by starting with the original trilogy simply because the films are far, far better. Show someone a bad movie and they won't be interested in watching the rest of the series. Create a new fan, however, and the prequels provide backstory for the original films.

Finally, one major twist in The Force Awakens is that Kylo Ren is Ben Solo, son of Han Solo and Leia Organa, making Darth Vader – Anakin Skywalker – his grandfather. This extends the Skywalker family and potentially affects the top 10 twists I've chosen from the original and prequel trilogies. If Kylo/Ben becomes the hero of the sequel trilogy, his relationship (R) value is 1 and Han Solo would get 0.5. The 'Han in carbonite' twist could potentially replace 'Owen dies', for example, raising the total spoiler score (ΣS) for the original movies from 5.375 to 5.5. We'll have to wait until the sequel trilogy is complete before we can calculate whether the Force-Skywalker method shows that the best way to watch Star Wars episodes 1-6 is still release order.