Let's just talk Return of the Jedi

Because "His lightsaber a Jedi uses for defense. Never for attack" said one day a little green thing who used to spend his time dabbling in an uncanny swamp. Without his weapon, newborn-knight Luke was not tempted to get the high ground, and remained fully ready for negociation. He got it back when time had come to defend.

 

Yoda is a loon. so its the way of the Jedi to walk into a dangerous place without his lightsaber ? He should have told Jabba to hand over han solo to him and after jabba refused should have sliced the crap outta him and his gang. But smart ass Luke gave his lightsaber to artoo to overcomplicate things.the rescue arc is stupid.sorry to shake someones world but it's plotting is hilarious.

 

Is that more hilarious than 2 rays of light who chock when they meet ?
Here down, when you mix red and green it gives a kind of maroon. In SW universe the two colors make a white point and a loud noise where they merge
Hey man, it's just a movie... let the fun and your imagination make you fly away

 

Lightsabers are not real??

 

I wasn't that impressed by Han's rescue. I found it convoluted. But the action on Jabba's barge was rather fun.

 

Upon my finish of Rebel Rising and Guardian of the whills. I will be reading the ROJ novelization for the first time. I am hoping the book opens up some characters. I feel there was more to Luke's time on Dagobah in ESB. So hopefully there are more scenes with some extra grab in the book.

 

Still get chills watching Sidious arrive.,

 

Huge fan, probably the best of the trilogy, 'cept Star Wars will always be the best! I have fond memories of this particular movie because it was filmed, in part, in northern California, right were my Dad lived. He's a retired CHP officer now. I only went to visit him in the summers, but I remember going to a little hole in the wall burger stand just right up the street from where he lived. We used to walk to that stand every week to get a milkshake for dessert.

Apparently, that stand was also a favorite of the cast as they would frequent it almost daily during the shoot of ROTJ. They had everyone's sigs and pics all over the place.

I remember, as a kid, I would roam all over the Northern California Redwoods just trying to find a hint of where they filmed this great Saga. To no avail, unfortunately.

As a huge Star Wars OT fan, I think about those times almost daily.... I do, wish, that I was old enough to keep track of what was going on at the time.

Anyone know if that burger stand is still around???

 

I used to love it when I was a kid, due to the amount of action scenes and the fantastic visual effects. Now, what bothers me is the way they reduced secondary characters' part, or better: how they made secondary those characters that went so well improved in TESB. Han and Leia are the biggest problem of ROTJ: they are mostly filler or plot tools; they haven't such a great part, nor dialogues or scenes. This bothers me a lot, because it's a huge step backward from Ep5.

Another thing that I didn't like is the DSII. Is cool to see a not-yet-complete superweapon, but it's used in a very bland way. I know in the old EU is told that the general who was attending to the construction (the one who welcomes Vader in the first scene) tried to blow up Endor despite the Emperor's order. This would have given the movie much more drama and tension, and in general would have introduced another Tarkin-type character, which I missed very bad in the actual movie.

But the DSII is a bad move in general. It's basically another DS, with another huge weakness. It's cool to see how the rebels manage to deactivate the shield, and the multiple final battle is very well shaped. But, just to say, the Starkiller base makes a lot more sense than the DSII. At least, it's a truly improved version of the original DS. The one from ROTJ is not.

As I said in another thread, ROTJ is the Luke/Vader movie. Everything concerning them is beautiful and great, but make a step out from their storyline, and movie struggles to have unity between its pieces. I give it a 7 out of 10 rank, while TESB is probably a 9.

And yes, last but not least, let's talk about the Ewoks...

 

This is going to be kinda spoilery for those not into the MCU, but I noticed a certain parallel in this two scenes from ROTJ and Ant-Man and the Wasp (the female hero going to rescue her love interest whose capabilities are diminished at the moment of the rescue):

 

I love ROTJ.

But TESB and ANH... I love them more.

Lot of scenes from Jabba's palace looks a little bit silly to me and the Ewoks at Endor was made for the kids. But overall its a movie with a good pace and a lot of fun.

Things that I love:

- The very beginning with the shuttle tydirum arriving the DS and the meeting of Palpatine and Vaver;
- One of the Best Space battles of the entire saga;
- Luke x Vader;
- Luke burning Vader's body in Endor;
- Luke smiling to the force ghosts at the end (unaltered version of course).

 

Ook Lee Yuma!

 

I've always enjoyed it including the Ewoks but it does have its flaws. Harrison Ford's performance on Endor is really phoned-in; more Ewoks' should have died to give the battle more balance; R2-D2's voice sounds weird; the exposition scene with Obi Wan is just awful and Alec Guiness could clearly not give a damn at all; I hate the scene with Luke and Leia chatting in the treehouse twilight, just feels so stilted and lifeless; and as great a scene as it is, I still can't work out where Luke was hiding in the throne room, the shot right after he ignites his saber to attack Vader shows the whole under-stairs area to be reasonably well-lit and rather small. Oh and Jedi Rocks is Holiday Special-level awful, it destroys the whole movie for me and can only ever watch the original theatrical version (until Adywan releases his revisited in several years time) - haven't seen the SE in YEARS because of it. But to quote myself from the "What would you change...." thread my biggest issue is -

I think they should have killed Lando.

Don't get me wrong, I love the guy but the rebellion suffers no major tragedy in their assault. It's the "super best friends" movie that just has everyone ending the saga in a Kodak family-portrait moment and I just feel it's ridiculously schmaltzy. If killing Han was such a heresy for Lucas, for merchandising reasons or not, then I argue I've never heard a single defence from him regarding Lando's merchandising ability. Killing off Lando not only provides a surrogate for Han in the death of a lovable rogue who learns to become a better person, but also gives the rebel victory some much needed gravitas that would have blended perfectly with Han's vague bad feeling about the Falcon; have Lando die in the gunner's position, a bit like Kirk at the start of Star Trek Generations with a "he was in here when it blew" retrospective discovery. He goes down a hero, makes up for his ESB treachery and gives ROTJ its much needed emotional weight for its third and final act.

I'd also have kept in the subplot of Jerjerrod and the emperor ordering him to fire on Endor, much to his dismay. That stuff is awesome; lets us see what a genocidal maniac Palpatine had become, give the heroes a ticking time bomb to prevent and most of all, we see camaraderie and conflict within the Imperial ranks and that they're not just mindless space nazis with English accents.

 

ROTJ has been and probably always will be my favorite SW not least because it was the very first movie I ever saw in a theater - hey, it may even be the very first movie I ever saw, period. There's a particular magic that comes with being whisked away to a fantastical place like the GFFA for the first time. I often wonder if that felt the same for people who started with ANH (I would guess so.). So as a result, Ewoks were always an integral part of SW for me, and the second Death Star was possibly the cooler one (and sorta the "original" one) for me as a kid.

Sentimental reasons aside, Jedi is in my eyes the warm-and-fuzziest SW movie. Whereas with films in general, I tend to like the dark and twisted stuff - you can give me a Lars von Trier or David Lynch any day - SW is my movie "safe space" as I imagine it is for all of us. And the triumphant happy ending you get here is unsurpassed. The actual "return of the Jedi" moment on Endor at the end is one of the rare moments in SW that regularly makes me tear up. That is why my only gripe with ROTJ these days is the shameful replacement of Sebastian Shaw with Hayden Christensen, which still doesn't make sense to me asthetically or narratively. (You know, why does Ghost Anakin become young again while no one else does? Or thinking "who's this guy now?" if you haven't seen the prequels before the OT...)

 

I believe the reason Lucas replaced Shaw with Hayden is to show Anakin before he was tainted by the dark side. It doesn't work so well, even less now that a force spirit can choose how to appear (I'm sure that was in From A Certain Point of View). Shaw represented what Anakin should of been IMO.

 

I imagine that was the intent, yeah. Pretty sure the director commentary says as much. Or . . . he did it simply because he could - fun with CG and all

The thing is, that scene is played out from Luke’s perspective. He’s the one seeing this. Those apparitions are for HIS benefit. We have no reason to think Luke has any idea what his father looked like when he was his age. He’s not seeing the image of a healthy version of the guy who just died in front of him. He’s seeing a complete stranger and responding with recognition for some reason. Regardless of the symbolism, it’s needlessly out of concert with the scene and pretty off-putting . . . for me anyway.

 

Whoa whoa whoa whoa....are you implying George would do something to alter a movie just to have fun with CGI and see what he can get away with?!?!?!
Preposterous.

 

It's funny, I saw this film first in the theater back in 1983 and so I didn't mind the Ewoks, Death Star II, etc... I was 12 at the time, and was just happy to see another Star Wars film. Now, I look at the Ewoks and yeah, it would be better to have used Wookies, but I don't mind them.

I love the Vader/Luke scenes, the space battle is excellent (and the chase through the DS superstructure is just fantastic). Great ending to the trilogy.

 

The beginning (Jabba's palace) and the end (space battle, Vader/Emperor confrontation) are some of my favorite all time Star Wars moments. But last time I watched it, hoo boy, the middle really drags. The second act really doesn't accomplish anything. It kinda creates and solves its own self-contained problems (getting captured by ewoks, then befriending the ewoks). And the real story stuff happens at the beginning and end.

BUT -- this is huge -- we get to see the Big Three together more than any other movie except A New Hope. And that's something great.