Would some of you care to share aspects of the film that you like and dislike about this film? I wasn’t around when the film came out, but I’m curious if any of you recall what complaints people had about the movie when it released.
In your opinion, do you agree with the common belief that ROTJ is the weakest of the OT films? If so, why?
I enjoyed ROTJ when it came out, but it was the first (and not the last!) SW film where I found myself going “huh?” a lot! Basically it was the usual stuff - the lighter tone, the many muppets, strangely stiff delivery of lines etc etc. I hated the Leia-as-sister thing (and still do) and I still maintain that Luke didn’t actually save the galaxy - a fact that renders his entire ‘new hope’ journey somewhat meaningless to me.
As a fan I never actually allowed myself to truly accept that I didn’t like the film until I started getting a sense of the ROTJ that could have been - obviously guys like Larry Kasdan and Gary Kurtz and Harrison Ford have come out in favour of Han’s sacrificial death and a generally deeper/bleaker finale. I even stumbled across a Mark Hamill interview where he said he’d expected to come back in ROTJ as a much grimmer character (and even more bulked up than the ‘muscle-Luke’ of Dagobah 1980) - so this kind of reinforced my own expectations post-TESB and edged me towards admitting my own disappointment.
Ultimately ROTJ sits in the prequel camp for me - great ideas but not well executed. But that’s just me. I actually think that TROS does ROTJ better, but that’s probably a conversation for another thread!