Is Acceptance of ROTJ the Root of ST Creativity and Audience Dislike?

I am increasingly convinced that something is really, really wrong with ROTJ and with parts of the OT.


Really, really wrong.


Okay, so you might think that I’m paranoid, but I keep finding these little bits of information that seem to indicate that ROTJ is more sloppily written in areas than what the average fan would find or see.


The OT is pessimistic.


When I was in my senior year of high school with an English teacher in 2011-2012, he talked about syntax, referencing Yoda’s manner of speech, and he talked about how Luke fit into the hero monomyth. Upon hearing this, I was immediately annoyed; I was annoyed because I have recalled reading Sparknotes describing a quote from ROTJ of Luke’s defiance and possibly the role of machines in SW.


I feel though, teachers and anyone who is a fan of Joseph Campbell, feels compelled to praise the monomyth of the hero and automatically lump Luke Skywalker into the monomyth, since Lucas, I believe, has claimed to have been inspired by the monomyth.


Now, this is when something sinister comes into the mix: the amount of nightmare fuel that is poured into the OT, especially TESB and ROTJ. And this nightmare fuel clashes with the idea of Luke being the hero, since it’s used frequently that somehow Luke will fail and become his father. This is present in both TESB and ROTJ, but I feel it is better handled in TESB by its logic and how Luke makes decisions. He has good intentions when leaving for Bespin to save his friends, but the decision is questionable. And the decision is still unclear if it is the right one. And he ends up failing completely to save his friends at Cloud City. He also heroically gives his life to save his friends after the revelation scene, but the fall could be arguably symbolic of not listening to the wisdom of his teachers or at least preemptively attacking a foe when not prepared or in aggression (at the last bit when Luke retaliates against Vader). He also begs for help, showing how fallen he has become and how merciless and uncaring that Obi-wan is for his state.


The manner in which nightmare fuel is utilized in ROTJ is even more extreme, I would argue. The “once you go down that dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny” is doubled down. It could have been ambiguous in TESB, since Vader is shown to have some sort of feelings for Luke, and it is also contradicted in this film-ROTJ, since Vader is clearly redeemable, despite having gone down that dark path already-the dark path should have dominated his destiny by Yoda’s logic.

The thing is; it is not treated as there being a potential for Luke to turn back if he falls to the dark side. It’s turn to the dark side-game over, essentially, except that it’s “you go to Hades”.

What’s crazy about this is that Luke can go to Hades over killing the emperor or is deceived by the emperor into thinking so. Luke’s not necessarily a stupid person; he’s shown to use his brain in TESB and in ROTJ (less frequently). However, the same act by Vader saves him and utterly redeems him for all of his bad deeds.


As much slack as TLJ has gotten for being “pessimistic”, if one looks at the undercurrents of the OT, there is a pervasive pessimism as well as a false or shallow optimism prevalent. I think that this is far more deadly than TLJ because it lacks substantial weight. TLJ rarely exhibited a sense of shallow optimism, and it often was backed up with something substantial.