hardercore

Just quickly ... is it a necessity to watch "A Fistful of Dollars" and "For a Few Dollars More" before seeing "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly"? I haven't seen any of them, but I feel like just diving into the last film. Is the story line continuous/chronological, or is it just one of those sequels which feature the same characters but an entirely different adventure?

whynotsmile

I haven't seen the others, but I can tell you that TGTBATU stands on its own and is one of the best movies i have seen.

Filmmaker

Technically, TGTBATU takes place before the events of the other two films, though it's played out on a much grander scale than the other two, so the effect of each adventure getting bigger and more epic as you go in release order will be lost if you watch TGTBATU first. That's the only thing you stand to lose by watching it first--AFFOD and FAFDM might seem a little meager after TGTBATU.

Cygnet74

i've always preferred For a Few Dollars More over the other two. i definitely recommend you see it at some point.

zombiezilla

TGTBATU is my favorite western (by a loooong shot; it's not my favorite genre), and one of my favorite movies, period. I've seen the other two, and they're OK, IMNSHO, but pale before TGTBATU.

Dr. DVD

I love TGTBATU and have never really sat through the other movies, probably because they pale in comparison.

I always saw the films as stand alone ones, since they rotated the same actors in and out of different roles and having the Man with No Name fight one as an enemy in TGTBATU only to have him be an ally in a later film makes little sense.
Where was it stated that this was supposed to be a prequel? Granted, I know it's inferred pretty darn well with the pancho scene, but still.

Mondo Kane

ANd I thought It was intentional because when I first watched the trilogy, the ending of Good/Bad/Ugly lead right into the beginning of Fistful! Leone found a way to make this go full circle.

They're seperate mostly because of the apperances of Mario Brega,Lee Van Cleef,and Gian Maria Volonte who play different characters in the movies. But on paper, they could still all be linked together as numerous adventures of The Man with No Name.

Filmmaker

And there you go...

Supermallet

Aside from the scope of the films, there is another reason to watch the films in chronological order. Eastwood's character is the most hard-edged in the first, and as the series goes on, he gets more humane. Now, he's still a hard-boiled son of a gun in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, but he is definitely more humane in that one than in the first.

And, yes, TGTBATU is meant to be a prequel, but thematically, it's clearly the finale of the series. The other two are both excellent films (For A Few Dollars More especially), and I would suggest seeing them in order for maximum impact. Hell, I'd even say see Yojimbo before any of them.

GoldenJCJ

Oddly enough, he has a name in each film. Or are those just aliases which don't really count?


I watched them in reverse order. I'd heard such good things about TGTBTU that I wanted to see it first. After that I watched For a Few Dollars More and I still haven't gotten around to watching A Fistful of Dollars efven though I bought the man with no name trilogy boxset like 6 years ago. I actually forgot I had it and bought the TGTBTU special Edition without realzing I already owned it. Glad I bought it though.

If only we could get the other 2 films re-released!

dhmac

The three movies are all really stand-alone - when people call them a trilogy, it's in a very loose sense.

So watch them in any order you want.

dhmac

"The Name With No Name" was just a publicity idea that the studio came up with and that publicity is a large part of the reason people think of these movies as a trilogy. Eastwood is actually different characters in each movie and has a different name/nickname in each: Joe, Manco and Blondie.

And I may be wrong but I don't think Eastwood has ever played a character without a name or nickname. (Even in the later High Plains Drifter in which he never gave out his name, his true identity is shown before the end credits.)

Filmmaker

In spite of the name differences (which I do think are aliases), this is highly debatable--the identical poncho worn across all three films, as well as a lack of sufficient differentiating character traits across the films, strongly indicate the character is the same in all three.

Supermallet

Of course, it could be argued that Eastwood is playing a Western archetype, which is why he has no differentiating character traits across the three films.

Honestly, if you tried to put the three together in some kind of logical order, your head will spin. Thematically, the trilogy goes from FOD through FAFDM to TGTBATU. It doesn't matter what the internal timeline would be, that is the way to watch the films.

Filmmaker

Mmm, I don't know--at the time, Eastwood's anti-hero was a fresh perspective to cinema in general and Westerns in particular; I'm not sure where his type of anti-hero would have been established as an archetype prior.

I can certainly agree with this, however.

FRwL

GBU is greatness on an epic scale, i'm glad i got the SE of it, the other two though i caught on AMC and the first one is ok, the second one is a kind of a snoozefest and its music makes me cringe after hearing the masterful desert sounding soundtrack of GBU (the trumpets at the very end sound so epic my hairs stand on the back of my neck). In the doc on the dvd they said unlike the previous two films, they really tried to veil the music together with GBU, and it shows. It also has Tuco which frankly is the real star of GBU, he dwarfs the other characters from the previous films. Eli Wallach made the character more than what originally was a carbon cuttout role and made it into one of the greatest characters in cinema history.

This is a standalone film at its best.

Supermallet

Perhaps I should have been more clear. He's playing an archetype figure, not necessarily of a previously existing archetype.

Linko

I prefer For a Few Dollars More as well. A Fistful of Dollars is good but For a Few Dollars More was amazing. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly was really good too but nothing like For a Few Dollars More.

rennervision

I saw TGTBATU first, and it did not affect my enjoyment one little bit. In fact, it made me the Clint Eastwood fan I am today, and this led to me eventually seeing Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and practically every other Eastwood film. You can enjoy the films in any order.

As others have mentioned, I've also heard the theory that TGTBATU is a prequel, and I've heard all three are actually separate films.

Personally, For a Few Dollars More has always been my least favorite because it makes Eastwood more of a supporting character to Lee Van Cleef as the starring role.

Charlie Goose

Clint Eastwood is my favorite all-time actor, and I've never seen these three movies.
Pathetic, isn't it?

xraybies

Not a huge western fan either but TGTBTU is one of my favorite films of all time. I saw all three in order and while I enjoyed the first two, I was totally blown away by the epic scope of TGTBTU. While Eastwood is an icon in his own right, let's give credit where credit is due. It was the combination of Sergio Leone's vision and Ennio Morricone's score which made TGTBTU the classic that it is. If you enjoyed TGTBTU, I would look for other Leone films like Once Upon a Time in the West and Once Upon a Time in America before checking out other Eastwood westerns.

Dr. DVD

If Eastwood is indeed the same character in all three films who just changed his name for situations, is it possible he settled on the William "Bill" Munny at one point?

I think watching them as a series would prove awkward in terms of the use of the same actors over and over, especially Lee Van Cleef, who would be a good guy in one film and then a bad guy in the next, or vice verca. Not to mention people who died getting resurrected all the time. Of course one could make a similar argument as to how so many characters in Quentin Tarantino flicks look like Harvey Keitel, or how so many in Robert Rodriguez films look like Danny Trejo (I remember in my showing of "...Mexico", some people whispering "Isn't he dead?" when he showed up).

DoubleDownAgain

I don't know which ones I saw as a kid but I don't remember them that well. My dad had something against Spaghetti Westerns so I was biased at an early age to think they weren't very good. WEll, I eventually god TGTBTU Special Edition 2-Disc Collector's Set because it's such a nice set and of the high ranking on IMDB. When I did get around to watch I instantly loved it. I haven't seen the others yet but look forward to them when i do get a chance.

Mondo Kane

Speaking of the high ranking, I remember a few years ago when it was ranked somewhere in the 30's and Once upon a time in the west was past the 50-mark. Look how high they are now! The DVDs really got these movies noticed.

Supermallet

What would make it even more confusing is that Blondie and Angel Eyes clearly know each other in TGTBATU, but don't know each other in FAFDM (I know Van Cleef isn't meant to be Angel Eyes, but still), which is meant to be a sequel. So yeah, it's confusing.

While I agree that Leone was an incredible filmmaker, and his Once Upon A Time films are both stunning, there is plenty of reason to check out Eastwood's westerns. Eastwood is an icon, and his presence in a film raises the quality of that film. He is such a meticulous actor that it wouldn't surprise me if he directed himself a lot of the time.