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Remember when everyone hated Return of the Jedi? — Page 4

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Lucas is a brilliant storyteller. He can come up with amazing worlds and situations and characters. But that is the extent of his tallent. He's a better producer than anything else.

Kershner is just one bad-ass director. He took the unusable dialogue and had the actors kick it around until it worked.
And when the script was written by Brackett & Kasdan you had them working exclusivly on that aspect of the movie.

For as much as an autuer director that Lucas wants to be, he isn't. He simply lacks the ability to do that. Hell, Speilberg just directs. You don't see him banging out scripts and then making a movie about it.

Making movies is a team process. You have 3 or 4 top dogs who are brilliant in one area but lackluster in others and when you combine them all you get one kick-ass production team. Lucas was too much of a douch bag to realize that when making the PT and apparently skipped out on his peice of the humble pie and just did the whole thing himself. And it sucked.
"I am altering the movies. Pray I don't alter them any further." -Darth Lucas
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Originally posted by: THX
A lot of people nowadays cite the loss of the 3 Ks as SW's downfall: Kershner & Kurtz for Jedi, Kasdan for the prequels. Kersh & Kurtz may well have made Jedi better, but there was talk at the time ('83) that Kasdan may have been part of the problem. After all, Jedi's script (Kasdan) was weaker than Empire's (Brackett & Kasdan), so, logically, Brackett was a genius and Kasdan a hack (at the time, Lucas was seen as infallible). Of course, history has shown that Lucas was probably the main culprit.


I would never fault Kasdan for any of Jedi's failings. When you look at the man's body of work in terms of screenplays, the evidence just doesn't lead to that conclusion being a logical one. Jedi's weakest points were Lucas' largest contributions...the Ewoks and everything on Endor is all him. The Endor sequence is actually a tiny window into what the prequels would be. Kasdan actually wanted to take the story to a darker place. In fact, he wanted to kill Han Solo off entirely, as did Harrison Ford. The reason the character endured was because of Lucas' demands that the character remain. I'm sure we can also attribute all the other changes to the story to Lucas as well.

The story for Jedi, as Gary Kurtz states, was MUCH different from it ultimately wound up being. I'm sure Kasdan never had Ewok's in mind, and we now know they were not part of the original plan, nor was a second death star. All that revision came from Lucas in the period after Raiders. Jedi was where Lucas began to establish his stranglehold on the process. At that point, he had two Star Wars films and Raiders to his credit. He had accumulated more managerial clout, so to speak, and could more readily assert his demands. This was where collaboration in the entire process began to evaporate for good. This is where Star Wars begins to suck. I would argue that the only thing that saved Jedi was Kasdan's influence, however diminished it was at that time.

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Originally posted by: JediFlyer06
I would argue that the only thing that saved Jedi was Kasdan's influence, however diminished it was at that time.


You're probably right, but I still thought the Ewoks were somewhat cool myself. Well, except for that scene where a few get blasted by storm troopers. I never understood, even as a kid, why that was suppose to be sad. They were random little furry creatures.

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

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Ewoks were not a horrendous BACKGROUND character. But, even at the age of eleven, I never believed that a band of teddy bears with sticks and stones would defeat a legion of the Emperor's best troops in a single afternoon..."not no way, not no how." That was just silly.
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JediFlyer - sorry if my post was unclear. I was not trying to blame Lawrence Kasdan for the problems of Jedi. I was just throwing in a little historical perspective - I remember that idea being mooted at the time. But like I said, history has shown it was Lucas who made the bad stuff happen. I wish LK had written the PT, but I can understand why he didn't want to.
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Originally posted by: JediFlyer06
Ewoks were not a horrendous BACKGROUND character. But, even at the age of eleven, I never believed that a band of teddy bears with sticks and stones would defeat a legion of the Emperor's best troops in a single afternoon..."not no way, not no how." That was just silly.


You see, that's strange. When I was 11 and saw ROTJ for the first time I thought that the Ewoks worked brilliantly. They were the embodiment of innocents, hope, and goodness. The stormtroopers were harsh, military, narrow minded (and weak minded) drones who's only task was to do what the emperor told them. It's a classic subplot on a variation of David and Golith.

To this day, I don't have problems with Ewoks. I know that everybody hates them, but I don't. They are proof that you don't need military superiority to win an impossible battle. You just need srength of will. Sure they lost some Ewoks on the way, but in the end good won over evil.
"I am altering the movies. Pray I don't alter them any further." -Darth Lucas
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Yeah, I agree. The Ewoks have never bothered me. It's just a fun little underdog battle. Although it might be a funny fan film, did you really expect the Ewoks to show up and start blowing their horns, and then all of a sudden, a bunch of laser blasts emit and knock all of them to hell and back in a matter of seconds. "Okay. Now, back to those prisoners!" Heehee, that would be funny, but it would make the main heroes pretty fubar'd wouldn't it?

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.

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Originally posted by: JediFlyer06
I never believed that a band of teddy bears with sticks and stones would defeat a legion of the Emperor's best troops ...

They would have been killed immediately in a battle that lasted about 5 minutes, after which, the troops would have gone back to the business of finding the main characters. The ewoks were just more mass marketing, movie tie-in stupidness. Lucas has long since admitted that.

The scene where 3PO is reading stories to them may be the lowest point in all of the entity that is Star Wars.
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While I found that scene entertaining, I've always thought that it clashed with 3POs previous statement that he wasn't very good at making interesting stories.

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.

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Originally posted by: Invader Jenny
Originally posted by: JediFlyer06
Ewoks were not a horrendous BACKGROUND character. But, even at the age of eleven, I never believed that a band of teddy bears with sticks and stones would defeat a legion of the Emperor's best troops in a single afternoon..."not no way, not no how." That was just silly.


You see, that's strange. When I was 11 and saw ROTJ for the first time I thought that the Ewoks worked brilliantly. They were the embodiment of innocents, hope, and goodness. The stormtroopers were harsh, military, narrow minded (and weak minded) drones who's only task was to do what the emperor told them. It's a classic subplot on a variation of David and Golith.

To this day, I don't have problems with Ewoks. I know that everybody hates them, but I don't. They are proof that you don't need military superiority to win an impossible battle. You just need srength of will. Sure they lost some Ewoks on the way, but in the end good won over evil.


Mind-bogglingly bizzare though it may sound, I actually once heard the Ewoks refereced as an allegory for Vietnam (okay...). To me Return of the Jedi suffers from the same sydrome as movies like Alien 3 and Romero's Day of the Dead. While it has many good elements in its own right, it is overshadowed by it's two vastly superior predecessors, and a series of flaws. In other words, "there's a good movie in here somewhere" syndrome. Other examples may include Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines and The Godfather, Part III. As for the Ewoks being able to beat the Stormtroopers, that is in many ways true, and I do find it odd that the the Stormtroopers, as the force for the most evil Empire in the galaxy sure don't seem to be the sharpest tools in the intergalactic shed. Interesting interpretation Jenny. I think that part of the reason that Jedi is looked upon the way that it is that like the afforementioned over/underrated films previously mentioned, it serves more to tie up loose ends than anything else. Jedi has some great elements( the space battle and the superb Luke-Vader sequence at the finale for instance), but it's whole seems to be less than the sum of its parts. I enjoy it for what it is, but I certainly think that there is a great deal of validity to the claims that it is not a fitting end to the trilogy in comparison to Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. A lot more could be said about Jedi, but this post is too long already, so I'll stop now.

“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.”

Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death

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Originally posted by: Gaffer Tape
While I found that scene entertaining, I've always thought that it clashed with 3POs previous statement that he wasn't very good at making interesting stories.
I love the 'bedtime story' scene, too. I think it's one of the sweetest moments in the OT. I also always think of the scene in SW where 3P0 says he's not a good storyteller. Maybe he was just being modest.

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The ewoks. Whatever underdog metaphor he was going for kind of got lost in the cheap, klutzy execution. It all just looked like people in ill-fitting suits. And if you think too much about it, they didn't really do much of anything. They made some racket so Chewie and Han could do the important stuff. The team could've been captured, thrown in a cell, then somehow rescued by R2 and 3P0. Then, like they planned, the team blows up the generator Dirty Dozen style. We wouldn't even need the little bastards.
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I remember Lucas explaining in some ROTJ Making Of documentary that the Ewoks were at one point in the development of the script supposed to be Wookies. In Episode III we finally get to see an Empire vs. Wookies battle...
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Originally posted by: Guy Caballero
...We wouldn't even need the little bastards.

They served their purpose exactly as planned................

http://www.waywardbound.com/personal/garagesale/toys/ewok.jpg
http://www.toyarchive.com/AlexEbay/SWWICKET1.gif
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I've always seen the Ewok battle as an unrealistic thing. But, that doesn't stop me from enjoying the battle and thus pretending that somehow, behind the scenes, there was some logical reason behind their success. Maybe pure luck since the force could have been on their side.

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

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Originally posted by: vtpeters
I remember Lucas explaining in some ROTJ Making Of documentary that the Ewoks were at one point in the development of the script supposed to be Wookies. In Episode III we finally get to see an Empire vs. Wookies battle...

I've heard/read him say that a bunch of times. He said that Ewoks were just shrunk-down versions of Wookies (it's funny- they practically have the same letters in them) and that the tree-house habitat was exactly the same as what he had planned for the Wookies (there's some of that in the Holiday Special).

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Originally posted by: Gaffer Tape
While I found that scene entertaining, I've always thought that it clashed with 3POs previous statement that he wasn't very good at making interesting stories.


it is accurate with what he says in SW, resuming SW and ESB in less than 30 sec that's bad storytelling!


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Originally posted by: vtpeters
I remember Lucas explaining in some ROTJ Making Of documentary that the Ewoks were at one point in the development of the script supposed to be Wookies. In Episode III we finally get to see an Empire vs. Wookies battle...


They were in the early drafts for Star Wars. Funny details (after the facts) are that the wookiees/ewoks were called "jawas" and they had a princess named "Jamilla".
The fact about the early drafts does not counter that the Ewoks could have been chosen for inclusion into ROTJ as an opportunity to sell merchandise.

GL created many plot elements and names for the drafts, that have been used (and reused) here and there in the various movies. Even the opening space battle and the disintegrating ship in ROTS can be traced back to an early draft.
However, none of the drafts contains any story that tell ESB or the prequels, only disparate elements. GL must have made it up as he went along.
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Originally posted by: vtpeters
I remember Lucas explaining in some ROTJ Making Of documentary that the Ewoks were at one point in the development of the script supposed to be Wookies. In Episode III we finally get to see an Empire vs. Wookies battle...


Well, no, it was actually Wookies and Clones vs. Separatists. But, yeah, we did see a Wookiee battle... and it was crappy and forgettable.

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.

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Well, my point was, that GL made everything up while writing the screenplay for each movie. Things he claims now that were part of a bigger, wider back story were in fact NOT.

Back to the original topic...
I saw all OOT movies when they were released in theater and have found ROTJ to be the one I liked most.
The space battles and mass scenes didn't look as good as they did in ROTJ. I also didn't like the cliffhanger end of ESB ("To Be Continued ..." at the end might have been nice) and the down beat feel it had. In ROTJ George wnet over the top in the creatures department, but all in all stiull a very entertaining movie.
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Originally posted by: Gaffer Tape
While I found that scene entertaining, I've always thought that it clashed with 3POs previous statement that he wasn't very good at making interesting stories.


It's funny, I've always thought of this as showing that even Threepio had grown by the end of the tale.

Steve
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Originally posted by: spaint
Originally posted by: Gaffer Tape
While I found that scene entertaining, I've always thought that it clashed with 3POs previous statement that he wasn't very good at making interesting stories.


It's funny, I've always thought of this as showing that even Threepio had grown by the end of the tale.

Steve


I don't know, it's funny. I've always thought of this as showing that Threepio might have been reprogrammed at some point in the tale. ^_~

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.

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I always thought it showed that threepio was a dick programmed with false humility. Even the way he stated, "I'm not a very good story teller," seemed like something some annoying people I know would say. They could tell stories if they had to or wanted to.

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005