DarkFather

I'm an adult. Ewoks fail to appeal to me. So we have a whole army in a "war" that I'm supposed to be rooting for that doesn't appeal to me, and the storm troopers are dumber than shit. Han, Leia, and Lando are blander than all hell. So I'm not inspired to root for them. Fisher was on drugs or something, and lost her ability to act. Harrison is as bored as I am, and he wanted his character to die so he could be done with the mess.

Then there's the space battle. It was decent, I'm not going after that.

Vader as a villain has nothing more going for him... he's a puppy on a leash. The main villain we're supposed to be scared of I guess, is a cardboard cut-out. He's so remarkably cliche and predictable that all sense of menace gives way to a laughable quality about him. Someone I think on this forum called him a "used care salesman for the dark side", and that sums it up greatly.

So... there's an absence of a side to really root for. There's an absence of any villain that you can take seriously.

The only parts that I find myself liking are Fisher showing some skin, and some of the Vader VS Luke duel.

Though when he "flips out" on Vader for mentioning his sister, Luke swings his saber around like a dumbass with a baseball bat.

And then there's the whole half regurgitated Death Star scenario. Why did there have to be yet another Death Star as the main threat from the Empire? Talk about lazy.

 I had a feeling you were going to bitch about the ewoks. I don't see what the big deal was.

I had a feeling you'd give some generalized, half-baked response.

If you want to go see an acurate portral of what war is like, go see Black Hawk Down or other movies like that.

I never asked for extreme realism. Like you yourself say in the next sentence, it needed more credibility. I'd say a lot more credibility.

but that was not the focus of the movie.

I daresay it was a pretty HUGE focus of the movie.

but I think wookies would've been to intelligent of a race for the empire to ignore.

They were worried about technological resources, not the inherent intelligence of the race (which I've pointed out, the Ewoks seem to display the potential to be equally intelligent as the canon Wookiees we have now).

The point of Star Wars is not to nitpick the logic of the movie.

Stop gourging yourself on whatever drug makes you think I'm "nitpicking." Nitpicking is going after tiny, innocuous details, whereas I point out the fatal flaws.

Star Wars is meant to be in its own world.

If only ROTJ had been in the same world as ANH/ESB, instead of taking a trip to Disney World.

What say you to the rest of my criticism?

You know what? I'm going to go ahead and start stating my reasons for disliking ROTJ. This is me warming up, so rest assured I've hardly even started.

Lucas says the reason he didn't use Wookiees in ROTJ is that he wanted a technologically inferior race. That makes little sense to me. Why couldn't Chewbacca be one of the few of his race that wandered off to learn the mainstream customs? Some might argue that the race on Endor wasn't intended to have the capacity to do such, because Lucas wanted not only a technologically inferior race, but a genetically inferior race (?) which would all be speculation, and ultimately false, since we see that the Ewoks in the film are more than capable of constructing sturdy homes, weapons, traps, and at least Paploo seemed to show the potential of being a skilled speeder driver when taking into account when he hopped onto that speeder it was most definitely his first time being on one.

So what we do have is a technologically inferior race with the potential to be more. So... there goes the whole "official" reason for not having Wookiees instead of teddy bears.

I think Lucas saw that what Kershner and team had done with ESB was make it into something that more leaned toward adults. In all of his "compotent" decision making, he decided it to have the other way around... for the CLIMAX OF A GALACTIC WAR. We see one dead Ewok. The implication of more being dead is highly debatable. None of the heroes die or suffer any great loss or sacrifice. And don't try saying the death of Anakin makes up for all of that... he gets to return of a Force Ghost, which undermines the fact that when you are dead, you are dead. There is no true loss there. Also remember that he was hardly a sympathetic character until you know, the last few minutes of the film. So even if he didn't return as a Force Ghost, only an ultra-emotionally-sensitive viewer would feel any sense of "loss" at the death.

Did you even bother following the discussion before making that post?

Discussion about films comes down to whether you liked it or not. The rest is laying out your reasons for your preferance and trying to win others over to your preferance. That's pretty much all it comes down to.

What I was doing is trying to talk some sense into people who use the majority's opinion to form their own. It's a shoddy defense, and it constrains a fan from thinking for themselves. It's unfortunate.

I'd like to see Janskeet's response to the SHH poll before really delving into my reasons for not liking ROTJ.

Also your largest access to sock puppets, juvenilles who vote a film 1 or 10 without much reflection, and spam.

I took a poll on one of the largest internet forums for escapist entertainment: Superherohype. The moderators there crack down on sock puppets and the like. They are the most indescriminate team of moderators on a forum I've ever seen.... I've seen them ban popular, loved, veteran members for the same reasons they'd ban a n00b for breaking certain rules. It's hard to go under the radar when having multiple accounts there. Also the posters there are going to be far more articulate than the posters at IMDB:

http://forums.superherohype.com/showthread.php?t=321877

Empire won by a landslide. Every other film was all but left in the dust.

But since we're talking about the ultimately subjective discussion of quality of a sci-fi/fantasy film, doesn't the extreme-belovedness is has garnered count for something?

It doesn't count for ass when forming my opinion.

If you feel you need to use the kindergarten logic of majority appeal ("More people are on my side therefore I must be right!!"), I seriously suggest looking somewhere else rather than IMDB. At least use a bad argument with a good source rather than having bad on both sides.

And that can't be said of Empire Strikes Back, plus more?

"Reasonable appeal to the majority." No. Appeal to the majority is one of the absolute lamest paths to go. Because a bunch of people like it, doesn't make it right. I personally refuse to base my opinion of a film based on what the majority likes. That's called being a sheep.

Now, I like The Dark Knight. So did most everyone who bought tickets to see it. However, the fact I like it isn't contingent on what the majority thought about the film. It means I watched it, and I liked it. Period.

If more people agree with you about a subject than me, I hope you realize that means nothing.

Janskeet said:

DarkFather said:

Janskeet said:

Well I think ALL 3 of the OOT movies are masterpeices, yes including ROTJ. I'm sick of people denouncing ROTJ like it is the OT ugly duckling. It was great. Just as good as the first two. I don't pay attention to any of the other SW stuff out there. 

 

Hang around me for a while, then. You'll be throwing up quite often.

It was "great" to you. Which sounds ridiculous to me, since to me, it sucked.

Well ROTJ is currently #110 on the imdb top 250.  So statistically many more people agree with me than with you. Why did you not like it? I don't think it was that out of line from the previous two movies like the prequels were and since I first saw it when I was twelve it was always pretty much what I expected the conclusion of the story to be like. Was it just the superficial stuff like the ewoks and Jabba or was it more like the cinematic elements like the pacing, editing, and cinematography?

You're using IMDB as a majority appeal. You must out of your mind.

I'm the other way around.

Blackjack, do you watch AVGN?

Plus you have 2 sites to keep people in the dark tfn and starwars.com.

If anyone is still in the dark at TFN, it's people willingly being in the dark. There are enough bashers running rampant over there right now that it's no longer the TFN most people on here remember it as.

I'm in the process of making a video for YouTube explaining that the more control Lucas has over a film, the more mediocre or plain unwatchable it is. He's a great idea machine... sometimes. But he's not remarkably talented as say a director or writer.

Well I think that's common knowledge by now.

"A young Jedi named Darth Vader, who was a pupil of mine before he turned to evil, helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi Knights."

That's how the quote goes, I think.

How could he be a Jedi while hunting down and killing other Jedi? I would think that his actions against the order would make him something else entirely.

I think it means he was young when he first became a Jedi (not necessarily making Obi-Wan substantially older).

There's nothing to indicate how old Vader was when he fell, how long he had been a Jedi, or how long his quest lasted. Anakin could have been in hiding for years and years before conceiving Luke. It's not like it all happened on the day Luke was born (pretty much the impression we get from the retcons we have now).

Ever seen a karate instructor working with a white belt that was the same age as them or even older? The student is still considered a "pupil." And even if you wanted to say that the title pupil should only be reserved for younger students in this sense, it could be Obi-Wan's way of subtly demeaning his treachorous apprentice in his own mind.

But since the whole thing is revealed to be a lie by the end of ESB, Obi-Wan's revelations to Luke in ANH about Vader aren't holy scripture. What we see in the original ghost scene of ROTJ does seem to indicate they were roughly the same age.

So no matter how you want to approach the OOT when ignoring the PT, there's only evidence for Vader being old.

And if you want to go by just the original Star Wars (1977), without the retcons of the following films, we don't know enough to conclude either way.

"moral wisey wisey nicey nicey"

o_O ..... Moral? He was a disgruntled idealist. He was definitely one of the grayer Jedi. Wise? Somewhat. Nice? Partly, but I wouldn't say overall.

He blatantly cheated in the dice game with Watto. A goody-goody would've accepted fair play all around.

Qui-Gon was like the only one who reflected what the audience thought of Jar-Jar ("the ability to speak does not make you intelligent") and kept him in line (catching his tongue at the dinner table). A goody-goody would've probably smiled and played along with the antics, or acted like Jar-Jar was just like everyone else.

He cut off one of Obi-Wan's comradey joke to him about Anakin ("another pathetic life form") A goody-goody would've said something like "I think you'll see that he's a great kid once you get to know him!"

He was more than willing to draw lines with the queen ("no more orders from your highness today") A goody-goody would've said "Okay" right off the bat.

The only thing close to a "goody goody" in the PT was Lloyd's Anakin.

rcb said:

i dunno. the heavy voice and evil in vader doesn't amount to a old man to me.

Old men can't be evil? His voice is the result of a changer and amplifier in his mask. That was made obvious enough in ROTJ.

he's not  a grumpy old grandpa.

Nobody ever said he was. Try "evil, aged enforcer for the Empire."

Ah, yes. How could I forget? The radio dramas. They're on my list. As are the old Marvel comics. Though I'm not finished with Volume 1 of the Dark Horse re-release of them.

Janskeet said:

Well I think ALL 3 of the OOT movies are masterpeices, yes including ROTJ. I'm sick of people denouncing ROTJ like it is the OT ugly duckling. It was great. Just as good as the first two. I don't pay attention to any of the other SW stuff out there. 

Hang around me for a while, then. You'll be throwing up quite often.

It was "great" to you. Which sounds ridiculous to me, since to me, it sucked.

It's not as simple to say "I'm a Star Wars fan." There are so many countless facets of Star Wars, that you have to be specific if you want others to get a good idea of your preferances.

I love ANH & ESB. With ANH, I choose Adywan's edit, and for ESB, I'm stuck with the official Special Edition right now.

I'm an active detractor of ROTJ.

I dislike the PT, and will likely never watch any of those three let-downs again.

I've been optimistic about Star Wars: The Clone Wars since before its premiere on Cartoon Network, and it payed off. I really enjoy the series.

So 20 years older than the Anakin we have now. I don't know if that's true of the original scripts, but I do like the idea of an old Vader.

If Anakin were older in the prequels, there's a better chance we could have been spared from his ridiculous teenage tantrums.

Hayden's toddler tone when speaking only made it worse.