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Why the first two are better

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This guy's viewpoint pretty much sums up exactly how I feel. In the wake of the new release coming up, it's neat to think about what made the originals so special.
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I got a kick out of this guy's comments...


Not so, apparently, for Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. Man, I thought it was terrible. And you know what? Part of the reason I thought it was so terrible was because of what I'd learned from Mr. Roth! The opening shot of the battle on Kashyyyk I thought to myself "Now there's a crowded CGI action shot, I don't even know what to focus on. As JD might say, when everything's important enough to be on fire and exploding, nothing's important." Really, I thought both of those sentences.

Much worse, of course, for me was the acting. Perhaps the most important thing the new trilogy has done for me is to reveal that good (or even great) film actors are entirely at the mercy of their directors. Lucas has a deep and mysterious power to make any actor suck. In this installment, only McDiarmid seems able to resist the influence and deliver an interesting performance. I would also concede that McGregor's last speech on the Terrifying Hillside of Lava was pretty good.

How does Lucas do it? How does he suck the life out of these otherwise incandescent performers? I'm not sure of all of his techniques, but a very simple one he uses repeatedly is the Reaction Pause. It goes like this:
Actor 1: (pause, look troubled) My people are suspicious of you.
Actor 2: (pause, smile slightly, then look troubled) Well of course they tell you that. That's what they want you to think.
Actor 1: (pause, look away briefly, look troubled, look back and then look defiant) Oh, do they?

These Reaction pauses suck the energy from a scene like a giant space leech imbued with Dark Force Suckage Power. It's such a simple acting no-no. They teach it in every acting class I've ever taken, every director I've ever worked for will, at some point during rehearsal, say "Pick up your cues, people." Which means very simply that you say your line as soon as the other actor is finished and you react while you're saying your line!
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"Another example: I want to be awed by the vast Asimovian city-world of Coruscant, but I can't. It's an ocean of skyscrapers and painful-to-watch aerial highways. It's nothing but a cornucopia of digital effects. It doesn't give me a sense of awe; it makes me depressed."

That's very true. Only the initial view of the planet from overhead in ep 1 seemed to be impressive to the senses.


Otherwise, his premise that the Star Wars universe was once portrayed as huge, with small scale people being overwhelmed, is true. But the idea that our character's were not major factors in the face of that is absurd. Do we remember Princess Lea defying the empire? How about Obiwan, the renowned Jedi, calmly disabling the Death Star's tractor beam? What about Luke blowing up the Death Star by using the amazing force powers that he alone out of the rebels was born with? That all sounds pretty “elite” to me. Sure they faced normally overwhelming circumstances, but it was their chosen position that caused them to be victorious. We new the good guys had to win.

Return of the Jedi was a great film in my mind. I don't understand all of the dislike for it in any way (especially putting it below ANY of the prequels). Maybe the Ewoks were a bit silly, but so was the raid on the Death Star prison and attack on the exhaust port in the first movie. It was all still fun to believe. Only Empire seemed the most down to earth, but that was obviously because it was far more emotional and character driven than the other two movies. Jedi portrayed the universe in a large and overwhelming way, but with regard to the numerical power of the empire and a more majestic and less gritty side to the physical locations.

If I had to guess, the people who dislike Jedi do so because they miss the point of the movie. It wasn't about the good guy's stopping the bad guys by winning this technical victory (with Ewoks). To me it was about an internal struggle to do the right thing, even when that choice may have seemed suicidal at the time (Luke facing the Emperor, Han devising new strategies, the rebel fleet putting itself in extreme risk instead of retreating to safety). This internal conflict reached its height when Luke's anger flared over protecting his sister from the pain he was enduring and he viciously attacked Vader (this scene gives me goose bumps each and every time). When he stopped himself, and refused to continue with the conflict, that was the true victory. That was the real climax of the film. It was only after that action of self-sacrifice that Darth Vader was finally able to break himself free from the internal darkness he had been enslaved by. Great drama.

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

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These two examples have always been what made the first film so magical to me. Also, it reminded me of real life. The characters were tiny - in a vast galaxy.

"The original trilogy — or at least the first two-thirds of it — was dirty and gritty. That was part of its charm. The Millennium Falcon didn't work. Luke's garage was a mess (and whoa! so was the jawa's sandcrawler). The base on the ice planet Hoth was in scattered disarray. Yoda was a slovenly housekeeper....

The space ships and the ground vehicles looked real. One got the feeling they might have been produced on a planet called Detroit, and that with time they'd gradually fallen apart...


In the original trilogy — especially the first film — The Force was a mysterious mystical mental power. It was a rare gift, difficult to harness."
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I have to agree with just about everything that this guy has said. Very profound. Lucas has lost his luster. He lost it a long time ago (in a galaxy far, far away.)
"I am altering the movies. Pray I don't alter them any further." -Darth Lucas
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I tell you what, man. The prequels have been bugging me lately. I think the real problem with them is how poorly they fit with the original trilogy. There is not clear, recurring villian. Part of Star Wars's appeal was how Vader was always giving the heroes a hard time. The prequel's quasi-political web type thing was not a good substitute.

Worse, I think the prequels also weaken the narrative of the entire series. This is a sticking point for most original trilogy fans who dislike the prequels. It would have been on thing, but since these are numbered episodes, it's difficult to ignore the prequels. But they don't work very well when watched in numerical order. So we original trilogy fans are stuck with episodes 4, 5, and 6 with no hope for a 1, 2, 3 to go with them. It is a series that will never be complete. At least as far as the numbering goes.

That said, the material that appears in the prequels works best as it appeared in the original trilogy. That is, as backstory. As stuff that happened before the movies that we learn about as we watch the movies. That said, there was plenty of room to make a good movie here if lucas had done it right, but I don't think his writing skills were up to the challenge. One thing he needed to do was keep the secrets revealed in the original series a frickin' secret. I mean, finding out that Vader was Luke's father at the end of ESB is kind of lame if we'd already watched his parents fall in love and his dad go evil and become Vader and stuff in the first three movies. It seemed like Lucas was way too interested in showing us stuff to realise that sometimes things should be hidden. Like in the Ocean's Eleven remake. They had a plan and throughout the movie they were doing stuff for the plan, but the audience didn't know how it all fit together until the end of the movie after they had pulled it off. Vader's identity should have been handled like that.

The sad thing is if Lucas had just gone back to his original inspiration, the serials, he would have seen this. A villian (or hero) with a secret identity was standard fare in the serials. Take Adventures of Captain Marvel for example. This one had a group of scientists who had uncovered a powerful McGuffin in an ancient tomb. It turns out that one of them wants the McGuffin for himself, but which one? As a villian, he dons a robe and mask and his voice is dubbed over. Why? I don't know as the villian always sent henchmen to do his dirty work. In any case, the plot becomes a ten little indians as the scientist are one-by-one killed by the villian ("Whelp, I guess this one ain't the bad guy 'cause he's DEAD!") until only two are left. These two, who are roughly similar in appearance, go back to the tomb and with both their faces in shadows, one reveals to be the villian and kills the other. They tended to cheat a lot in the serials, but i think this could have been a useful device in the prequels.

Dig this: set up some guy is bumping off Jedi Knights. Maybe they know the guy's name, maybe not. Obi Wan has two pupils. Anakin Skywalker and... some other guy. We'll call him Qui-Gon Jin Qui-Gon is further along in his training and is chaffing to continue to be under his master's tutelage. Anyway, they attempt to find this jedi-killing guy, right and they go down to a planet with no/poisonous atmosphere and put on breather masks like shown here: here. This will hide their faces so we won't know what happened when one kills the other. Obi-Wan than comes upon the scene but only finds some clothing and lightsabres. Anakins lightsabre. So he thinks the bad guy killed them both until he confronts Vader on the rim of a volcano crater. Vader still keeps his face hidden but does mention to Obi-Wan that he was a former apprentice. We see the realization slowly dawn in Obi Wan's eyes and he whispers "You..."

Now, the point here is that who Vader is remains a secret to those who've never seen the original trilogy. (Don't laugh. More are born every day) And at this point we are sort of led to believe that Vader is Qui-Gon, particularly when Skywalker's son becomes center to the conflict.

This is just my own meager talent assessing and concocting solutions to the problem with writing the prequels to these movies, and how much better they could have been if lucas still had good writers taking his ideas and doing good things with them.
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I am going to take a different take on this issue of SW & ESB being the best of the 6, be thankful!

Just for the record before I give my take, I love all OT movies alot better than the PT, but if I look at ROTJ not as a SW fan, but as a movie, it is a so-so sequel. But I still love it cause it has my characters I love, and continues and finalizes the story I got so entrenched with in the first two movies, but I will still say ROTJ is not a classic movie. In saying, none of the Prequels are good movies either, just from a movie point of view, infact by viewing the Prequels, I realized how much better ROTJ was, and TPM proved what a dud SW movie is.

I say we should be lucky because how many movie series have classic sequels? I love the Terminator, but T2 is very good, but not as good as the original. Same with Superman, Back to the Future, The Matrix, Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park, they are all classic originals, follow by either really good, good, or average sequels. The only one that comes close is Lord of the Rings Trilogy, but since they were filmed together, I tend to look at that as one big movie, not three.

SW was once in a lifetime shot for Lucas, and he deserves credit. Everything fell into place, perfect characters, perfect story, perfect editors, perfect effects, and perfect time for it to come out. I give Lucas credit for directing a classic, but that doesn't make him a great director. Alot of directors do direct one or two great films, and then a series of average ones after that. Lucas had American Graffiti and Star Wars, but Spielberg or Coppola he aint.

Andrew Davis directed The Fugitive, a truly brilliant movie in 1993, what has he done lately? Kevin Costner won a boatload of awards with Dances with Wolves, what has he directed since? Johnathen Demme directed The Silence of the Lambs, then Philadelphia, and went on to have a very good career, but nothing in the range of Lambs. There aren't many Spielbergs, Ron Howards, Coppolas, or Scorceses out there. And I wont say Lucas was lucky with the original SW, but that was his moment to shine, that was his movie, and he took advantage of everything he could to make it one of the greatest films of all-time.

So what did he do for ESB? Less. He got someone to write the screenplay, got someone direct, and took a pretty much hands off approach to it. He was building Skywalker ranch, while EVERYONE ELSE was using his ideas to make this great sequel. The reason ESB is nothing like SW, but still good? Cause Lucas didn't write or direct it, and if he did, it probably wouldn't have been as great. The one thing Lucas did on ESB that he never did again was take a chance. He made it darker, the bad guys win, and have a cliffhanger ending, I would have said he was nuts if I read the screenplay in '79! I would have said it has to be more like SW '77.

After that Lucas had his business, and sure he got Marquard to direct and Kasdan to write ROTJ, but you could see that the magic wasn't there on this one. It is still very good to me as a part of the OT saga, but when I compare it to SW & ESB, it pales. And you know what, that was bound to happen, you just can't keep churning out classic movies with the same story, it has never happened.

The PT, Lucas had total control, writing, directing, etc. Are you telling me he was going to make 3 classic movies again? Every series usually stalls at the third movie, it is just inenviatable. And the PT made SW go from really great movies, to fans accepting mediocrity. For the first time you hear fans saying, "Well, no film is perfect," or, "Yeah, the AOTC dialogue is bad, but I am not going to let it ruin the movie, " or "Yeah, Jar Jar is annoying, but you just have to put up with him." The new fans excepted that the movies were not great, and what was on screen was good enough for them. Just notice how they defend Jake Lloyd or Padme losing the will to live, they will come up with anything to justify what Lucas did.

In the OT, SW & ESB are classics and perfect, and I will defend them to anyone who says they are not, but ROTJ I will not sit there and defend it and say it is a great movie, but I recognize that it is SW, and I can live with one movie that is not a classic, but 4 out of 6 that are not great?

If ESB had been a good sequel, but not as good as the original, I don't think we would be here today. There would have been a ROTJ, but many would have viewed it just like Jurassic Park Series or The Matrix Series, except for the diehards: Great original movie, but the sequels were OK. And there would have been no prequels if ESB were average.

ESB is so good it makes me enjoy ROTJ more, cause it completes ESB, so in a sense that is the glue that makes SW-OT a saga, rather than your typical trilogy of great original, and so-so sequels. In saying this the original Star Wars is my favorite movie of all-time, and in 4 months, I can finally watch the real version again!
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Originally posted by: CO
The PT, Lucas had total control, writing, directing, etc. Are you telling me he was going to make 3 classic movies again? Every series usually stalls at the third movie, it is just inenviatable. And the PT made SW go from really great movies, to fans accepting mediocrity. For the first time you hear fans saying, "Well, no film is perfect," or, "Yeah, the AOTC dialogue is bad, but I am not going to let it ruin the movie, " or "Yeah, Jar Jar is annoying, but you just have to put up with him." The new fans excepted that the movies were not great, and what was on screen was good enough for them. Just notice how they defend Jake Lloyd or Padme losing the will to live, they will come up with anything to justify what Lucas did.


Oh gawd, yes. Some people will say some truely outrageous things. Part of the problem with some of these things is that they answer questions no one asked. Such as, recently on another forum i got a little bit into the whole "Yoda trained Obi-Wan, so who the heck is this Qui-Gon Jin guy??" The response was that Yoda instructed Obi-Wan while Qui-Gon trained him. There's a world of difference!

Yeah, right. World.

Problem is, I don't think there's a single person in the whole world who after seeing ESB and hearing the ghost of Obi-Wan describe Yoda as "the Jedi master who instructed me" thought for even a second "Oh, so Yoda only instructed Obi Wan. I wonder who trained him." It is typical for bad movies to answer questions no one asked. In this review of The Swarm, the reviewr notes the film took time to explain Michael Caine's character's accent but didn't bother with any of the gaping holes in the plot. That and how hard would it have been to simply not make Obi-Wan Qui-Gon's apprentice? Some minor dialog tweaking and it would be done. Peasy easy.

But what really irks me is that the defenders try to take the moral high ground on the basis that they are trying to like something that hating something, regardless of the reasons, is bad. Or something.

I agree that RotJ is the weakest of the original trilogy. The revelation that Leia is Luke's sister was handled especially sloppy. But like you, I allow Jedi to slide a little because it is a follow-up to ESB and the end of the trilogy and it is the same characters I knew and came to love. Which was why the prequels really, really, really needed to be good as there would be very few characters we would recognize as they were not in the OT or were completely different by OT
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I thought the Yoda training issue was cleared up nicely by the scene in AOTC where we see Yoda training younglings, implying that Yoda basically teaches everyone before they get their own dedicated mentor. I wouldnt expect Obi Wan to say "You must go to Yoda, the jedi master who instructed me...well, actually to be specific my master was this guy named Qui Gon Jinn and he got killed by Darth Maul. Oh yeah, Darth Maul was the Sith apprentice before Darth Tyrannus and Darth Vader. But nevermind all that. Yoda is a guy who taught me before Qui Gon became my master, as i was saying. So anyway go to Yoda...Luke? Still alive?"

Yoda instructed Obi Wan. We dont see Obi Wan as Yoda's padawan but he does indeed instruct him, as he claims in ESB. Not a big deal. I think the OT has much bigger holes than this. "Certain point of view" ring a bell? At least we thankfully never had one that bad in the PT.
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Originally posted by: zombie84Yoda instructed Obi Wan. We dont see Obi Wan as Yoda's padawan but he does indeed instruct him, as he claims in ESB. Not a big deal. I think the OT has much bigger holes than this. "Certain point of view" ring a bell? At least we thankfully never had one that bad in the PT.


I think that's the thing about it. Obi Wan effectively lies to Luke about his father and Vader and all that. Why? Because he was hiding the truth from Luke. It was important and that he hid it was important. Wheras who trained or instructed Obi Wan isn't really important.

And, no, I don't think Obi Wan should have wrote Luke a book out on the frozen wastes, but he could have said less. "...there you will learn from Yoda, the Jedi master."

But that would necessitate altering the original trilogy some more which I hate because it's like playing Battleship with someone who keeps moving their ships around. The younglings thing doesn't wash with me, really. But then, I dislike most of the things about the jedi as depicted in the prequels, like how they all dress like dessert hermits and stuff.
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Originally posted by: zombie84

Yoda instructed Obi Wan. We dont see Obi Wan as Yoda's padawan but he does indeed instruct him, as he claims in ESB. Not a big deal. I think the OT has much bigger holes than this. "Certain point of view" ring a bell? At least we thankfully never had one that bad in the PT.



I will agree that the plot hole bonanza and lazy storytelling by Lucas started in ROTJ. But the reason they are not as noticable was everything was so general in the OT, we had to envision anything in that happened in the past.

Sure Lucas made up Luke/Leia sibling in ROTJ, but you could justify it because you never really met Bail Organa, or there wasn't anything from ANH that would make you say, "Wait a minute, that is a contradiction?" And just caused they kissed in ESB, that was justified to anyone that if they didn't know they were related to Leia, wouldn't you try to score with her? Sure when you finally find out, I would have brushed my teeth, but I guess there wasn't any toothpaste on Dagobah when Kenobi told Luke!

The OT had that luxury of not being specific, so when Lucas started making the galaxy so small in the OT, it wasn't that bad, even though you could tell he was changing the story around. In the PT, it had to be specific, so everything was noticable.

Padme dies at childbirth, but Leias says in ROTJ she died while she was very young. WTF? It is just a total contradiction, and the only explanation is force memories, and that is just a lame excuse. C-3PO being built by Anakin, Boba Fetts dad being the Stormtrooper Clone, and Yoda being boys with Chewy weren't plot holes, but they made the universe TOO small. The great charm of the OT was everyone kinda got thrown into the situation and wasn't meant to be there per say. The PT has one big coincidence after the other, and kinda cheapens the OT when you get to it.

We should have never seen secondary characters in the PT. The tuskens, Chewy, Boba Fett, even Jabba in TPM, all those should have had their entrance in an OT movie. I think Lucas tried to appease the OT crowd by using these tieins to make us feel nostalgic and everyone of them backfired, cause it just looked like he was out of ideas.

I still can't listen when C-3PO says in TPM, "My parts are showing!" It is stuff like that, you start to shake your head and wonder is this the same director who did the original SW?


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Even as a kid, I had trouble believing that Lea was ever originally intended to be Luke's sister. I didn't understand the huge need for that kind of a plot development either, since it didn't add very much drama to the series. But, in a strange way, it kind of works in the RotJ plotline. Sort of like fate conspiring to defy the emperor. Plus, I loved that gorgeous music JW wrote for the Luke and Lea theme.

Otherwise, I firmly believe that Return of the Jedi (non-SE) is a classic film in my mind. True, you cannot say that it stands on its own in the same way that ESB did, since ESB left it with so many hanging threads that had to be picked up again and that's certainly not the fault of Jedi. Considering that fact, the movie has many great dramatic moments in my mind, great visuals, and it introduced many new imaginative and beautiful elements. All of those pieces considered together, in my mind, easily allow Jedi to stand as a classic, on its own, forgiving the fact that it carried a lot of baggage.

Sure, ESB is the crowning jewel of the series and SW is also a classic well beyond RotJ, but not all "classic" (a.k.a. enduring) films need to endure on the kind of level. None of the prequels were classics by any stretch, and it offends my sensibilities to see Jedi lumped in with them. Jedi is in a very different league in my opinion.

Again, if I had to guess, the problem a lot of SW/ESB fans have with Jedi is probably the fact that it had a focus to its story that was very different from the earlier two films. In fact, RotJ actually made the more important points of the earlier two films—the physical war itself—take a complete back seat, and I'm sure that pissed off a lot of fans, but for me that is actually the biggest draw when I watch Jedi. Destroying the Death Star and defeating the Empire were not so important in the film, and I liked that. Instead it focused on the internal nature of the characters and showed them maturing.


To make my briefest of comments about the prequels:

I liked Episode I a lot. It wasn't even close to great, nor was it a classic, but it was one very fun and fast paced film to sit and vegetate in front of. All of the weird stuff going on all over the place I found to be very enjoyable. And, to once again refute a point in the article linked above, the characters were no more "elite" than the original SW had elite characters.

Unfortunately, Episode II sucked in every way. The more I see of it, the more I come to dislike every scene in the film. Even the neat battle at the end is really beginning to piss me off. (Oh, and that pathetic CGI Yoda looks like a complete pile of shit. I don't give a damn if he can do more than a traditional puppet if his skin looks like liquid slime. ILM should have hired the guy's who made Gollum for Peter Jackson in his version of The Lord of the Rings. At least they have artistic talent and can make a realistic CGI character.)

And then there was Episode III. In its defense it seemed to try and avoid a number of the problems Episode II had, but a number of those attempts were not even close to successful. It had acting I could at least stomach by comparison (much like Episode I, but still not anything good), and quite a few of the dramatic scenes were very moving. Unfortunately, anything that was moving about Ep. III requires me to remember the OT, otherwise I could care less about what happens to that complete asshole Anakin. Unfortunately, the more I think about the prequels, the more it completely ruins the OT for me, so I decided to stop watching the prequels altogether.


My biggest problem with the prequels is how they focus on Anakin as a main character at all. Before the prequels were ever in production I always thought Obiwan would be the main focus for the first three episodes. He would have been a character in the style of Luke from the OT: young, inexperienced and making honest, yet tragic mistakes. Instead, we get crap for the first three episodes.

That reminds me, the worst back-story elements expanded in the prequels are the "Clone Wars" themselves. When Luke and Obiwan talked about the "wars" they sounded like a long succession of individual wars that involved many different everyday people from around the galaxy. Instead, we get a single war that took place between totally expendable robots and totally expendable clones. I'm now surprised Luke would have thought that anyone would have fought in the clone wars, much less ask if Obiwan ever did. Well, maybe he would have asked Chewbacca since expendable wookies fought in the Clone War (note not "wars"). So disappointing.

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

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Really if they cut down Jabbas Palace and the especially the Ewoks ROTJ would be up there with ESB. I love ROTJ but i find Jabbas Palace drags on a bit and theres a lot of muppetry going on but i dont mind it so much because its the only time in the series where theres an environment like that and its pretty imaginative. But as soon as Wicket appears i instinctively turn off the film. If i can make it past the first few minutes by the time Han and Luke are being cooked I'm going insane, and then we have all kinds of stupidity that follows like C-3P0's storytime moments and all that leading-up-to-the-battle stuff. If that material had been different the film would have been fantastic! You got the best space battle ever filmed, Luke and Vaders epic confrontation, the Emperor, the forest battle--its all gold. I dont think anyone has ever cared that the focus of the film shifted more towards Luke and Vader or whatever, i think most people like that aspect of it the most.
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Let me reiterate, I still love ROTJ, and I don't rank any prequel above it. I have a method I have been following for quite some time now of everytime I am in the mood for a SW movie, I try to watch SW, then ESB, then ROTJ, and then start over again at SW. In defense of ROTJ, I never watch SW & ESB, and skip ROTJ, or watch it every once in a while, so the movie totally works for me 100% as a trilogy. Last year, just to see this new saga, I tried 1-6, and about halfway through TPM, I started wondering, "Wait a second, everytime I do this 1-6 thing, I have to watch two crap movies, then a somewhat entertaining Episode III just to get to the good stuff in the OT?" I went back to 4-6 and never watched the PT again. And now once Sept 12th comes, I don't have to think of Hayden anymore while watching ROTJ. Yes, I admit I do watch the 2004 SE's, and thats what makes Sept 12th oh more sweet for me.

But if I just look at ROTJ comparing it to SW & ESB, it just lacks something the first two had. I can't describe it, but you know that feeling you have when you are watching a great movie, it just carries that gravitas that you don't second guess anything in it. In ROTJ, I do second guess some things, when I watch the original SW, that movies just carries a sense of joy and overall fun that no movie has ever been able to duplicate. Kenobi owns the first hour of that movie, as the talk between Luke & him in his hut is everything that Lucas did right about the OT. Luke, Leia, and Han have just perfect chemistry on the death star, and the trench run scene is the greatest space battle in movie history that is able to carry a sense of drama, action, and tension for a good 15 minutes. And who doesn't get that little smile on their face as Han & Luke receive their medals from Leia? It is cheesy, but damn it gets me emotionally every time!

And when I watch ESB, I am in a sense of awe of just the whole Cloud City part, Han being frozen, Luke getting his hand chopped off, Vader telling Luke his secret, Leia's relentlessness to find Han, and Lando pulling the greatest 180 of any character, and then Lucas being able to make him likeable to the audience by movies end. Hey George did you forget in the PT how to make characters likeable? When Chewy & Lando pull away and Luke & Leia and the droids look up at them as the camera pans away, you realize how great that movie is. Then you watch the PT, and wonder what the hell happened?

I just think that ROTJ gets lumped in with two classics, and that isn't fair sometimes. It is still great in its own way, and taken as a trilogy you will never see me complain about two classics, and a pretty good third act. Atleast the OT doesn't have 2/3 of its movies being setups. The PT crowd can have their trilogy, I'll be fine with the O-OT for the rest of my life.
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Originally posted by: Tiptup
Even as a kid, I had trouble believing that Lea was ever originally intended to be Luke's sister. I didn't understand the huge need for that kind of a plot development either, since it didn't add very much drama to the series. But, in a strange way, it kind of works in the RotJ plotline. Sort of like fate conspiring to defy the emperor. Plus, I loved that gorgeous music JW wrote for the Luke and Lea theme.


Well, it is my understanding that several elements that were intended for the third trilogy that involved a 50-some-odd-year-old Luke passing the torch on to a new hero, elements that included Luke's sister and a final confrontation with the emperor, were incorporated into RotJ. I guess lucas decided he didn't have enough stuff to make a third trilogy or he just didn't want to do it and scrapped the idea. The element of Leia being Luke's sister plays a very important role in the plot, but it is introduced and handled so poorly throughout the movie until that point, it weakens the film. But when Vader learns of and suggests turning Leia to the dark side, it gives Luke that final step towards the dark side before finally rejecting it. This was necessary for the film, it's just a shame the element is a bit unbelievable and didn't really work so hot with the implied romance stuff in the previous two movies, but what can you do?
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Ah, I've read so many posts in this thread in the past few minutes that I'm not sure what I'm replying to, but as CO made the last post, and that's fresh on my mind, I just want to say that I love the end of ESB. So wonderful. I love the music in that end scene so much. Luke is reunited and made almost whole again. Lando and Chewie are out to explore new worlds. Lando has totally earned my trust at this point, and he looks pretty cool in Han's old vest (I never have seen an action figure in that ensemble, even though I have both Bespin and General Lando). Wonderful ending to my favorite movie in the series. By the way, does anybody know where I can find links to reviews that came out when the movie was first released? I'm dying to read what negative things reviewers could say about it! I can't think of what could be wrong with it!

And I thought the Jabba scene dragged on too long too. But recently I'm thinking that it allows us to have some badly-needed footage of all the good guys working together. Think about it. Luke had spent most of the last movie on his own with Yoda and R2 (not that that's bad, but Yoda was a new character at that point, not an established one) while the other main characters got to spend time with each other, developing the relationships they began in the first movie. And then, it wouldn't be much longer before Luke was gone on his own again with Vader and the Emperor until the very end. Luke really becomes the loner character of the big three in the sequels. And it's the only time getting to see Lando fight alongside Luke and Han since, almost immediately after this point, he's doing his own thing for the rest of the movie. While it's definitely important and finally gives his character a chance to shine, it completely destroys any kind of intercharacter-relationship development that could have been going on. And his character definitely needed that, especially with Han, after the events of the previous movie. It warmed my heart to see them embrace at the end montage and their joking during the passoff of the Falcon, but so much more could have been done with that. It really irked me that Han just accepted Lando's help without so much as a question. At least some banter about Lando's betrayal would have been nice.

And of course, Jedi contains one of the few, really big plot holes in the original trilogy: C-3PO as a storyteller. While I enjoy it because it's interesting, it completely contradicts his claim in the first movie that he's not an interesting storyteller... unless he's being modest. Or at some point during the trilogy, Luke thought it would be cool to install a storytelling chip in his droid to keep him from being so stuffy and annoying (just kidding, I love 3PO... except in the PT where he really is the most annoying character... more so than Jar-Jar... "I'm beside myself," indeed!)

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.

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Return of the Jedi was never as good as the first two. It shouldn't be lumped in with the prequels as parts of it are great. But SW and ESB are rock solid from start to finish and that just isn't true of Jedi. I mean Jedi Rocks sucks, but let's face it Lapti Nek wasn't all that hot in the first place. And the Ewoks did vastly change the tone of the series.

With SW there was a single plot thread (Luke/Han/Leia). ESB had two threads (Luke, Han/Leia). I think there was a draft of ROTJ in which Leia led the Endor mission while Han piloted the Falcon in the DS battle and Luke faced Vader/The Emperor. This would have worked better for me as it would have been nice to see the original three heroes each having a separate responsibility and then being reunited at the end. That and having Kashykk instead of Endor. And Luke doing some training.
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I was toying with an interesting thought the other day. Since Lucas originally wrote the trilogy as one big movie, I had thought about how to edit the films together into one big movie. Obviously, to actually do this would require more than just what I am going to go into here, nor do I think it's a great idea, but it is an amusing mental exercise.

Combining ESB and RotJ is the easiest since ESB ends by setting up the begining of RotJ with Luke going to meet Lando on Tatooine. It would take little more than removing the end credits on ESB and the opening of RotJ. Maybe altering some musical cues and such, but that's all.

Wedding ANH to ESB could be done similarly, but then I realised the best way to hook them together...

Cutting out the Battle of Yavin.

I know, I know, but here's the thing: part of the reason RotJ is weaker than the other two is because the Empire built another Death Star. I remember when I first saw that movie and saw that in the opening crawl and at the tender age of twelve I thought it was lame. Another Death Star?? Fresh out of ideas, are they? I think this is because the destruction of the Death Star was meant to be the big finish for the movie/series but since Lucas was not sure if there would be a sequel, he put the big finish here. Lots of stuff should have been in Jedi. Such as Wookies, but they were put into ANH in case there would be no future movies. So, cut ANH just after the gun port scene, editing the dialog to remove mention of the tracking device and such so they the heroes make a clean getaway to the hidden rebel base, which is not on Yavin, but Hoth where ESB opens.

It's not a seemless fit, natch, and I would hate to lose the third act of ANH, but it does show that a good deal of the trilogy's chips were cashed in a little too early, which left the final chapter a tad weak via the law of diminishing returns.
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Well, Tarkin's sudden disappearance would be evident, as would be the sudden incomplete nature of the Death Star, but I see where you're coming from.

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.

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This idea has been discussed previously on these boards (I think it was in this thread). And rec1aimer did a one-disc edit of the OT.
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Originally posted by: jack Spencer Jr
It's not a seemless fit, natch, and I would hate to lose the third act of ANH, but it does show that a good deal of the trilogy's chips were cashed in a little too early, which left the final chapter a tad weak via the law of diminishing returns.



True, but I wouldn't give up part of the original SW ever. That is what makes the OT way much better than the PT, every movie had to sell themselves, or there wouldn't be a sequel. Lucas had to make SW '77 a standalone movie, or that would be it. ESB had to be great, or the series wouldn't continue. I think he ran out of ideas by ROTJ, hence why there is so much repititive plot points used from the first two movies.

The problem with the PT, and many movie series today, is they usually know there will be sequels, so they hold back on certain things, to keep the movies balanced. And what happens is you get a series of average/ above average movies, that all could have been better. TPM holds back older Anakin, so them movie is handcuffed with a 9 year old boy. AOTC is held back cause Anakin couldn't turn yet, so the movie seems like another setup movie. ROTS has everything thrown into it, and has to cover the every plot point missed in TPM & AOTC, thus feeling rushed.

I know ROTJ is inferior to SW & ESB, but I will take great movies anyday of a good trilogy where no movie really sticks out as great. The OT is a rare trilogy with 2 great movies, I'm thankful that it happened to be the one movie trilogy I truly love.

TPM = Sucks
AOTC= Average
ROTS = Good

ANH = Classic
ESB = Classic
ROTJ = Good

The results speak for themselves.

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Originally posted by: jack Spencer Jr
I tell you what, man. The prequels have been bugging me lately. I think the real problem with them is how poorly they fit with the original trilogy. There is not clear, recurring villian. Part of Star Wars's appeal was how Vader was always giving the heroes a hard time. The prequel's quasi-political web type thing was not a good substitute.

Worse, I think the prequels also weaken the narrative of the entire series. This is a sticking point for most original trilogy fans who dislike the prequels. It would have been on thing, but since these are numbered episodes, it's difficult to ignore the prequels. But they don't work very well when watched in numerical order. So we original trilogy fans are stuck with episodes 4, 5, and 6 with no hope for a 1, 2, 3 to go with them. It is a series that will never be complete. At least as far as the numbering goes.

That said, the material that appears in the prequels works best as it appeared in the original trilogy. That is, as backstory. As stuff that happened before the movies that we learn about as we watch the movies. That said, there was plenty of room to make a good movie here if lucas had done it right, but I don't think his writing skills were up to the challenge. One thing he needed to do was keep the secrets revealed in the original series a frickin' secret. I mean, finding out that Vader was Luke's father at the end of ESB is kind of lame if we'd already watched his parents fall in love and his dad go evil and become Vader and stuff in the first three movies. It seemed like Lucas was way too interested in showing us stuff to realise that sometimes things should be hidden. Like in the Ocean's Eleven remake. They had a plan and throughout the movie they were doing stuff for the plan, but the audience didn't know how it all fit together until the end of the movie after they had pulled it off. Vader's identity should have been handled like that.

The sad thing is if Lucas had just gone back to his original inspiration, the serials, he would have seen this. A villian (or hero) with a secret identity was standard fare in the serials. Take Adventures of Captain Marvel for example. This one had a group of scientists who had uncovered a powerful McGuffin in an ancient tomb. It turns out that one of them wants the McGuffin for himself, but which one? As a villian, he dons a robe and mask and his voice is dubbed over. Why? I don't know as the villian always sent henchmen to do his dirty work. In any case, the plot becomes a ten little indians as the scientist are one-by-one killed by the villian ("Whelp, I guess this one ain't the bad guy 'cause he's DEAD!") until only two are left. These two, who are roughly similar in appearance, go back to the tomb and with both their faces in shadows, one reveals to be the villian and kills the other. They tended to cheat a lot in the serials, but i think this could have been a useful device in the prequels.

Dig this: set up some guy is bumping off Jedi Knights. Maybe they know the guy's name, maybe not. Obi Wan has two pupils. Anakin Skywalker and... some other guy. We'll call him Qui-Gon Jin Qui-Gon is further along in his training and is chaffing to continue to be under his master's tutelage. Anyway, they attempt to find this jedi-killing guy, right and they go down to a planet with no/poisonous atmosphere and put on breather masks like shown here: here. This will hide their faces so we won't know what happened when one kills the other. Obi-Wan than comes upon the scene but only finds some clothing and lightsabres. Anakins lightsabre. So he thinks the bad guy killed them both until he confronts Vader on the rim of a volcano crater. Vader still keeps his face hidden but does mention to Obi-Wan that he was a former apprentice. We see the realization slowly dawn in Obi Wan's eyes and he whispers "You..."

Now, the point here is that who Vader is remains a secret to those who've never seen the original trilogy. (Don't laugh. More are born every day) And at this point we are sort of led to believe that Vader is Qui-Gon, particularly when Skywalker's son becomes center to the conflict.

This is just my own meager talent assessing and concocting solutions to the problem with writing the prequels to these movies, and how much better they could have been if lucas still had good writers taking his ideas and doing good things with them.


Excellent post. All of the mysteries that were revelealed during the course of the OT could have remained mysteries through the prequels. I've been giving this some thought and additionally, Padme could have been put into hiding by Obi-Wan. We would know only know that she was pregnant, but not that she was to have twins. Unbenownst to Anakin, Obi-Wan fakes her death to protect her and her unborn child as the Jedi are mysteriously being killed by a black cloaked figure known only as Darth Vader (perhaps it's known that he is a jedi, or maybe not). Anakin forsees Padme's death, not knowing that what he is forseeing is a deception designed to protect her. As he has relied on Obi-Wan to protect Padme, he blames Obi-Wan for her death. Anakin also does not know of her pregnancy. Also, Palpatine being a Sith Lord could have remained unclear at the end of Episode III. It appears in IV that Tarkin never knew of Palpatine being a Sith Lord by the comments he makes about the Jedi. I always believed this was because the Emperor kept his identity as a Sith Lord a guarded secret, using Vader to do his dirty work.

I just can't imagine watching the series in order from 1 to 6. The first three tell all, and leave no great revelations for the last 3.
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I think it's interesting to note the relationship of the quality of the movies to the Producer. I,II,III - Rick McCallum. IV,V - Gary Kurtz. VI - Howard Kazanjian. IV,V,VI Special Editions - Rick McCallum.

What do you think?

I just wonder what they would have been like if Gary Kurtz had been producer for all the movies.
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Why is everyone always bashing Rick McCallum?
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I don't mind that the secrets are given away in the prequels simply because we're not supposed to see them first! We watch the OT. All the secrets are revealed over the course of the trilogy. We're enraptured. We think, "Wow. That's all pretty cool. I wonder how that happened?" Enter the prequels. Like in a mystery novel, this is supposed to be the part at the end where the genius detective shows up and says, "And this is how it happened..." going step by step through the process leading up. It's backstory. It exists only to expand on the original stories, not to be stories on their own.

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.