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Return of the Jedi: the worst OT film?

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I was reading Wookieepedia and apparently Return of the Jedi is considered the worst OT film by fans. It's by no means a perfect movie, but it's still light years ahead of any PT film. I have a few minor annoyances with the film, but they don't get in the way of my enjoyment with the movie:

1. Mon Mothma's speech about the Death Star II and the shield generator is pretty unconvincing. She looks like she's reading from giant cue cards off-screen and I don't think someone can be so emotionless when saying "Many Bothans died to bring us this information." :/ But that's just me.

2. I get a bit annoyed with the emperor's voice when he says: "Oh, I'm afraid the deflector shield will be quite operational when your friends arrive." (And I can't believe he underestimated the Rebels by that much. First, they managed to evade everyone on the first DS by taking back Leia and then they blew it up!)

3. How could Luke withstand all that electricity coarsing through his body, courtesy of Palpy? I don't get very annoyed with this one... maybe I can come up with some lame fanboy excuse?... Maybe Darth Vader used the Force to protect Luke from most of the emperor's Force lightning? :p

That's it... and no Ewoks in sight. I've always been one of those people who defend the Ewok vs. the Empire battle scene.

Now... do any of you have little annoyances with ROTJ or maybe any other OT film?

Lucas also continues to lead the fight for film preservation. "It's amazing," he says, "that you have to fight the studios to get them to preserve their films. . . . Parts of 'Dr. Strangelove' are gone; some of the music is lost. Kubrick is having to photograph individual frames to create a new fine-grain negative. That's madness, tragic madness."

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StormtroopersAreBetter said:

1. Mon Mothma's speech about the Death Star II and the shield generator is pretty unconvincing. She looks like she's reading from giant cue cards off-screen and I don't think someone can be so emotionless when saying "Many Bothans died to bring us this information." :/ But that's just me.

2. I get a bit annoyed with the emperor's voice when he says: "Oh, I'm afraid the deflector shield will be quite operational when your friends arrive." (And I can't believe he underestimated the Rebels by that much. First, they managed to evade everyone on the first DS by taking back Leia and then they blew it up!)

3. How could Luke withstand all that electricity coarsing through his body, courtesy of Palpy? I don't get very annoyed with this one... maybe I can come up with some lame fanboy excuse?... Maybe Darth Vader used the Force to protect Luke from most of the emperor's Force lightning? :p

That's it... and no Ewoks in sight. I've always been one of those people who defend the Ewok vs. the Empire battle scene.

Now... do any of you have little annoyances with ROTJ or maybe any other OT film?

 

Huh, I do recongnize some of the many flaws in the film, but I don't make a huge deal about them. The Ewoks were a lame idea, and that is really my biggest issue. Not so much the idea of the Ewoks, but the fact that they are using rocks to kill trained soldiers wearing armor. A rock to the head from a sling could easily kill someone, no doubt about it, but through a hard helmet? That is most of what bugs me. I have nothing personally against the Ewoks themselves. In fact, I think they're some damn fine aliens. 

Oddly, none of the things you mentioned ever bothered me in the slithest, or even crossed my mind as flaws. In reverse order, the Emperor's lightning isn't suppose to be high voltage, bolts of eletricity from the sky type lightning. It is a Force power, and doesn't necessarily do the same kind of damage as electricity, and if it does, it doesn't necessarily have to be a really high voltage, perhaps the Force user can even increase and decrease the intensity of it. Obviously the Emperor wanted to watch Luke squirm for a while, rather than kill him quickly.

Hubris. The obvious intent of the Emporer's lines about the deflector field was to show his hubris. It is just that much more fun to watch a movie villain meet his fate when he has show himself to be overconfident in his sure fire plan. Also, the idea was that the Emperor allowed fake information to be leaked to the Bothan spies, so the Rebels planned this thing thinking that the Deathstar was a sitting duck, when it was actually fully operational. In the first film, they stole the plans, discovered the one tiny weak spot, and went after it, if it hadn't been for Luke's force ability to help him make that shot, they would have failed. All of that was out of the Empire's hands, but in ROTJ, the whole thing was planned by the Empire as a trap to lure the Rebels in and finish them off.

As for Mon Mothma, they were only Bothans. Have you seen pictures of Bothans? They look kind of like a cross between a llama and a dog. Hard to feel sympathy for such ugly creatures... okay, so that probably wasn't the reason. I think it is just the way the actress played the part. Not to mention this is a war they are fighting, and it has been going on for sometime. We are talking about a handful of Bothans having died, that sucks, but there are plenty of other people who died in this war too. Any soldier knows that the time to mourn is after the battle, not during. You can't be overly emotional in such situations and still expect good results. You could toss the same "fault" on the first Star Wars movie with Luke not showing more distress at having just seen one of his lifelong friends (Biggs) blown to bits. Those Bothans died to bring the plans to the Rebels, and she was carrying out her duty to them. Their deaths would have been in vain if the Rebel's mission failed. And to me her voice does so kind of mournful.

 

EDIT: Davenes totally outdrew me, and managed to communicate the exact same thing in a fraction of the word count.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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Ah, you got me C3PX! I did say minor annoyances and that they don't get in the way of me enjoying the film, but reading your post made me realize how stupid and insignificant my "flaws" are. :/

So would you consider Jedi the worst of the OT? They're all good in their own ways, so it's hard for me to put the 3 films in order from best to worst.

Lucas also continues to lead the fight for film preservation. "It's amazing," he says, "that you have to fight the studios to get them to preserve their films. . . . Parts of 'Dr. Strangelove' are gone; some of the music is lost. Kubrick is having to photograph individual frames to create a new fine-grain negative. That's madness, tragic madness."

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the undestroyed pre 2004 version of Return of the Jedi is absolutely essential for the complete and satisfying Star Wars Experiance.

(anybody whose heart isn't warmed by the ending should check for a pulse, IMHO)

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Blackjack said:

the undestroyed pre 2004 version of Return of the Jedi is absolutely essential for the complete and satisfying Star Wars Experiance.

(anybody whose heart isn't warmed by the ending should check for a pulse, IMHO)

I agree with that- but I'd go a bit further and say the "undestroyed pre-1997" version. ;-)

 

I have no problem at all with ROTJ- I love it. I think all the great moments in the film should make up for any weaknesses perceived.

I was actually watching it on SPIKE today (fortunately, I tuned in after the Jedi Rocks & Saarlac/AudreyII abominations, and I deliberately changed the channel right after the funeral pyre scene) but something occurred to me that I never really thought about before, namely-

What was the reason Han was given for Luke leaving Endor? :-P

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Yes, RotJ is by FAR the worst film in the OT. But thats like saying the worst of the most delicious ice cream flavors ever..or the worst of three of the best movies ever. I dont like using the the word worst when describing any Star Wars movie. Its like saying the worst of your friends.

However...Ewoks suck!

And I love the SE ending to RotJ, that music is so much better than that cornball yub yub song anyday. Seriously, yub yub is supposed to be the end to the Star Wars movie saga...I say no.

My two cents...

"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect." - Mark Twain.
"A myth is a religion in which no one any longer believes"...James Feibleman (1904-1987)
www . axia . ws/axia

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ROTJ was half-assed but nowhere near as bad as the prequels. and i like the Ewoks except i have issues with how easily they pwned the Stormtroopers and how dumb the Stormtroopers got even worse than on the first Death Star. and even then they were allowing them to get away.

i'm still fond of the Ewok movies lol. Gorax was awesome. i believe in some ROTJ Ewok tree village concept painting there was a Gorax peeking at some Ewoks. i like to think that somewhere on the Endor moon there was another Gorax that battled with a traveling AT-AT or something

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No, none of the things you listed did I have any problem with, but I do agree that ROTJ is the worst of the original trilogy.

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Jabba-the-Hutt-Strategy/topic/9726/

If you check out this thread I made several months back, you'll get a good impression that the bulk of my annoyance with this movie lies with the ridiculous and asinine "plan" (written by retarded monkeys with penises instead of thumbs) devised to get Han back from Jabba.  Ugh, stupid, stupid plan.  I hate it.  I hate it.  I hate it.  Oh, and the fact that it essentially turns lightsabers into glowy wiffle ball bats...

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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Gaffer Tape said:

Oh, and the fact that it essentially turns lightsabers into glowy wiffle ball bats...

There is that! I HATE that. I want limbs and screaming and body parts flying...barring that a nice fan edit with scorch marks and some screams, grunts, exclamations of pain added in.

 

"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect." - Mark Twain.
"A myth is a religion in which no one any longer believes"...James Feibleman (1904-1987)
www . axia . ws/axia

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AxiaEuxine said:

Yes, RotJ is by FAR the worst film in the OT.

No way. It's a cool film. As good as ANH.

 

And I love the SE ending to RotJ, that music is so much better than that cornball yub yub song anyday. Seriously, yub yub is supposed to be the end to the Star Wars movie saga...I say no.

No, the upbeat yub yub song is true to what ROTJ's ending is supposed to be. The new downbeat music amounts to an attempt to warp the ending of the movie. Which is of course what it is. It shows a lack of understanding of the movie. As does the insertion of the other planet celebration scenes just where they can break up the delicate emotional flow of the movie and the atmosphere. Finally, the Hayden addition is the purest malicious vandalism which screws up something really good.

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When I was a kid ROTJ was my fav; not because of the Ewok but because of the court of Jabba. There also are a great number of people that would say the special effects of ANH are a bit dated compared to ESB and ROTJ.

On a story point of view I'd say that ROTJ is the most lazy.

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StormtroopersAreBetter said:

So would you consider Jedi the worst of the OT?

Absolutely, but "worst" is a very relative term. For example, pit the my best played basketball game ever with that of Micheal Jordan's absolute worst played game ever, and he is still going to be worlds better than me.

When you are talking about the worst of the best, you still have something pretty good. ROTJ is by no means a bad film IMHO, but to me it is not quite as good as the other two. It also has the weight of wrapping up the trilogy on its shoulders, which is quite a task, so I am very willing to give its flaws a pass.

Like Gaffer said, the Jabba stuff was some poorly done story telling. But as a teenager, I always thought Carrie Fisher in a metal bikini for a logically sound plan was a fantastic trade off. The Jabba puppet was downright amazing, one of the coolest things in the trilogy in my opinion, especially if you have seen the behind the scenes stuff to understand how he works. I can understand the glowing green wifflebat thing. I was very young when that film first came out, and I know my parents would not have let me (nor should they have) see it if there were limbs flying in that scene. It was cool seeing Luke dashing around and beating people with his saber, but it is a family movie. I'd rather have the nonviolent scene that we do have, rather than have the whole scene omitted because they figured it couldn't be done reasonably and nonviolently enough to remain appropriate for its target audiences.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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Vaderisnothayden said:

No, the upbeat yub yub song is true to what ROTJ's ending is supposed to be. The new downbeat music amounts to an attempt to warp the ending of the movie. Which is of course what it is. It shows a lack of understanding of the movie. As does the insertion of the other planet celebration scenes just where they can break up the delicate emotional flow of the movie and the atmosphere. Finally, the Hayden addition is the purest malicious vandalism which screws up something really good.

 

 Im gonna have to disagree with this but I dont recall agreeing with anything you've posted :D So we will agree to disagree and leave it at that :D

"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect." - Mark Twain.
"A myth is a religion in which no one any longer believes"...James Feibleman (1904-1987)
www . axia . ws/axia

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StormtroopersAreBetter said:

2. I get a bit annoyed with the emperor's voice when he says: "Oh, I'm afraid the deflector shield will be quite operational when your friends arrive."

I can see why ROTJ is seen as the weakest of the OT, although being weakest of the OT is akin to saying someone is slightly smaller than Andre the Giant.

And I gotta say, i LOVE Palpy's voice when he says that. He sounds like such a jerk. He's not just utterly evil... he's sarcastic. I'd say that is my favorite Palpy moment in all the movies.

 

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Vaderisnothayden said:

No, the upbeat yub yub song is true to what ROTJ's ending is supposed to be. The new downbeat music amounts to an attempt to warp the ending of the movie. Which is of course what it is. It shows a lack of understanding of the movie. As does the insertion of the other planet celebration scenes just where they can break up the delicate emotional flow of the movie and the atmosphere. Finally, the Hayden addition is the purest malicious vandalism which screws up something really good.

 

 I agree 100%. ROTJ's ending used to be ultramegahappy. The new music is kind of somber and feels wrong to me. And random shots of planets we've never seen break the emotional ties I'm feeling to the characters.

And Hayden's insertation (even though I don't hate Hayden as much as you) is the worst SE change of them all. It's odd, looks poorly done(obviously fake, and what is UP with his facial expressions?), and thematically wrong (Anakin didn't "die" like Obi said, they were all wrong, Luke was right, Vader had always really been Anakin).

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TheBoost said:
StormtroopersAreBetter said:

2. I get a bit annoyed with the emperor's voice when he says: "Oh, I'm afraid the deflector shield will be quite operational when your friends arrive."

I can see why ROTJ is seen as the weakest of the OT, although being weakest of the OT is akin to saying someone is slightly smaller than Andre the Giant.

And I gotta say, i LOVE Palpy's voice when he says that. He sounds like such a jerk. He's not just utterly evil... he's sarcastic. I'd say that is my favorite Palpy moment in all the movies.

When I heard him say that, he sounded whiny to me and almost as if he was going crazy (if he hadn't already.) I mean, insane with power even. But after reading your post, he does sound sarcastic, doesn't he? (I'm just real easy to convince aren't I?)

Also, I didn't include any changes from 1997 or 2004 in my list of annoyances for many reasons. First, the list would be too long, and second, I enjoy and prefer the original originals more... even if the 2004 DVDs are sharper/more detailed.

Lucas also continues to lead the fight for film preservation. "It's amazing," he says, "that you have to fight the studios to get them to preserve their films. . . . Parts of 'Dr. Strangelove' are gone; some of the music is lost. Kubrick is having to photograph individual frames to create a new fine-grain negative. That's madness, tragic madness."

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TheBoost said:
Vaderisnothayden said:

No, the upbeat yub yub song is true to what ROTJ's ending is supposed to be. The new downbeat music amounts to an attempt to warp the ending of the movie. Which is of course what it is. It shows a lack of understanding of the movie. As does the insertion of the other planet celebration scenes just where they can break up the delicate emotional flow of the movie and the atmosphere. Finally, the Hayden addition is the purest malicious vandalism which screws up something really good.

 

I agree 100%. ROTJ's ending used to be ultramegahappy. The new music is kind of somber and feels wrong to me. And random shots of planets we've never seen break the emotional ties I'm feeling to the characters.

"Weesa free!"

Lucas also continues to lead the fight for film preservation. "It's amazing," he says, "that you have to fight the studios to get them to preserve their films. . . . Parts of 'Dr. Strangelove' are gone; some of the music is lost. Kubrick is having to photograph individual frames to create a new fine-grain negative. That's madness, tragic madness."

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Like I said in another thread the original Ewok celebration song always sounded to me like a "Birthday kiddie song", joyful indeed, but a little bit whatever. The new one is joyful but a bit nostalgic. Like if the last page of the book is turned. I like that.

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My feelings on the new ending are mixed. I have to say, it is that one change that I don't mind so much. While I didn't particularly dislike Yub Nub, I was never really all that fond of it. I actually like the new end music, I think it fits just fine. Kind of a, wow now we can sit back and take a breath and remember those we lost in this war, sort of thing. I, however, don't care much for the montage of other planets. I think the focus should remain at the location of the battle, not lightyears on other planets.

The 2004 ending with Naboo and the Weesa free is inexcusable though.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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I wonder what possesed George Lucas to put Jar Jar and Hayden into Rotj in the first place, movie now completely ruined.

Same with Empire Strikes Back.  Jango Fett hack as Boba WTF?, bad cgi redo of emperor with a feeling of Tiredness of the actor delivering the lines as if he just got out of bed, or could not give a fuck and phoned in.

Bad redub of JEJ.  The worst by far in the 2004 set are empire strikes back and return of the jedi.

Star Wars was already messed with in 1997, i think the 2004 Jabba cgi is better than the 1997 but still an uncessary redundant scene which ruins Jabbas reveal in ROTJ, that is if you forget the prequels ever existed.

the CGi space battle at the end using what would now be called prototype cgi visuals is laughable in comparison to the original model effects.  Ruined sound mix on the 2004 cut.  All three films in 2004 worst color timing ever in an official DVD release by so called audio and visual effects pioneers Lucasfilm.

Every once in a while i wish the film series ended as it had in 1983 with some dignity, and Legacy untarnished by those 3 videogames that came in the late 20th and early 21st century. 

But to be fair to gamers and video games at least you get to control them this was like watching George Lucas play a videogame for six hours,lol.

“Always loved Vader’s wordless self sacrifice. Another shitty, clueless, revision like Greedo and young Anakin’s ghost. What a fucking shame.” -Simon Pegg.

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ROTJ just doesn't have 'it' to me, as 'it' defines a great film.  It is really hard to explain 'it' but when you watch a great film, you know you have just witnessed greatness, and ROTJ just doesn't have 'it'.  SW & ESB have 'it' but ROTJ and the PT just don't. 

In saying that, I still enjoy ROTJ because it is the 3rd of a trilogy, and they are rarely great anyway, so you have to keep that in context when watching it.  It has some good moments, some great moments, and some bad moments, all have been named numerous times on SW websites. 

I will say that the one thing that really loses me as a SW fan is having the audience sympathize with Darth Vader, which later continued on as the story of the PT.  Sorry, but I just could never do it, as that story never resonated with me, as I rooted and cared about Luke, Leia, and Han, and once Lucas made that left turn shifting the story towards Anakin Skywalker, that is where he lost me as a fan.

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Excellent points, CO and sky.  I agree wholeheartedly.

What really makes ROTJ the least favorite of the three for me is that it is so slow.  Between the Jabba's musical numbers and the half an hour the film spends on Endor before the battle starts, it just puts me to sleep.

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What ROTJ lacks is that great scene that gives you goosebumps.

SW goosebump moments:
-Luke looking at the charred remains of Owen & Beru and realizing his destiny

-Luke looking at the Binary Sunset

-Luke & Leia swinging across the Death Star to that great John Williams score

-Obiwan smiling at Luke as Vader cuts him down and Luke screaming, "NOO!"

-Han telling Luke, "You're all clear kid!"  and Luke blowing up the deathstar.

 

ESB:

-Yoda lifting the X-Wing to that great John Williams score

-Han telling Leia, "I know."  then being frozen in carbonite while Leia stares Darth Vader.

-Vader telling Luke, "No, I am your father!"

-The ending of ESB as Lando/Chewy fly away and Luke,Leia, C3PO and R2 stare out at the galaxy.

 

I honestly can't think of any scene in ROTJ that gives me goosebumps, there are great scenes like the Throne Room scene, but nothing that gets me like SW & ESB, that is the difference as to why I think ROTJ is the worst.