Worst Dialogue from the OT.

Practically all of Yoda's last minutes.

Obviously I paraphrase here to illustrate the problem.

YODA : So you came back, oh yes I look a bit different *cough*, I guess I won't be around much longer, needn't have bothered as you learned everything you need the last time I saw you. Yep Vader's your dad, I would have told you but you hadn't finished your training but as I just said you sort of had. Luke, remember that first lesson I taught you about the dark side? Well I'm dying now, there... is... another... hold that thought, it's my last breath... Bye! 

Are we talking about the dialogue, or plot flaws (conveyed by dialogue)?

Because there's a lot that can be brought up in the latter category.
Hard to think of any in the former...

Bingowings said:

Practically all of Yoda's last minutes.

Obviously I paraphrase here to illustrate the problem.

YODA : So you came back, oh yes I look a bit different *cough*, I guess I won't be around much longer, needn't have bothered as you learned everything you need the last time I saw you. Yep Vader's your dad, I would have told you but you hadn't finished your training but as I just said you sort of had. Luke, remember that first lesson I taught you about the dark side? Well I'm dying now, there... is... another... hold that thought, it's my last breath... Bye! 

I disagree. I always have figured that Yoda is dying precisely as he means to. He waited for Luke, tells him what he wants, then joins the Force. I think he said exactly what he wanted to say, and for a little drama queen like Yoda, he probably liked the rapt attention when your audience thinks you'll die any second.

That droid that was tortured in ROTJ.  Those screams were way too fake.

The language coming out that Cloud City protocol droid.  There's no need for that kind of language in a family film.

none said:

The language coming out that Cloud City protocol droid.  There's no need for that kind of language in a family film.

TV's Frink said:

That droid that was tortured in ROTJ.  Those screams were way too fake.

They were supposed to be comical.

"Good! Our first catch of the day!" - but is somehow charmingly B-movie and rather fleeting compared to endless bad dialogue in the PT spoken not by supporting characters but the entire frickin cast.

Anyway, back OT to the OT.

"Whoa! That got him!"

"I just can't believe he's gone ...." painfully boring moment before TIE Fighter attack FTW.

"Master Luke you're standing on the ...." - for the benefit of the stupid people in the audience.

It's mediocre but charming. It's bad but not distracting. Ok, apart from Chewie's tarzan impression, that drove me nuts ... why bring tarzan into the Star Wars universe for a cheap laugh?! Why?!

twooffour said:

TV's Frink said:

That droid that was tortured in ROTJ.  Those screams were way too fake.

They were supposed to be comical.

Which ties back to your earlier post (even if it's just a sound and not dialogue as such).

The flaw here is as much that there is a comical torture scene as that it sounds rubbish.

George had already spent two films convincing us that droids have enough intelligence and personality to be classed as people.

Threepio and Artoo are characters we are supposed to sympathise with right?

He also showed two scenes of human torture that weren't played for laughs.

So what exactly is this scene all about?

If the droids screams were horrific (fixed dialogue if screams could be classed as such) it would be consistent with the previous two examples.

Droids are slaves, people made of metal and plastic but treated as disposable utilities by non-droids (and in this case even other droids).

Torture is horrific and never amusing.

As for Yoda.

If Luke received a premonition and came back to Dagobah and found Yoda in bed clinging onto life much of that scene would make sense (arguably Shmi's  death scene makes more sense and she too has hung on in the hope of seeing Anakin one last time, much like Yoda does here).

It's the set up of the scene and the dialogue within it that renders the scene nonsensical.

Also for consideration not the line but the delivery :

Copy Gold Leader.

"Those screams were way too fake" was a joke.  The fact that it was being tortured at all was the real problem.

I don't have a problem as such with a droid programmed to keep other droids in line using droid torture (Threepio often complains about feeling discomfort so it's plausible that droids could feel pain and even suffer).

Jabba is cruel to non-droids and tortures them for amusement so I don't have that much of a problem with Jabba's machines being programmed to be cruel too.

It's the comedy of the scene that doesn't work.

It prefigures the distracting slapstick comedy of the battledroids and the Pit Droids in the PT.

Lucas continues along these lines all the way through the PT (with Obi-Wan's R2 Unit getting a comedy decapitation and Artoo laughing his nuts off as Threepio is about to have his memory wiped).

Torture is horrific and never amusing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHujwj6RBSM

Meh, as far as I'm concerned, droids in SW become persons when you've got to know them, but until that, they're more like toys.
Doubt anyone got misty-eyed over that "red one" getting asploded in ANH... that was more like "ah, some prop blew up".

C-3P0 didn't scream of pain when his arm got chopped off, and I'm pretty sure R2's "screams" were also just mere imitation and alarm signal.
So the torture scene came off as both kinda absurd and surreal to me - couldn't shake off the feeling that the fear, and pain, were all just "imitation" and not that real.

Maybe that's why I can laugh at it.

TV's Frink said:

"Those screams were way too fake" was a joke.  The fact that it was being tortured at all was the real problem.

Well there goes the pledge.

timdiggerm said:

Bingowings said:

and Artoo laughing his nuts off as Threepio is about to have his memory wiped

To be honest, that part didn't bother me.

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/R2D2s-gender/topic/13025/

;-)

I have bad news for you (or good, depending on how you look at it).  That thread is bookmarked for the Classic LOL thread. :-)

If droids are really just utility items programmed to respond to damage as human pain and suffering (even when no non-droids are in the room) why should we care about them at all?

Surely the point is that they really do feel pain and suffering but humans have conditioned themselves not to notice it.

They may not feel it in exactly the same way.

Threepio isn't writhing in agony as he is reassembled in ESB or ANH (he seems more surprised when his eye is pulled out in ROTJ) but Artoo does quake with fear and display indignation, sadness, anger, surprise etc and if whatever it is that allows droids to be disassembled without showing signs of agony was switched off maybe you could torture a droid.

In the PT Obi-Wan comments on how fortunate it for non-droids is that droids can't think but we see droid characters clearly deliberating and projecting thoughts in a very human way throughout the saga.

As for Threepio still being Threepio even with his memory wiped, what if a friend of yours were to be led off for surgery which would maintain their voice and many character traits but remove all of their memories?

How would you feel?

Artoo has shown concern for Threepio before (see ANH where Threepio suggests that he be left behind so that Ben, Luke and Artoo can escape the approaching sand people).

Threepio has shown concern for Artoo too (see ANH where he offers to donate pieces of himself to repair Artoo).

So having him laughing at his friend being lobotomised makes no sense at all.

The next time we see Threepio it's almost two decades later so he could have changed many of his character traits but kept others.

For example PT Threepio knows he was constructed by a slave from abandoned parts on a minor backwater planet and Artoo was original owned by a member of royalty and served on her royal yacht and already has fought in historically significant battles.

OT Threepio may be even more snobbish now that he doesn't know this but we don't know that because it happens off screen.

It's consistent with the metaphor of receiving a lobotomy or memory erasing ECT.

He's had huge chunks of his self removed.

This thread is now about DROID TORTURE.

I haven't seen any love for ANH Whiny Luke yet...

Only until someone mentions a bit of crap dialogue from the OT.

"From a certain point of view" 

I'm not sure if some of the lines with 'accidental' double entendres in retrospect would have worked better as in universe dialogue if they were avoided (it would spoil some of the fun once you got old enough to notice them).

"But I was going into Tosche Station to pick up some power converters!"

Now that is the worst line in the OT. Poorest delivery Hamill ever made in the trilogy.

And then there is this little exchange.

"Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father"

"He told me enough! He told me you killed him".

Not bad dialogue, really, but what's with the emphasis on "you"?