TFA better than ROTJ?

Both flicks has problems and how you deal with them is path to the answer.
TFA is better for me)

Don't underestimate the power of nostalgia

 

I find it hard to judge Luke's character since we don't know what he's been doing.
This judgement depends on Luke's motive, and we haven't any clue what his motive is yet.
He could be hiding because he's a coward, because he's working on a top-secret project, because he's been doing a deep discovery of some super force, because he knew his absence was required for a specific set of events to happen, etc...

We'll be able to judge Luke better in 8, but right now we just have all other character's assumptions about what Luke's doing and what his motives are, and it is clear that those characters acknowledge that his hiding is uncharacteristic; they don't act like, "Oh, that Luke; you know him, big trouble shows up and he runs away".
We don't actually know what he's been up to, or what his actual motives for whatever he's doing are.

I think the appropriate question at this point is, "Why has Luke hidden himself away?", and that's about it.
We have to wait until 8 to learn the answer to that question.

 

apples and oranges in my honest opinion. i've found that it's much more enjoyable keeping the OT, PT and now the ST completely separate and within their own self-contained trilogies.. makes it much more enjoyable!

 

Quote of the year!

 

Mic dropped.

 

But I am biased because my favorite is ROTJ

 

The plan to rescue Han Solo was mindless due to some of the things you give Marquand credit for. I love ROTJ, but I've always felt the plan was difficult to understand, and Marquand's input didn't improve things. What was Lando doing in the palace? Why give up the droids and Chewie? How did they plan on rescuing them if Leia had succeed freeing Han Solo? Why hide the lightsabre in R2? It would make much more sense and would probably be more efficient if Luke simply went to the palace by himself, with his lightsabre in his belt. Not saying the movie would be better, but people are complaining about TFA's writing ...

On topic: TFA is on par with the OT, ROTJ included.

 

I fully agree.

 

The point of killing Han would have been to make you afraid for the other characters. They suddenly lose their aura of invincibility before you go into the final battle. It's an effective tactic.

Great use of this off the top of my head is Serenity. Wash dies, from out of nowhere, right before the other heroes go into what's set up as a hopeless battle.

You really don't think the Emperor taunting Luke about his friends imminent deaths would have been more nerve wracking as an audience member if you had already witnessed Han Solo die? "Crap, are they all going to get wiped out by the end of the story? Is this going to go totally dark?"

... then again, in a movie with big teddy bears killing soldiers of a civilization 2k+ years ahead of them...

By the way, what *is* the point of the storm troopers armor if it's even penetrated by an arrow shot from a primitive bow from a creature half their size?

 

You know; you reminded me of the largest inconsistency in the entire series (at least; in my opinion).
In ESB, Lando betrays the heroes and later explains his motives and they all get along reluctantly after Chewie chokes Lando nearly to death while he explains there's one shot to save him on the east docking bay.
Elsewhere, Han has been taken into custody and frozen in carbonite; the last two interactions he has with Lando before going into the carbonite are:
1. A fist fight with Lando in the jail because he doesn't accept Lando's claim that he didn't have a choice, and Han clearly shows that he loathes him at this point.
2. A one-line comment from Lando to Han in the carbonite chamber informing Han that he's going to be placed into carbonite; Han looks on in stunned shock without acknowledging Lando.

The next time Han sees Lando they are on a barge (ROTJ), and Han can barely see. Not only does Han suddenly become aware that Lando is on board (while yet needing to be told that Boba Fett is on board because he can't see), he also suddenly races in panic to save Lando like they're old chums and Lando never back-stabbed him, or that Han somehow has the background knowledge that clears Lando's guilt and Han's malice against him.
Not only that, but after Han (the smuggler) saves this back-stabbing liar he doesn't trust from the pit, he very shortly thereafter tosses him the keys to his Jag (Falcon) and tells him to not scratch it.

It doesn't make any sense because Lando and Han never were shown to us to square their record, and there's no time where Han knew what Lando had done, nor been up to - it's magical that he even knew Lando was on the barge at all.

In fact; it would have been incredibly easy to flip this and solve the entire oddity by having Han fall over the barge...since he IS actually blind and can't see anything, and Lando save Han.
You would then be able to have a moment where Han hears Chewie say "blaster" and recognize Lando's voice and bitterly spit at Lando (or start trying a classic Han bargain, or whatever you want) and Lando could have been able to say the line about trusting him, shoot the tentacle, save Han, and THEN Han tossing him the keys to his Jag would make sense easily; then their buddy-buddy behavior wouldn't seem like we must have missed something somewhere.

 

Good points, never thought about that. Somebody at the site should write an article about inconsistencies in the OT to balance out all the ridicoulous nit-picking on TFA's supposedly sloppy writing and plot holes.

 

after my second viewing, I would put it on par with Jedi. People rag on ROTJ so much because of Ewoks, but the Vader redemption scene has become so much better for me since I became a Dad. I can understand why Vader would not want to see his child die. What is so interesting is that Kylo Ren who wants to be like Vader so much, is completely opposite of him in that respect.

 

I'll be harsh but for me, ROTS is a better movie than ROTJ.
Of course, the final duel between Luke and Vader is EPIC.... but the rest of the movie is average... and the Special Edition made it even worst.
There is A LOT of nostalgia in favor of ROTJ, for me, AGAIN MY OPINION, it is not trying as hard as ROTS... and is no comparison with TFA.

I cannot emphasize enough on the fact that when ROTJ was released, it was a major disappointment.
I was there, in 1983.... defending it as hard as I could.... when I was 8.

Because I loved the toys and all... but, the movie has problems.

 

TFA is not a BAD movie, it's just not very GREAT either. its simply a good movie. My problems come less from the fact that it rips off ANH quite a bit but moreso from JJ Abrams and his approach to film making in general. I hated some of the dialogue delivery in this film. It's almost as if JJ knew that certain cut scenes would cause the plot to feel disjointed and so he over-generalized the dialogue in many instances. "No one has been able to get out of you...what you did with the MAP" "i shoulda never sent him away thats when i lost him, thats when i lost you both" "we lost our son" i can go on but my point is JJ really dumbed down the dialogue as if he doesnt trust the audience. JJ moves the camera view to Rey and Finn while Han is impaled almost as if he doesnt even trust the audience on how to feel during such an important scene. but Hans death falls flat because there is zero context for him and kylo's relationship. the only context we get it Han and Leia repeating "our son" multiple times within 2 minutes and it ultimately comes off as superbly forced. the whole death scene feels conveniently staged. Rey running out of the Castle always feels kinda dumb, and ive seen in 6 times. I get shes in denial but the scene feels like an overreaction and its obviously present only for Rey to get kidnapped by Kylo. it just wasnt handled well enough. I also wish they woulda played more with Kylo vs Hux involving BB8. We get the one line about Snoke wanting the droid dead or alive, but its not enough and we never truly get the feeling that Kylo has a seperate motive and because of that, when the FO just starts blowing everything up it feels clunky, as they are after the droid but still blowing up the castle which doesnt make much sense. but i tried to chalk that up to Snoke and the Order wanting the droid dead and Kylo feeling differently. Obviously, Starkiller is joke worthy. its completely pointless. the whole Oscillator thing is so dumb and there is really never a clear objective. The Resistance is just there to try and do what they can. I get its kinda like a suicide mission as they dont really have much hope until Chewie blows the explosives, but i wish they would have played up on that feeling of it being a fight they probably cant win. everything just kinda ends after Poe flys in and shoots blast. Its definitely not even close to being on par with ANH and ESB. i dont even think it comes close to ROTJ and RoTJ is by no means a perfect film. it just does more right than TFA. and god i hate JJ's edititing the movie just zooms to the next scene and i think the editing is the biggest problem with the final film. i think had they left in more of the scenes weve heard about that the story would flow better. But overall, i do agree the film is highly overrated. but so what? so is every big movie these days. I saw Guardians of the Galaxy and felt that was typical formulaic Marvel fare and yet critics loved it. Rotten Tomatoes really isnt a good judge of quality anymore. If it werent for Rey Finn Kylo and Poe, i cant say id be too excited for the 8th episode. Those actors and Rian Johnson are my hope. I hated how Luke Skywalker was treated in the film i thought the reasoning for his absense was ridiculous and completely out of character so i really hope Rian Johnson is a real Luke fan and can right the wrongs in that department. sulking Luke is just so incredible lame i cant believe JJ thought that would make Luke intriguing. let alone mythic?

 

I can hear somebody at Marvel comics reading this and making a comics series about how Han and Lando buried the hatchet. Maybe it was Chewie who updated Han in the plan while they were at Jabba's prisoners. Maybe our favourite scoundrel's heart of gold could not allow Lando die even though he had betrayed him.

 

HA!

Yeah; we never know. I've always just pretended Chewie told him a huge rundown of the entire plan and that Lando would be there, and then just ignored that Han knew that Lando fell over the edge, but couldn't see Boba Fett and could barely make out where Chewie was standing at any point.
And honest; mostly I liked to pretend Chewie told him all of this, because it cracks me up to think of Chewie "whispering" all of this to Han on their way.

It's just another one of those Star Wars things - like Biggs (before you know about all the cut footage); where you just think, "Umm...wait; what was that about?" and then just shrug, eat some popcorn and smile at the explosions, the spaceship flying around, or the lightsaber swashbuckling.

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 29, 2015, Original Post Date: Dec 29, 2015 ---

Edited by :
Mary Jo Markey
Maryann Brandon

Written by
Lawrence Kasdan
J. J. Abrams
Michael Arndt

Also; we have absolutely no idea why Luke is there. We know what other people think about Luke; their theories; their assumptions, but we have no clue what his real motive is. Perhaps he is a coward, perhaps he has a project, perhaps he was hiding to avoid being near Rey because he didn't want to be easy to sense for someone and end up being near Rey when that happened and ruin her hiding ("I shouldn't have come along; I'm endangering the mission"), perhaps...etc...

 

I don't even see this as a contest as TFA was just a ripoff of ANH. If TFA had been an original movie then I could say that we could compare the two but seeing as it blatantly cloned everything in ANH then we can't really compare the two cause it would be the same as saying which one is better? ANH or ROTJ? Had TFA been an original movie made by JJ Abrams, then I would have had to compare their ups and downs to see which is a better movie but as this was not the case then I have to say that ROTJ beats a simple knockoff any day. We have to be real and truthful when we judge these movies cause what are we going to do if Episode 8 is an exact clone of TESB? Say that it was better than TFA in every way? Say that it is the best SW movie in all the saga? I think not.

 

I think it's also worth looking at a basic fact:

Luke's apprentice killed a bunch of people and is the enforcer of the First Order. Again, the guy Luke was training, like Obi-Wan, becomes the bully enforcer of the galaxy.

Does Luke have any credibility to run around trying to fix that, when the New Republic itself is balking at direct confrontation, opting to send bare resources only in secret to Leia's Resistance, who herself isn't in great relations with a new generation of leaders?

That's just the facts, really, of what we know. Luke's apprentice destroyed everything. Leia is running a patch-up operation to a problem that the New Republic doesn't want to recognize. Luke doesn't have the support structure to act, if we're really being honest - he's not the political leader and nobody is familiar with what really happened on the Second Death Star. He's a footnote at this point, only recently known for failing to properly guide or to stop the rise of the First Order's main enforcer.

 

After seeing TFA now 15 times (Movie Theater/BluRay), I actually think it's a better movie then ROTJ. But the parts that are great in ROTJ (The Throne Room Scenes) are light years better then anything in TFA.

The reason I say TFA is a better overall movie is that it moves for 2 hours and never gets bogged down in scenes that could have been trimmed out. While I love ROTJ because of the Sail Barge, The Yoda Death, The Throne Room Scenes, the movie comes to a grinding halt when they meet the Ewoks. It's not the Ewoks that bother me per say, it's just that they could have cut a good 15 minutes from that whole sequence as the movie loses momentum halfway through. It recovers in the final half hour, but that is why I would that TFA is more consistent for 2 hours and doesn't slog any.