I am going to look for logic though, because I want a bit of logic in all things.
Mistake. Not everything goes by logic. Certainly not ROTJ.
Most things in Star Wars had some kind of logic behind it, why should logic suddenly go out the window as soon as the Emporer dies?
Logic was never the number one priority with Star Wars and it was certainly a lower priority than wrapping up the story with a happy ending. You know, you can find plenty logic holes in ANH and ESB. The imperial stormtroopers have this fancy armor and it's no good against the most common weapon in the galaxy. They always miss. Why the hell are these morons employed by the empire? Because Star Wars isn't terribly concerned with logic.
(I agree, the Ewoks defeating the Imperials with sticks and stones was no logical, and it has always bothered me. But the Rebels are out there fighting too, so it can be reasoned that the Ewoks were more of a distraction than anything. Ultimately, the whole Ewok battle is a very minor part of the whole trilogy. The Han rescue was the other bit of the that was devoid of logic.)
No, the ewoks were beating the crap out of imperials quite well by themselves. We saw it onscreen. The ewoks weren't just a distraction. We saw them do plenty damage to imperials. The ewok battle was not a minor part of the trilogy (I'm sure you wish it was). It was a significant event in ROTJ. And the ewoks were beating the crap out of the imperials. Big sign that ROTJ wasn't as interested in logic as you are. You think the Han rescue was also illogical. Fine, another sign. If the first part of the film and the middle of the film are both illogical, why is it so hard to believe that the ending wasn't concerned with logic either?
Let's remember, if the ending was concerned with logic the ewoks would be getting pelted with debris from the destroyed Death Star and there would be no room for celebration.
I consider the logical lapses of ROTJ to be a major black mark on the trilogy. I'd like to assume the Imperial fleet simple retreated when they realized the Executor and the Death Star were lost. That would be a perfectly logical thing to do. No sense in waiting around to be dealt more damage.
Perfectly logical, fine, but we're not operating in the realm of logic here. You're insisting on logic in a fiction where logic is not the priority. You're coming at ROTJ the wrong way. You're in conflict with the film. Which should come as no surprise, considering how much issues you have with the film. I don't consider ROTJ's lapses in logic to be any sort of black mark, because I accept it and Star Wars as what they are. You however are not accepting ROTJ as what it is. You want it to be something different and you want the ending to be different from what it was. So you're trying to convince yourself it was different.
Why impose more illogical nonsense on the poor film by making assumptions when the end is left pretty vague?
The ending of ROTJ wasn't left vague. There was a clear emotional message of the war and the conflict being ended. Very different from the end of ANH.
I also don't believe the film needed a happy ending where the Empire was entirely defeated. The other two films didn't end that way. Movies about war can still end on a happy note even if the war doesn't end with the film.
You're forgetting you're talking about a trilogy of fairytale kid films here. That sort of film needs a fully wrapped up happy ending and it got such an ending. The conflict was over so the story could be wrapped up neatly. As Baronlando said, it was a fairytale ending. And they lived happily ever after. The other two films didn't end that way because they weren't the end of the trilogy. And ROTJ was less logical than the other 2. ROTJ wasn't a "movie about war". It was a fairytale kids' film.
I'll remind you that on the other thread you told me that your view was wrong and mine was right. To quote:
Vaderisnohayden, this conversation is not worth wasting so much time on. We could go on forever. Obviously I am wrong. I was very young when ROTJ came out, and I obviously misunderstood it, and honestly, who can blame me since it was an unfinished version of the film I grew up with. George's original vision all along was to shows the entire galaxy celebrating the end of the Empire, but it simply wasn't possibly due to technology limitation of the eighties.
I get where you are coming from, and understand what you are saying. I concede that you are right, I am sure that was George's original intention to have the Empire be 100% finished at that point, the story is just a hell of a lot more interesting to me if this isn't the case. Just as Star Wars is a lot more interesting to you if Hayden is not Darth Vader.
Also, a very good post by Zombie on the topic:
zombie84 said:I agree--logically, the ROTJ ending makes no sense; yet emotionally, it was always quite obvious to me that the message conveyed was that the Empire was defeated, and good guys won. I mean you practically could have had
"And they lived happily ever after"
when the iris closes on the final shot. Thats the point--thats the message you get. They can't live happily ever after if ROTJ just amounts to a strategic victory, the message throughout the entire movie, emotionally, is that "this is the final battle--it gets decided tonight", which is why all the sacrifice and basically putting your eggs in one basket approach (ie send the entire Alliance in a last-ditch battle to destroy the death star).
Personally, i never considered that there was the Empire out there, and I never knew anyone that did either--the film says "the good guys won, the Empire is defeated." Certainly that is what Lucas was trying to convey, and I think it largely worked, even if it doesn't work in a real-life setting, but then Star Wars has always been full of logical holes like this. While we are contemplating why the Rebels are celebrating what is only a strategic victory, we might also be contemplating how they can be celebrating on a planet that should be having nuclear winter.
Btw, on the set of ESB lucas said that in the next film the empire would be finally defeated. Add that to the 83 novelization saying the empire is dead and the SE scenes saying it's over and the EU before Zahn's revisionism treating the empire as over. Yeah I think Lucas's intention in 1983 was for the empire to be over.