I never was bored with ROTJ in some areas. But that is just your opinion.
I also thought Ford was pretty good as well in ROTJ, although he never really liked the character of Han Solo and wished he was killed off in ESB.
I think the notion that Spielberg was going to direct Jedi is a bit overstated. I am sure Lucas considered it for a time, but clearly he didn't feel too strongly about it considering he let something as silly as a grudge against the DGA dissuade him from choosing him. I mean, it wasn't because Lucas had some sort of social crusade to root out corruption from unions, he was simply just sticking it to them because they fined him a couple thousand bucks (imagine: a multi-billionaire tycoon upset over a couple thousand bucks for genuinely breaking established union rules for the protection of its members' credibility which all directors and filmmakers also follow).
So, considering this is the freaking director of the film, the guy that will be on set doing most the work and basically controlling large parts of the film, who is supposed to lend his artistic hand in the most important role a movie production can have, this is an extremely petty, stupid, ultimately unrealistic reason to bypass someone. If you truely say, "this is the guy, the film needs and deserves his talent" you will fight for him.
Personally, I think it's all just a convenient excuse. Lucas didn't want Spielberg on it for the same reason he didn't want Spielberg to direct the prequels: Lucas wanted to control it, and he knew he couldn't control Spielberg the way he could control someone like Marquand. Indy, fine, Lucas was slightly removed from that since it was a joint project, but Star Wars by then was viewed by him as his, and he wanted to be sure that he could do what he wanted and not have the professional--and personal--tension of having to fight a respected co-worker whom he was about to work with again on two more Indy sequels (as per the contract of that other franchise). This is the exact same thing as in the prequels, which Lucas openly admitted to as CO pointed out. So when some bullshit about union grudges made things not so straightforward, it allowed him a convenient out, even though part of him did want Spielberg because Spielberg was a fucking great director. "Yeah, sorry buddy, you know I would love to have ya but you know, goddamn unions, blah blah blah. Oh well, we'll see each other on the next Indy in 1983."
1941 is one of the greatest films of all time.
I never understood why folks were shocked that Vader was a man. All of the stories in 77 was that he wore that armor because he was horribly disfigured from his fight with Obi Wan, but still a man.
– Bill
Never tell me the odds.
Tallguy said:
I never understood why folks were shocked that Vader was a man.
I totally thought he was a woman. :p
I just think that Spielberg didn't want to do it (because it was SW, and that's George's and the fact that he was doing films back to back almost) and then there were the unions etc. It would have been similar to the way Jedi turned out anyway. He works best when under the gun and hasn't made anything really worthwhile since Empire of the Sun.
Lucas would have most likely acted the way he did on Raiders, as the producer.
Ford really has nothing to do in ROTJ and thus there really is little to go on. He had just come off Blade Runner and must have realized how little there was for him to do compared to Deckard's complexities. Everything ends to cleanly for my liking. ROTJ is just the nice little wrapped package. It's not at all bad, just disappointing when you really think about it.
And Han does come off as too soft. I guess the carbonite adds weight, age, and bitchiness.
VADER!? WHERE THE HELL IS MY MOCHA LATTE? -Palpy on a very bad day.
“George didn’t think there was any future in dead Han toys.”-Harrison Ford
YT channel:
https://www.youtube.com/c/DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader
I'm pretty sure I've seen other Hollywood films since that have the director's name on the end credits. Either there's a loophole with the DGA, or things have been relaxed over the years.
Where were you in '77?
It wasn't that the director's name was at the end, it was that Lucas' name appeared at the beginning - as Lucasfilm Ltd.
– Bill
Never tell me the odds.
The prequels I can reject, but Jedi I can't.