ROTJ is the best Star Wars film... discuss! — Page 8

I'll throw in my 2 cents re: ROTJ:

(So I don't have to type it every sentence, everything I write is of course my opinion.  Nothing is presented as fact).

It's not a good movie.  Not terrible, but certainly not good.  The only enjoyment I derive out of it is 1) from nostalgia- growing up in the 80s and 90s, SW was my favorite, ROTJ was second, and ESB was third.  2) It wraps up the story of the adventures of Luke Skywalker and his pals, characters I love.

There's a lot I could write, but I'm going to leave a lot of stuff out that has already been mentioned by other posters.

My main gripe is I generally don't like the tone of most of the movie (other than the Luke/Vader/Emperor scenes).  There's too much for me to write here, so I'll get back to this point in a later post.

In addition to problems with tone, the movie has 3 scenes that are simply bad.  While a bad scene doesn't make or break a movie, having 3 of them hurts the movie significantly.

1) The droid torture scene.

I think this is just awful.  Cringeworthy.  Boring, bad for pacing, bad dialogue, annoying robot with terrible voice.  Droids are getting tortured... and it's played for laughs?  I don't really get what the scene is trying to achieve.  Threepio and R2 are now owned by Jabba, got it.  Don't need an explanation that Threepio will be an interpreter and Artoo will work on the sail barge.  Whatever they're doing at Jabba's, they're doing because he owns them.  Thank you, I understand.

2) Ben/Luke scene on Dagobah.

Boring, flat.  If you zoom in on the blu-ray, you can actually see Alec Guinness reading directly from his script.  Characters are just sitting on logs (hmm, boring, emotionless characters spouting expository dialogue while sitting.  Brilliant foreshadowing of what was to come in the PT!).

The biggest problem with this scene is how Ben defends his lie about Vader.  He's completely emotionless, as if it his lie was no big deal.  (Reminds me a lot of Lucas in a way, how he unemotionally explains his revisionist history, "Actually, Greedo was always meant to shoot first."  "Star Wars has always been the story of the tragedy of Darth Vader.").

"Luke, you're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view."  OK, Ben... other than the Vader/Anakin situation, could you please back up this statement with another example of this?  'Cause it sounds like you're just a lying asshole and full of shit.

What a missed opportunity!  How about having a scene where Ben, distraught, perhaps on the verge of tears, confesses to Luke and says something like, "Luke, I'm sorry I lied to you.   You were so young and I knew the truth would devastate you, so I lied to protect you.  Will you forgive me?"  They could have constructed an emotional scene and have made the audience actually FEEL something.  But they went the completely sterile route.

3) Luke/Leia scene on Endor

Ugh.  Bad dialogue, bad acting.  "I didn't know... but somehow... I've ALWAYS known."  Whuck?

So in addition to many of the negatives people have already mentioned (some I agree with, some I don't), I think those 3 scenes are simply terrible, and hurt the movie greatly.

I don't hate the Ewoks.  I mean, I don't LOVE them, but they're ok.  Well, they're too damn silly, but I guess I don't mind the CONCEPT of them.  They're not good, but the Ewoks themselves do not ruin the movie for me.  In fact I sometimes find myself defending them when people say, "there's no way the Ewoks could defeat the Empire!"  They didn't... nor did they have to.  They simply distracted some troops while experienced rebel commandos blew up a bunker.

I also hate the briefing scene.  Bingowings covered that pretty well.  "Hey, anyone else want to be a general?"  "Hey Luke!  We don't mind you at all barging into our super important meeting!"

Re: what AntcuFaalb said a few posts back, where, I'm paraphrasing, he said something like he looks forward to seeing Salacious B. Crumb more than he does Vader killing the Emperor.  In some ways, I actually agree with this, in the sense that the whole Vader redemption is, IMO, kind of ridiculous and silly.  Luke thinks he can be redeemed because there's still good in him.  Why, exactly, does he think that?  That's never answered.  In addition, Vader is a boring weakling throughout the movie.

So those are some reasons why I don't like ROTJ.  I'll get back to tone later.

SW - a perfect 10/10

ESB - 9/10

ROTJ - 4.5/10

SpilkaBilka said:

I also hate the briefing scene.  Bingowings covered that pretty well.  "Hey, anyone else want to be a general?"  "Hey Luke!  We don't mind you at all barging into our super important meeting!"

When Luke enters the scene, there's one rebel pilot who doesn't look too happy to see him. His expression practically says, "Oh great. Mr. I blew up the Death Star is here." ;)

You have a Blu Ray player that can zoom?

SilverWook said:

SpilkaBilka said:

I also hate the briefing scene.  Bingowings covered that pretty well.  "Hey, anyone else want to be a general?"  "Hey Luke!  We don't mind you at all barging into our super important meeting!"

When Luke enters the scene, there's one rebel pilot who doesn't look too happy to see him. His expression practically says, "Oh great. Mr. I blew up the Death Star is here." ;)

I've never noticed that! Where do I look for him?

For the record Mark Hamill seems to have a good sense of humor about how cheap ROTJ is plot-wise. :P

Raises a good point about the Death Star rehash, though... andgoes against the entire saga idea with it too.

bkev said:

For the record Mark Hamill seems to have a good sense of humor about how cheap ROTJ is plot-wise. :P

Raises a good point about the Death Star rehash, though... andgoes against the entire saga idea with it too.

Thnaks for that interview link bhev,

Loved this quote that Mark gave about Episode VII...

"We’ve got to find a proper balance between CGI and old-school models. I want to have a more organic look so that we don’t get into Roger Rabbit territory."

I'm gonna start a petition to get Mark Hamill made an honourary Brit so the Queen can give him a knighthood next year!

ray_afraid said:

SilverWook said:

SpilkaBilka said:

I also hate the briefing scene.  Bingowings covered that pretty well.  "Hey, anyone else want to be a general?"  "Hey Luke!  We don't mind you at all barging into our super important meeting!"

When Luke enters the scene, there's one rebel pilot who doesn't look too happy to see him. His expression practically says, "Oh great. Mr. I blew up the Death Star is here." ;)

I've never noticed that! Where do I look for him?

IIRC, he is is on Luke's right as he walks down the steps.

If he had, what the heck would would we have done with our free time and disposable income the past 36 years?

A world without Star Wars is not a pleasant concept. A lot of people it has inspired would have grown up to become accountants or something. ;)

(No disrespect to any real accountants in the audience. Monty Python did not paint a glamorous picture of your profession in my formative years.)

deja vu? Wasn't there another "ROTJ is the best SW film..." thread around here recently? ;-)

generalfrevious said:

SilverWook said:

If he had, what the heck would would we have done with our free time and disposable income the past 36 years?

A world without Star Wars is not a pleasant concept. 

I am of the opinion that Lucas had nothing to do with SW; he might have been nothing more than just a hired hand for the first film and later revised history to make it look like he was the mastermind of the whole franchise. It's like saying Star Trek would not have existed without Rick Berman.

I don't like prying into the personal lives of other people and judging them on that basis, but I believe that there were, at least, two different versions of George Lucas: Pre-Marcia/Married-to-Marcia and Post-Marcia.

It's hard to see how Post-Divorce-George-Lucas could have had anything to do with Star Wars, but what about the Pre-Divorce-George-Lucas?

generalfrevious said:

Creative consultant=100% control. (Remember crystal skull anyone?)

TRUE!

Love the intro video on my KOTCS DVD which is just Spielberg listing all the reasons why it should never have been made before telling you how he made it anyway because George kept ringing him up.

Hey, it's me. said:

Nah he's definitely taking more of a backseat on these ones. Sure the main people will consult with him on ideas, as JJ has alluded to, but they will be given free rule to create. Offcourse Lucas will be interested as on what's going on. But as to him disagreeing to this and that, looking other Abrahms shoulder every 5 mins and generally being a pain in the arse. I think you'll find that is very wide of the mark as to what his involvement will be this time. 

Sure but the lessons of KOTCS as they point to episode VII are worrying:

- same producing team Kathleen Kennedy / Frank Marshall (Possibly Lucas too as exec Producer/consultant).

- same tired actor = harrison ford.

- JJ Abrams is often called the new Speilberg.

- same ILM people that did the god awful CGI effects in KOTCS.

- same lack-lustre scoring by John Williams.

- possibly based on George Lucas story treatment.

The definition of insanity is repeating the same sh*t and expecting a different result.

Hey, it's me. said:

generalfrevious said:

SilverWook said:

If he had, what the heck would would we have done with our free time and disposable income the past 36 years?

A world without Star Wars is not a pleasant concept. 

I am of the opinion that Lucas had nothing to do with SW; he might have been nothing more than just a hired hand for the first film and later revised history to make it look like he was the mastermind of the whole franchise. It's like saying Star Trek would not have existed without Rick Berman.

What is it with Ricks?

I kinda thought Star Trek "Nuked the fridge" when they introduced speed limits into TNG.

Instead of lines like...

"Warp 9.7 now ensign!!!" "But Captain, she'll fly apart sir!" "Dammit, fly her apart then!"

We got:

"Warp 2.5 Mr Data, and no faster mind you. We don't want to break any Starfleet Health and Safety regulations now do we.  Afterall I'm sure the Aliens we are pursuing will have adopted a similar code of practice"

With the reboot JJ did re-attach the balls to the franchise somewhat. Hope he does the same with SW Episode VII.

I'm pretty sure that warp speed limit crap was purposely forgotten later in the series, as it was a serious handicap to telling a good story in the long run. It never came up on DS9, Voyager, or the TNG films.

It's a bit of a stretch comparing Lucas to Berman. And "creative consultant" didn't mean Gene Roddenberry had any real control over the later Trek films.

We won't really know the level of George's involvement until the sequel starts shooting.

To believe Lucas had nothing to do with the creation of Star Wars is a whole new level of loathing and denial.