Return of the Jedi - Why so much hate? What do you guys think of it? — Page 3

The was no need to make Leia the sister of Luke even in the “lets get it finished fast” mood that Lucas was in at that point in his life.
Yoda could have been referring to Anakin as the ‘other’ hope.
Ben could be all negative about Vader and how he is beyond redemption and needs to be destroyed for the greater good and Yoda could be all wise and remind Luke there is always hope.
On his death bed Yoda reminds Luke of his earlier lesson about the nature of the light and dark sides. All that was needed was to have him reflect on how it might not necessarily be curtains for Anakin, that he might have been wrong and Luke might be onto something about redeeming his Father.

Wasn’t it the plan when they wrote the “there is another” bit that the third film wouldn’t be the end, and that the fourth would be about Luke searching for his sister, but that by the time ROTJ was underway Lucas just wanted to tie everything up because he was sick of Star Wars? That doesn’t change the fact that it’s clunky writing and it doesn’t work terribly well, but I was always under the impression that it was born of real-world pressures.

If Gary Kurtz was in charge Jedi would have been even better than Empire.

I agree with the twincest problem of Luke and Leia, but still love the film anyways. If they stopped here, or never made the Prequels and TFA was the fourth film in the franchise, things aren’t that bad.

imperialscum said:

Bingowings said:

The was no need to make Leia the sister of Luke even in the “lets get it finished fast” mood that Lucas was in at that point in his life.
Yoda could have been referring to Anakin as the ‘other’ hope.
Ben could be all negative about Vader and how he is beyond redemption and needs to be destroyed for the greater good and Yoda could be all wise and remind Luke there is always hope.
On his death bed Yoda reminds Luke of his earlier lesson about the nature of the light and dark sides. All that was needed was to have him reflect on how it might not necessarily be curtains for Anakin, that he might have been wrong and Luke might be onto something about redeeming his Father.

Well as I said many times already, I think Obi-Wan and Yoda never realistically considered Luke being able to defeat the Emperor. I mean if they did then they would not surely not wait to start his training at age of 20. To me, their plan seemed to be to use Luke merely as a tool to trigger Anakin’s return who would then destroy the Emperor.

At last we actually agree on something 😄

Again, this is why Gary Kurtz was purged from Star Wars so that we can never have a perfect trilogy and have thirty-five years and counting of unrelenting misery. I now envy every person who disliked Star Wars back in 1977; they were the lucky ones. Even hardcore Star Wars fans hate 99.9% of things associated with the franchise, and it’s all thanks to Jedi. This is probably the worst tragedy of the late 20th century.

You know what I like about you, generalfrevious? You make me look like a chipper optimist.

Ewoks are a pretty good representation of the “little guy,” in a number of ways. I don’t mind the idea behind them, but I do wish the film did a better job proving they could actually take on “an entire legion of [the Emperor’s] best troops,” or at least showed that they got some help from the better trained alliance troops.

Somehow, I still like these conversations. Though it seems like they’ve been hashed out ad nauseaum, every once in a while you’ll realize something new. Like, I’ve known for awhile that the recruitment of the Ewoks harkens back to the first draft of Star Wars with the Wookiee army. But what I didn’t think of until now is that, in that early draft, the Wookiees are trained to fight and defend themselves using the more advanced Rebel technology ala Seven Samurai. Where was that in ROTJ? Could have been another way to make their victory more believable.

DominicCobb said:

Ewoks are a pretty good representation of the “little guy,” in a number of ways. I don’t mind the idea behind them, but I do wish the film did a better job proving they could actually take on “an entire legion of [the Emperor’s] best troops,” or at least showed that they got some help from the better trained alliance troops.

My thoughts, too, basically.

The Ewoks are an early example of the awkward racial profiling by proxy we would get in the prequels.
George’s main talent is evoking nostalgia.
When his early successful films came out cinema was rather bleak and forward looking to a post nuclear wilderness run by apes and/or mutants the only surviving humans were on the moon which was escaping the solar system at super-luminal speed. All authority figures were as corrupt as Nixon and all children were possessed by or born of the Devil.
A film like THX-1138 fits into that sort of world with ease, maybe too much ease so he then made his first hit which practically invented the 50s nostalgia wave of the 70s, and the Star Wars and Raiders with their nods to cinema from happier more deluded times.
The problem being that those serials he was trying to evoke depicted some pretty awful racial stereotypes. The cowardly ‘Jap’, the noble savage, the money obsessed hooked nose Jew, the lazy black, the cannibal native.
The Tusken may fill the role of the Native American in a Western but he has the virtue of not having any of the physical tropes (no feathers, no war paint, no war song, no throwing axes, he gets a wigwam in the prequels but more of that later) so they work.
The Ewoks are beginning to be a bit too close to the hero eating natives of Tarzan to be comfortable. There is a serious debate going on now about the problems perceived by Slave Girl Leia and fat sultan Jabba but the Ewoks are more of a indicator of things to come for me than that.
In the PT we have the robot loving sneak attack slit-eyed Trade Federation, the money obsessed hooked nosed trader and Stepin Fetchit.
I don’t think George is trying to be offensive, his friends and family would hopefully not hang around such a man who would but I think he just doesn’t think like other people do and he increasingly distanced himself from people who might have steered him into more sophisticated ways of doing what he wanted. My main bag with the Ewoks is they are not seen as culture that could take down Imperial troops before the battle. Their look would be fine if it truly was subverted by showing the Imperials already being their victims.
That way the overnight traps make sense. The time for trophy helmets would be before the battle not after it. That way Han’s dismissal of them as cute Teddy Bears gets inverted, if we get a taste of foreknowledge that they could handle themselves and reclaim their forest without the outsiders help but not with the ticking bomb of the metal moon that needs to be destroyed. The Bolas gag gets used in both ROTJ and TPM which marks it out as the precursor of awfulness to come.

imperialscum said:

generalfrevious said:

Again, this is why Gary Kurtz was purged from Star Wars so that we can never have a perfect trilogy and have thirty-five years and counting of unrelenting misery.

According to the relevant information available, Kurtz was fired already during ESB because he didn’t manage to do his job as a producer. He let principal photography to go way over schedule and way over budget (something that is unacceptable for a big studio production, let alone self-financed production). Even if he stayed things wouldn’t be much different. Lucas always had it his way. Even in ANH since studio didn’t seem to care.

Convenient excuse; Lucas was jealous that Kurtz made a better film than he ever could. Empire is the best because Lucas has almost zero involvement, and conversely Jedi is the weakest. The Ewoks and twincest were all George’s idea.

I know it’s pointless to argue with frevious, but the films were better for more reasons than just Kurtz. Empire’s extraordinary is in large part because of Kershner. Kurtz should be thanked more for letting him do what he wanted.

On Jedi, Lucas wanted more control and that was what he was going to get. Kurtz left because of that, amongst other reasons. There were other producers who could have kept Lucas in check as Kurtz did but that’s not what Lucas wanted so that’s not what he got.

Lucas certainly has a resentment towards Empire but I’m not sure it’s jealousy as much as it is lingering frustration from shooting over time and budget. Lucas has been quoted as saying the film was better than it needed to be, or should have been. He would have been happier with a worse film if only because it would have caused him less stress.