ROTJ is the best Star Wars film... discuss! — Page 29

generalfrevious said:

JEDI’S FAILURE IS EVERYTHING IT MIGHT AS WELL HAVE ERASED THE WHOLE TRILOGY INTO NONEXISTENCE THE PAIN WILL BE UNBEARABLE FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE I WISH THE PREQUELS NEVER EXISTED THE PAIN WOULD NOT BE AS BAD BUT WE LIVE IN A HELLISH UNIVERSE SO I HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO SUFFER HORRIBLY

Don’t worry, nothing matters any more.

generalfrevious said:

JEDI’S FAILURE IS EVERYTHING IT MIGHT AS WELL HAVE ERASED THE WHOLE TRILOGY INTO NONEXISTENCE THE PAIN WILL BE UNBEARABLE FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE I WISH THE PREQUELS NEVER EXISTED THE PAIN WOULD NOT BE AS BAD BUT WE LIVE IN A HELLISH UNIVERSE SO I HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO SUFFER HORRIBLY

Settle down, Beavis. And turn off your caps lock…

generalfrevious said:

It’s still a no win situation in light of TFA. If the new film is good, Jedi loses its bronze medal; if it’s bad, then it will be the forerunner of five bad Star Wars films. My Star Wars fandom has now been reduced to whether or not Jedi is defensible as a film. Ask any film critic, it is an objective failure, and may be inferior to Episode III for fuck’s sake! It may be seen only as a guilty pleasure at best, but it will never be Empire, or any work of art. Star Wars and Empire have fans; Jedi only has defenders. And when a film has defenders and not fans, that is never a good sign.

I think you’re perhaps overly pessimistic; While I don;t think ROTJ is a great film, I still love it for the characters that came before and the highs and lows it hits so well (particularly in the Luke/Vader/Emperor confrontation).

It still beats all of the prequels combined in my books, any day of the week. Beat them to death, if it was able.

generalfrevious said:

DominicCobb said:

generalfrevious said:
Are there any fans of Jedi, that are not under the age of 12?

Yes, probably safe to say that the majority of the members on this site fit that description.

But never in the same way as ANH and ESB. Within the trilogy it will always come in last place, having more in common with the later prequels. This no longer represents the culmination of a great trilogy that was almost beyond mere movies, but the long decline that comes after a brief flash. If the Prequels never existed it would be forgivable, but the PT is such a giant millstone around our necks that it turns everything into ruin. The next three films have to be beyond flawless now just to make the franchise passable again.

o.O Um hi… You know you can cut the chain holding that millstone right? How other people view the franchise should not affect you personally; the more divergent opinions are, the more broad and interesting the possibilities are for discussion!

If the new films are great they will up lift Return, perhaps bringing pay-offs to points that were previously flaws, and giving the saga new energy when viewed such that people will be driven past the lulls and snags of ROTJ by the fact that the story is still going on.

Them prequels will just remain a nice hypothetical thought experiment in the back of our minds that we need not trouble ROTJ, and ourselves, with again. I hope.

imperialscum said:

Benign Viewer said:

In ROTJ, Han is bland.

No he is not.

We’ll just have to agree to disagree. I don’t read the same things for his character that you do into the lack of things he has to do in the story and plot. I wish that I did.

imperialscum said:

Han was full-time rebel in ESB. Why should ROTJ be responsible for showing something that happened between ANH and ESB.

No he wasn’t.
He did not hold rank within the Alliance, nor is he under contract to them. This is evidenced by the folowing:

• He is just addressed as “Sir”, “Solo” or “Captain Solo” (as he is the Captain of the Falcon);
• Rieekan refers to him as a “fighter” not a ‘soldier’;
• When he addresses the last transport on which Leia was supposed to evacuate, he says “This is Solo”, again not referring to any rank or call sign which he would have as a commissioned rebel; and, most notably,
• He gets into the famous argument with Leia about the fact that he’s decided to leave them, more or less on a whim (and the looming threat of Jabba) - something which he would not be able to do (nor need to) if he had signed on with the Rebel Alliance.
• Luke, by contrast is referred to as “Commander [Skywalker]” almost exclusively during the Hoth sequence (outside of by his friends of course).

It’s never addressed in canon, but if you take the EU at its word, during the period between ANH and ESB, Solo flew blockade runs and supply sorties for the alliance, for which he was paid on a case by case basis, as you would a smuggler; but that he really hung around for Luke and Leia.

Han has a Rebel rank insignia on his Hoth outfit though. 😉

Benign Viewer said:

imperialscum said:

Han was full-time rebel in ESB. Why should ROTJ be responsible for showing something that happened between ANH and ESB.

No he wasn’t.
He did not hold rank within the Alliance, nor is he under contract to them. This is evidenced by the folowing:

• He is just addressed as “Sir”, “Solo” or “Captain Solo” (as he is the Captain of the Falcon);
• Rieekan refers to him as a “fighter” not a ‘soldier’;
• When he addresses the last transport on which Leia was supposed to evacuate, he says “This is Solo”, again not referring to any rank or call sign which he would have as a commissioned rebel; and, most notably,
• He gets into the famous argument with Leia about the fact that he’s decided to leave them, more or less on a whim (and the looming threat of Jabba) - something which he would not be able to do (nor need to) if he had signed on with the Rebel Alliance.
• Luke, by contrast is referred to as “Commander [Skywalker]” almost exclusively during the Hoth sequence (outside of by his friends of course).

Your arguments really don’t have much to do with our character-wise discussion. First of all, being a rebel is all about personally fighting for the cause. It is not about holding some rank. In addition, there are many other ways to support the cause than militarily (for example: politically, diplomatically, logistically, etc.), therefore one does not really require a rank to be a rebel. A “fighter” is much more relate-able term to a “rebel” than a “soldier” is. Assuming Solo was relatively famous among the rebels, it is completely normal for him to just say “This is Solo”. It would be like Che Guevara saying “This is Che” over the radio.

So the fact that he decided to stay with the rebels and help the cause makes him a full-time rebel. We know it wasn’t about the money otherwise he would be on his way to the beach with all the money while Luke was shot down by Vader in ANH. Instead he took completely unnecessary risk and joined the battle. The reason to decide to pay off Jabba is only logical as practically no one is safe when being hunted by galaxy’s best bounty hunters. So why don’t you instead complain about why ESB did not explain his very personal decision at the end of ANH? Why would ROTJ have to explain something completely technical as getting some rank.

generalfrevious said:

The Dark Knight Rises insulted my intelligence, and made me regret ever seeing the whole Nolan trilogy. With the sloppy continuity errors, the over the top writing, Batman sounding like the dad from Rocket Power, the fact that Bane wasn’t the main villain after all wasting three hours of our time; and the stupid asinine ending where 12 million people are going to slowly die of radiation sickness while Bruce Wayne jets off to Europe with his girlfriend after faking his death pisses me off. Not to mention 90% of the film is spent with Bruce Wayne making a hundred failed attempts to get out of a fucking pit.

How is that better than ROTJ, let alone a more satisfying ending?

I agree, I would easily place ROTJ over TDKR. I wouldn’t however put it above Return of the King or Toy Story 3.
It currently inhabits 3rd place on my personal list of best conclusions to a trilogy behind the afore mentioned; as a previous commenter said, I don’t treat The Last Crusade or The Good, the Bad and the Ugly by the same standard as they are not episodic. They are essentially but stand alone entries set in the same universe and/or with the same characters from the previous films in the respective franchises.

sunglassesatnite said:

I honestly think Jedi is equal in every respect to the other two films in the trilogy.  I just think when something works, it “works,” and even with its flaws it is still a classic.  Things I love about Jedi:

The green lightsaber.  A perfectly timed, visually interesting way to introduce Luke as a Jedi that means business this time. Great.

Interestingly, from what I’ve seen of the behind the scenes for ROTJ, Luke’s light saber was originally intended to be blue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgB4gaY2dWE (pay close to attention to @1:05) but it didn’t show up very well against the desert backdrop. So it was changed to green to be more visible.
It was blue on all the original promotional material as well:

SilverWook said:

Han has a Rebel rank insignia on his Hoth outfit though. 😉

So he does. I could come up with some explanation (like the only extreme cold weather gear available was what the Rebels had and provided him with, so it wasn’t official, or it’s some symbolic insignia recognizing him for his involvement in Yavin etc., or even a security level access pass for an independent captain so that he as access to his ship) but I shall stand corrected, that is a probable possible assumption. 😉

imperialscum said:

Your arguments really don’t have much to do with our character-wise discussion.

Yes and no. They are my observations of and justification for how I interpret the present nature of his character, and thus why I think he still has an arc to (potentially) be fleshed out in ROTJ.

imperialscum said:

So the fact that he decided to stay with the rebels and help the cause makes him a full-time rebel. We know it wasn’t about the money otherwise he would be on his way to the beach with all the money while Luke was shot down by Vader in ANH. Instead he took completely unnecessary risk and joined the battle. The reason to decide to pay off Jabba is only logical as practically no one is safe when being hunted by galaxy’s best bounty hunters. So why don’t you instead complain about why ESB did not explain his very personal decision at the end of ANH? Why would ROTJ have to explain something completely technical as getting some rank.

He came back for Luke in ANH (to a lesser extent Leia at that time). He didn’t want risk leaving them to be killed. I agree he wasn’t all about the money.

Which of course begs the question of why he’s decided to leave then from the rebels if he’s already a full time committed member. If he’s willing to risk his life fighting with them full time, and has been doing so, why does one run in with a bounty hunter make him change his mind?

“I thought you’d decided to stay”

“Well that bounty hunter on Ord Mantell changed my mind”

This to me suggests that he’s at least in two minds about being a rebel, and that he’s not fully committed to the cause; his friends, yes, but their ideals, no. Thus it seems that he’s always prepared to strike out on his own again, and perhaps does not operate solely with the rebels as a team (which would surely be protection enough from any bounty hunter).
After all, not even Boba Fett came off best after a run in with a small group of rebels. 😉

But as SilverWook pointed out, there is certainly a justification for interpreting this differently, my observations are my own, and they are the impression I get every time I watch ESB (Which I did again last night 😄).

He still owes Jabba money, which means a long line of bounty hunters trying to collect the price on his head no matter where you go. There’s something to be said for reducing the number of people actively trying to kill you personally.

SilverWook said:

He still owes Jabba money, which means a long line of bounty hunters trying to collect the price on his head no matter where you go. There’s something to be said for reducing the number of people actively trying to kill you personally.

I don’t disagree, but then if he was a committed Rebel, why:
A) aren’t some of the Rebels contacts willing/able to pass on his payment of debt to Jabba while he continues to serve them, especially if he’s so valuable to the cause; or,
B) are the Rebels not at least sending some back-up or company with him considering how much they owe him after Yavin (Luke would be more than willing to name one); or
C) is Leia treating it like she might probably will not see him again (for some time) if he leaves;
…if he actually is a committed member of the Alliance.

None of these, Leia most notably, and the afore mentioned interactions with the Rebels make sense taken all together, to me, assuming Han is a committed Alliance member at the start of ESB.

It makes sense to me that Han would need to go and pay off Jabba solo, if he is still riding the line between committing to a higher purpose and his cynicism, still relying entirely on himself and not opening up to his friends. His relationship with Leia is both a metaphor for and the driving force of this balancing act.
Which has a fantastic pay off at the end of Empire, and in my mind is rounded out partially in Luke and Leia rescuing him in ROTJ but is never fully resolved, disappointingly because he has so little to do in the ROTJ screenplay as it stands, when all is said and done.

Han’s reward is pretty bulky based on this scene…

The Rebellion is pretty much in “hiding out” mode. (And they’re probably far from the well traveled areas of the galaxy.) They may simply not be able to spare a ship to send money to Jabba, and I doubt just anyone can get in to see him.

There is also probably no paypal in a Galaxy Far Far Away. 😉

Benign Viewer said:

Which has a fantastic pay off at the end of Empire, and in my mind is rounded out partially in Luke and Leia rescuing him in ROTJ but is never fully resolved, disappointingly because he has so little to do in the ROTJ screenplay as it stands, when all is said and done.

You haven’t actually answered my main question. Why didn’t ESB already explore Han’s decision to join the rebellion at the end of ANH? Even if he still had any doubts at the time of ESB (which you seem to be the only person to see them), why didn’t ESB directly explore them? ESB was the proper occasion to do either of those things.

I guess passing the blame to ROTJ is more convenient? You were picking on ROTJ for not exploring something as trivial and technical as getting some rank, while forgiving ESB for not exploring something as major and character-changing as his decision to join the rebels at the end of ANH.

SilverWook said:

Han’s reward is pretty bulky based on this scene…

The Rebellion is pretty much in “hiding out” mode. (And they’re probably far from the well traveled areas of the galaxy.) They may simply not be able to spare a ship to send money to Jabba, and I doubt just anyone can get in to see him.

There is also probably no paypal in a Galaxy Far Far Away. 😉

You know, there really ought to be some kind of Smugglers Union card. Would make the business of all those nasty bounty pay offs so much easier. Jabba gets his profit, Han gets his life, Boba can disintegrate who he likes - EVERYONE WINS! 😛

Seriously though, those points are fair enough but still do not explain why the Rebels wouldn’t send an escort with a valued committed compatriot (who they expect to return) and get the crime lord out of the way, nor the afore mentioned dialogue between Leia and Han on Hoth, or later on Bespin:

“…Besides, we’ll soon be gone.”

“Then you’re as good as gone, aren’t you?”

[Han hangs his head]

For the life of me, I can’t reconcile this story with Han already being a committed member of the Rebel Alliance, post ANH. If you, or anyone can explain it to me, I’ll retract my disappointment with ROTJ over Han’s lacking development and instead transfer that flaw to ESB where you are making the case it is.

Off screen explanations aside, the amount of time between SW and ESB is a little hazy. The Rebellion has probably been on the run most of that time. (They haven’t been on Hoth long enough to know about Wampas for example.) Whatever missions Has has done for them, hasn’t taken him close enough to Tatooine to drop off the cash.

The old Marvel book sidestepped all of this by having pirates rob Han and Chewie as they were on their way to pay Jabba. Other misadventures ensued to keep Han and Chewie back with Luke and Leia. Many issues later, they rescued Jabba after his disastrous attempt to get Han and keep the bounty for himself. Jabba forgave the debt in gratitude. Actually it was either accept Solo’s terms or get eaten by alien insects, but I digress. 😉

When the plot point for Empire was revealed to Marvel, they established Jabba was funding the pirate operation that robbed Han, (which Han had later ultimately destroyed) and the bounty was reinstated when the Hutt found out who was responsible.