Vaderisnothayden

rcb said:

Vaderisnothayden said:

Obviously Sebastian Shaw couldn't play Anakin, but they could have found somebody appropriate for the role. Shaw left his mark on the character, but the character wasn't as locked to Shaw as Spock was to Nimoy. As such it would have been perfectly ok to have a younger actor to play the character if they'd gotten somebody appropriate. But they didn't. We always knew a younger actor would have to play Anakin, that was the deal from the start, way back in the days the OOT was coming out. Whereas Spock was just Nimoy, plain and simple, defined by him to a great degree and played by him in endless hours of tv/film, very different from playing one scene, however significant.

As it is, there was a lot more wrong with the prequels than just the casting of Anakin, but the awful writing and acting for Anakin was one of the worst things about it. A better actor, with different writing and directing could have turned out an Anakin that worked. But Spock IS Nimoy and it's not ok to give the role to someone else for more than flashback scenes and little stuff like that. The planned Star Wars prequels (which would have been different from the ones we got), with their younger version of Anakin played by a younger actor, were part of the planned Star Wars saga long before the OT was completed and before Shaw got the role. But this Star Trek movie wasn't on the horizion until recent times when they decided to go back and fuck up the old characters wth bad imitations. There's a marked difference in the Anakin and Spock situations.

However it WASN'T ok to give the Anakin role to Hayden Christensen, who fucked it up totally. And similarly, Quinto gets Spock totally wrong. Quinto's Spock is an insult to the character and the fans of the character, just as Hayden's Anakin was an insult to Vader/Anakin and to Star wars fans. It would have been better to have no prequels than ones in which the character of Anakin was so ruined. And it would have been better to have no new Trek than to have the character of Spock crapped on like that.

 

 really though, u'd be saying the same thing about any other actor that took the place of anakin or spock. so, either way, u'd be complaining. on the bright side u could have a different screen name.

What's your proof that I'd be saying the same thing about any other actor who took the Anakin role? You have no proof of that. Whatsoever. The situation with Hayden is not merely the situation of an actor other than Shaw taking the role. It's a situation in which an especially inappropriate actor was given the role. There are many actors I would have been happier with. So no I wouldn't necessarily have been complaining. You'd do well not to make careless statements about me that are not based on any proof.

As for the Spock situation, I would not have been happy with the role being given to somebody other than Nimoy, but it could have been better than it is. They could have picked somebody better than Quinto.

And C3PX is right, your use of "u" for "you" is annoying.

generalfrevious said:

Ok, I recant my previous statements. But let me ask you a question, vaderisnothayden- do you think that the PT are the three worst films in the history of cinema? And BTW, I never said the PT was any good in the first place. Yet I think that some people here on the site are unhinged, and IMO just as bad as GL in his treatment of the OT. And yes, I have acted pretty hyperbolic myself in prior years, but I realize now that this way of thinking is counterproductive to the debate. Anyways, I AM NOT praising the PT/SE or fan gushing over Lucas, but I feel some persons make the PT out to be some great human atrocity instead of just a couple of bad movies. And that is what I was trying to say. Flame on...

There are worse movies than the PT (anything by Jennifer Lynch, for example). But the PT is more than just a few bad movies. Because Star Wars was a classic beloved of millions and the PT totally screwed it up. That's not the case with most bad movies. If it was just a few bad movies, we wouldn't feel so strongly about it.

I don't think it's at all counterproductive to criticise the PT. There's a whole massive horde of fans out there who think the PT is the greatest thing and there's critics and other writers who praise/defend the PT films, particularly ROTS. And there's a whole Lucasfilm industry pushing the PT as the real Star Wars story while the OOT is crapped on. As long as all that's going on, criticism of the PT needs to be heard as a counterweight.

Ziz said:

Are you a politician, or were you one in a former life?  Because you just went out of your way to say basically nothing except to try and guilt me into thinking highly of you.

FAIL.

Stop trying to force yourself to sound intelligent and answer my original question - what do you consider a "good" show that shouldn't have been cancelled?

Why should I answer your question? Your question was just an attempt to get me to play be your rules and do your thing (and came from the assumption that what I had already posted wasn't contributing or valid so that I needed to post to your specifications to be contributing). Why should I play by your rules and do your thing? Especially after you'd just been hostile to me? I wanted to state my divergent opinion on Firefly's cancellation, so I did. I had no interest in listing Fox shows I liked, so I didn't.

Also, it's inaccurate to say that I went out of my way to say basically nothing. I went out of my way to counter the mistaken and offensive attitudes expressed in your statement to me. The issues in question matter to me. So, far as I'm concerned, I said quite a lot of significance. Maybe the issues involved don't matter to you, but they do to me. Nor did any of what I said have anything to do with guilting anybody into thinking highly of me -don't know where you got that idea.

As for forcing myself to sound intelligent, I wasn't forcing myself to sound anything. Though it could be said I was trying to force myself to be patient in the face of your unwarranted hostility.

Just because a person's post doesn't do exactly what YOU want it to do doesn't mean it qualifies as "FAIL".

Do you always get aggressive and rude with people who express opinions you don't like or who don't choose to do exactly what you want them to do in a conversation?

Edit: Jeez, I even apologized to you for my view bothering you, in my last post, and you still continued to be rude and aggressive with me. Nice one. So much for my attempt to be conciliatory.

Gaffer Tape said:

Hardly a big deal, I think, and I'm a fan of Firefly.  I love Firefly.  Had I known it existed when it first aired, I would have watched it religiously and campaigned to save it when it was at death's door.  However, VINH is totally within his rights to have wanted it and want other shows to be cancelled.  It's his opinion, and it doesn't change what happens.  Hell, I wish American Idol and several other reality shows would be cancelled and never spoken of again even though many people I know like them.  Am I somehow spoiling their fun by wishing those shows' demise?  No.  Granted, in their case, they can laugh all the way to the TV since those shows are in no danger of being cancelled, but no matter how much VINH hates Firefly, I can always pop in my DVDs and marvel over how wonderful it is.  Whatever...

 Thank you. :) Now that's the reasonable way for a Firefly fan to react to my view.

C3PX said:

Personally, I think the word "overrated" is vastly overrated. At the end of the day it really doesn't have a lot of meaning behind it. There are many things that I absolutely love that others couldn't care less about, and many things they care about I couldn't care less about. Likely in their opinions my crap is overrated, and in my opinion their crap is overrated.

Well that thinking runs by the assumption that it's all subjective and relative. I don't subscribe to that view. I think some things are good and some things are bad and that if something gets considered to be better than it actually is then it's overrated.

I said everybody in AOTC came off false. The literal truth is that not everybody did, but most characters did. Anakin and Padme came off utterly insincere and false. Kenobi came off like a pretentious poser. Yoda came off false, as he generally does in the prequels. Mace Windu generally doesn't come off genuine much anywhere in the prequels. Jango does not ring true as a character and nor does Baby Boba. The cloner aliens came off false. Bail Organa comes off like a moral-posing poser. Watto and Dex, being cartoon characters in a supposedly live-action Star wars film, do not come off real. Shmi didn't come off very real in TPM and comes off less real here. Zam Wessel didn't come off as much of anything. Daddy Lars is the only distinctly genuine character I can think of in the film. Owen and Beru don't come off as much of anything. I suppose 3PO and R2 are ok, but it's not like they stand out as especially genuine or false, they just run through an unoriginal routine. Dooku comes off like a pretentious poser, but maybe he's supposed to. Similarly Palpatine isn't supposed to come off genuine. These two coming off false, however appropriate, doesn't help in a film where most other characters come off false. The separatist aliens certainly don't ring true, and nor do the various jedi who appear. The jedi librarian Jocasta Nu comes off like a poser. You'd be hard put to find much in the way of genuine characters in this film. So loosely speaking it can be said that "everybody comes off false". It may be an exaggerration in the strictest sense, but it's not much of one. Hardly huge hyperbole that needs pointing out. 

Obviously Sebastian Shaw couldn't play Anakin, but they could have found somebody appropriate for the role. Shaw left his mark on the character, but the character wasn't as locked to Shaw as Spock was to Nimoy. As such it would have been perfectly ok to have a younger actor to play the character if they'd gotten somebody appropriate. But they didn't. We always knew a younger actor would have to play Anakin, that was the deal from the start, way back in the days the OOT was coming out. Whereas Spock was just Nimoy, plain and simple, defined by him to a great degree and played by him in endless hours of tv/film, very different from playing one scene, however significant.

As it is, there was a lot more wrong with the prequels than just the casting of Anakin, but the awful writing and acting for Anakin was one of the worst things about it. A better actor, with different writing and directing could have turned out an Anakin that worked. But Spock IS Nimoy and it's not ok to give the role to someone else for more than flashback scenes and little stuff like that. The planned Star Wars prequels (which would have been different from the ones we got), with their younger version of Anakin played by a younger actor, were part of the planned Star Wars saga long before the OT was completed and before Shaw got the role. But this Star Trek movie wasn't on the horizion until recent times when they decided to go back and fuck up the old characters wth bad imitations. There's a marked difference in the Anakin and Spock situations.

However it WASN'T ok to give the Anakin role to Hayden Christensen, who fucked it up totally. And similarly, Quinto gets Spock totally wrong. Quinto's Spock is an insult to the character and the fans of the character, just as Hayden's Anakin was an insult to Vader/Anakin and to Star wars fans. It would have been better to have no prequels than ones in which the character of Anakin was so ruined. And it would have been better to have no new Trek than to have the character of Spock crapped on like that.

When did I say it was worse than the Holocaust? I never said anything of the sort.

As for accusation of being hyperbolic, let's look at what I said:

"ROTS was so bad it beggars belief."

-literal truth. It's unbelievably bad. In other words, it's hard for me to believe Lucas made it so bad. I'm still trying to get used to the fact that he made it so bad. So it does beggar belief.

"I expected it to be bad, based on my experience with AOTC and the trailers which had Hayden's I-frown-therefore-I-am-evil acting and some bullshit about "he is the chosen one"."

-again, nothing there that's not literal truth. And Hayden's acting in it did involve a lot of I-frown-therefore-I'm-evil.

"But it was way worse than I expected."

-again, literal truth.

"The first time I saw it I had trouble staying awake during the earlier part because it was so fucking uninvolving."

-literal truth. True account of what happened in my first watching of the film.

"ROTS is bad in whole new inventive ways."

-literal truth. It is. I'm not going to go into those ways here, but it is very inventive in finding ways to be bad.

"Hayden's performance was like a nightmare."

-Anakin and Vader being so horribly portrayed onscreen in a major Star wars movie would definitely qualify as a literal nightmare if some Star wars fan who cared about Star Wars dreamed it in a dream back before the prequels came out, so nothing hyperbolic here. It's a pretty accurate description and not over the top, considering how bad the acting was and how important the character is.

"Natalie's performance was like a nightmare."

-Similarly, if back before the prequels some dedicated Star Wars fan was having a peasant sleep and suddenly along came a dream in which Luke and Leia's mother was portrayed as incredibly stupid and incredibly lame plus weak and ineffectual (accurate description of how the character was played, NOT an exaggerration), then that dream would definitely count as a nightmare. So we're not dealing with hyperbole here. I wasn't exaggerrating how bad it was.

"Ian's hamming was horrific."

-straightforward statement of fact. It WAS horrific.

"Mace Windu was a pain the butt and so was fake Yoda."

-well, I didn't actually feel a literal pain my arse, but figuratively speaking they sure were.

"Everything about the movie was terrible."

 -well, in the strictest literal sense you might find something about the movie that wasn't terrible, but it's amazing how many different things in the movie were awful one way or another, so while there might technically be a bit of hyperbole here, there's not much. Most things about the movie were terrible one way or another. It was that bad. So it's a pretty accurate description and not really over the top.

"But I had to see it again, to understand how it managed to be so terrible and to make sure my first impression was fair. And there are times in my consideration of Star Wars when I have to go back to it to understand something better about what went wrong with Star Wars or the differences between the OT and PT."

-statement of fact.

"And by now I can get some amusement out of its moments of maximum lameness (sing "IIIIII have the hiiiigh grouuuund")."

-maximum lameness is a pretty accurate description. The film really does look like they tried to maximize the lameness.

"And I really do get a kick out of better understanding its fucked-upness. Star Wars being turned into shit is a matter of considerable emotional importance to me, and I like to understand it."

-it IS fucked up, not an exaggerration. And while Star Wars was not in a literal physical sense turned to shit (Lucas did not transmute old OT negatives to bodily wastes), turned into shit is an accurate figurative description of what happened to Star Wars.

"AOTC is pretty damn bad too. It's utterly flat, with zero real feeling, and everybody in it comes off 100% false."

-no exaggerration there. Well, maybe if you looked you could find somebody who doesn't come across false, but the important characters do and that's what I meant. I couldn't find any depth of feeling in it whatsoever, hence "zero real feeling". And it IS utterly flat. I meant what I said. I wasn't exaggerrating.

"And there's so much uninvolving action (Jedi vs droids, clones vs droids, lightsaber battles, zzzz) and the awful Yoda vs Dooku swaggering match, complete with howling bouncing Yoda."

-zero exaggerration here.

"And of course the romance, if it can be called that, which must be one of the worst romances ever put on screen."

-literal truth. The romance is so false it's questionable whether it deserves to be called a romance. There was nothing romantic about it. It was two people coming off totally false and lame. And as much as it could be called a romance it must indeed be one of the worst ever put onscreen.

"And let's not forget the stupid pointless droid factory obstacle course video game sequence."

-no hyperbole there either.

So I don't see all this hyperbole you see in it. And I certainly never said anything like it was worse than the Holocaust, nor would I. I take the Holocaust seriously. Nor was anything I said at all like saying the prequels were worse than the Holocaust, either in terms of hyperbole or in terms of offensiveness. I think the main hyperbole here is in your assessment of my post.

C3PX said:

I am pretty sure when they talk about the Imperial Navy, they are talking about the Imperial military in general. You never hear them mention the Imperial Air Force or Imperial Army, the Stormtroopers are all soldiers on board Navy vessels, makes sense they'd be considered Navy.

Typically in science fiction, ground troop types, whether they fight on ships or on planets, are not referred to as Navy. "Navy" is usually reserved for the space equivalent of what would be air force and navy in our world. The usual term for something like the stormtroopers would be marines or army. You get a lot of "space marines" in science fiction. As it stands, with the stormtroopers clearly intended to be clones and Luke referring to conscription into the imperial navy, it does look like navy does not mean stormtroopers here. Also, the fact that Luke's skills were particularly in the area of piloting would suggest he was talking about being conscripted as an imperial pilot.

Also, the stormtroopers are not necessarily all soldiers on navy vessels. There would have to be planet-stationed soldiers too and we see some on Endor. Also, being on navy vessels does not necessarily mean you're classified as navy -not all countries classify their marines as navy, and even when they do, casual usage of the term "navy" generally refers to more typical navy people rather than marines.

"Imperial army" is certainly a term I'm familiar with re Star Wars, as is "imperial military". They could use either of those terms if they meant just the military in general or the ground troops. The separation between ground troop types and navy is demonstrated by the imperials having both navy type titles like Admiral (Admirals Ozzel, Piett) and land-type titles like General (General Veers). Veers is clearly not navy or he'd have a navy type title. He has a land-type title and is clearly army or marines. At least in the expanded universe there is a term "imperial marines", and they are stormtroopers but not the main body of stormtroopers. The classic imperial Navy is guys in grey and black uniforms with caps, plus the guys in black or grey with the open-faced broad black helmets that look a bit like the rebel helmets at the start of ANH. Also the the gunner guys with the closed helmets like who fired the death star guns.

Btw, here's the Star Wars Official Poster Monthly article that was the first known public mention of Stormtroopers being clones: http://www.theforce.net/image_popup/image_popup_global.asp?Image=timetales/misc/arcana/post4-03.jpg

You have to scroll sideways to get to the relevant article. Also, in 1977 Lucas said there are some female stormtroopers, though the writers of this article don't seem to have gotten that memo.

C3PX said:

Maybe it is just me, but I think it would be silly to conscript officers but mass produce cloned humans for your regular joes. Why wouldn't all the officers be clones too? You have to admit, this whole mess is very poorly thought out. If you have the technology and resources to makes vasts armies of clones, you'd obviously want to aim for mass producing the best soldier you can possibly find (obviously, judging by the general intelligence level of a Stormtrooper, the Empire and I don't see eye to eye on this one), so if you are able to mass produce the perfect soldier, why wouldn't you simply use this same perfect soldier for your commanding officers as well?

Maybe Lucas was just as retarded back then as he is now, only back then retarding things like this clone nonsense was simply not known by everyone. The whole idea of a clone army sounds cool, a military that consists entirely of the best soldier they could get their hands on... but that is clearly not what we see on screen, and this just makes the Empire look way more incompetant and stupid than it should.

Conscripting navy who are not stormtroopers does not necessarily mean conscripting officers. We see a share of guys (on the death star and star destroyers) with revealed faces who are obviously not clones and are not in officer uniform, and the TIE fighter pilots are not stormtroopers and could be conscripts too. Obviously, the navy officers we see are not clones, but we have nothing to indicate whether they've been conscripted or not.

With the imperial army, we see a fair dose of land officers (like Veers and guys on Endor (as we can see from this, black or grey uniforms with caps can be army as well as navy, despite the different titles marking them as separate)) and judging from those land officers, such officers are not clones, but we don't know if they've been conscripted.

Maybe Lucas considered clones to be considered a lower order of being by the empire and thus not fit for officer status. But we don't know how serious Lucas was about the clone thing way back. I think he may have had some conflicting ideas for Star Wars backstory. In modern times (2006), Leland Chee, the Lucasfilm canon authority, has said "You're never going to know what George's view of the universe beyond the films at any given time because it is constantly evolving.". That last bit is kind of a kick in the balls for the Lucas-had-the-same-story all along myth. Like, if he goes in for constantly changing his story, wouldn't it have changed between 83 and when he wrote the prequels? Strikes me as rather letting the cat out of the bag.

Not really. The stuff is that bad.

C3PX said:

miker71 said:

having found a bunch of the Marvel comics, I see what you mean about Marvel having disregard for clone status. I guess the clone army is augmented by regular guys, but is that canon?

 

There wouldn't be much point in augmenting a clone army with regular guys, might as well just make a few more batches. I think the real issue here is that vast numbers of us, myself included, never got the memo on the whole silly clone thing, and for years have been thrown by things like Luke's conversation with Biggs stating that he wasn't going to wait around to be drafted into the Imperial Navy.

No where in the films or any the absolute mass quantity of EU I consumed while growing up did I ever come across anything that suggested to me that Stormtroopers were all clones. On the contrary, things like Luke talking about not wanting to be drafted and comics featuring Stormtroopers without their helmets and in other ways expressing individual personalities have always lead me far far away from ever even considering these guys could merely be clones. I also think it adds more of a hard edge to the Empire if they were all conscripts.

Is the idea of all Stormtoopers being clones actually true 1977 canon? I guess there were things to suggest it in early drafts, but there was a whole freakin' deleted scene from the actual movie to suggest they were conscripts.

The imperial navy being conscripts doesn't necessarily mean the stormtroopers were. Remember, in the OT we saw all these guys on the ships without stormtrooper gear and with revealed faces and they weren't clones. Stormtroopers would be more equivalent to marines or army than actual navy. Stormtroopers being clones appears at least as early as the 4th issue of Star Wars Poster Monthly in 1978.

As for the clone armies being expanded with non-clones, that's what the EU goes by these days.

Fight Club was a brilliant movie for a whole load of reasons. It was one the most daring and intense movies out there. It was carefully designed to shake you up and surprise and disturb you and it did that well. There was one kick-in-the-guts scene after another. Films are rarely as distinctive or as unique as Fight Club. Or as vigorous.

Awesome on the cast? The whole idea of recasting the characters was bull and made no sense (no, I'm not suggesting they should have used the original cast, I'm suggesting they shouldn't have gone back to those characters because the only actors who can do them are too old or dead). Those characters acted by different people are different characters. If they didn't pretend they were versions of the same characters it'd be ok. And now there's a situation in which I can come across people gushing about "Spock" and I have to realize they don't mean Spock they mean this awful Sylar counterfeit. It's just ugh. Hayden as Anakin all over again.

EyeShotFirst said:

I watched AOTC about 4 times. It doesn't really work, but I can still watch it. Now ROTS is the movie that really churns my stomach. I have watched 3 times. Only 1 out of those 3 was on my own accord. The other times I was at somebody else's house. I was hoping it was going to be good. AOTC really didn't bother me aside from Yoda and Hayden. But I gave ROTS the benefit of the doubt. I thought just from the poster that "Oh hell yeah, This movie can't suck. When the shit hits the fan George Lucas usually delivers."

My hopes had been bent over a counter and raped. I should have seen it coming. Everybody in the theater clapped and cheered. I was sickened. My family, who I thought had good taste even liked it. My mom thought it was the best one ever. I felt like an outsider when I told them at dinner that I hated it. It wasn't until I found this site that I realized that there are people who hate the prequels.

 

Good avatar, btw.

Thanks, Nien Nunb owns.

 

 

You're welcome. :)

I can understand the frustration over people thinking Revenge of the Shit is the best prequel. A whole dose of reviewers thought it was. One even called it the best Star Wars film since ESB, which REALLY pissed me off. ROTS was so bad it beggars belief. I expected it to be bad, based on my experience with AOTC and the trailers which had Hayden's I-frown-therefore-I-am-evil acting and some bullshit about "he is the chosen one". But it was way worse than I expected. The first time I saw it I had trouble staying awake during the earlier part because it was so fucking uninvolving. ROTS is bad in whole new inventive ways. Hayden's performance was like a nightmare. Natalie's performance was like a nightmare. Ian's hamming was horrific. Mace Windu was a pain the butt and so was fake Yoda. Everything about the movie was terrible. But I had to see it again, to understand how it managed to be so terrible and to make sure my first impression was fair. And there are times in my consideration of Star Wars when I have to go back to it to understand something better about what went wrong with Star Wars or the differences between the OT and PT. And by now I can get some amusement out of its moments of maximum lameness (sing "IIIIII have the hiiiigh grouuuund"). And I really do get a kick out of better understanding its fucked-upness. Star Wars being turned into shit is a matter of considerable emotional importance to me, and I like to understand it.

AOTC is pretty damn bad too. It's utterly flat, with zero real feeling, and everybody in it comes off 100% false. And there's so much uninvolving action (Jedi vs droids, clones vs droids, lightsaber battles, zzzz) and the awful Yoda vs Dooku swaggering match, complete with howling bouncing Yoda. And of course the romance, if it can be called that, which must be one of the worst romances ever put on screen. And let's not forget the stupid pointless droid factory obstacle course video game sequence.

C3PX said:

Vaderisnothayden said:

And who says it's not entertaining to analyze how the films fuck up and laugh at their awful screw-ups?

I do. It seriously doesn't entertain me. I don't enjoy watching crappy movies one bit, except sometimes when they are an amusing level of crappy, to me the PT isn't amusingly crappy, but rather just plain not fun to watch crappy.

I find my time better spent analysing good movies and what they got right. The way I see it, with how little I watch TV and movies, I will most likely die before I even have a chance to finish watching all the good ones, so why spend my time watching the bad ones, especially if I have already seen them before. Unfortunately, I have already seen Ep. 2 and 3, but I don't intend to ever waste time watching them again if I can avoid it.

Well, each to their own. But the prequels are important movies even if they're not good movies. They're supposed to be the Star wars prequels after all. And even if they aren't that, their claim to be that makes them important.

C3PX said:

EyeShotFirst said:

 

But really, I think it is better for Anchorhead to just end it with the OT. He is a happier guy for it. I wish I could be that way. But no, I am OCD, I have to see something complete. I love the Beatles, so I have all of there albums. I love Star Wars so I have them all. I wish I could love only one thing.

 

I agree with this. Anchorhead didn't miss anything by not wasting his time or money on watching any of the prequels beyond The Phantom Menace. That movie was an absolute dog, he had no reason to expect the second one to be any better. I think he may have mentioned elsewhere that he figured he'd go see it if it was met with fantastic reviews and everyone talking about how wonderful it was, but that was not the case.

I don't really get the mentality of watching things that suck so you better understand how they suck, or even the need to see something through to the end even when you don't enjoy it. These things exist to entertain us, if we are not entertained, why even bother? Should I go see everything that sucks and also happens to be mildly related to something I love just so I can understand how it sucks and be able to compare the two? As if that would somehow benefit me in someway. It just doesn't make sense to me.

I have only seen AOTC two times I think, and I feel that is far too many times. Fortunately I only vaguely remember that films, and I certainly don't minds its memory slipping deeper and deeper into the obscure corners of my brain. I really cannot imagine any way how I am better off having seen that film.

 

VINH, don't you think you might be riding Anchorhead a little too hard? It is perfectly fine he thinks Return of the Jedi is crap, he has explained to you why he doesn't like it, and you have written off those reason as irrelevant or inadequate. There is really nowhere else for this particular branch of discussion to go. I know you want to engage the subject more indepth, but I don't think Anchorhead wants to play ball with you on this one. He has said his piece and heard yours, and being the old wise sage type figure my mind's eye probably quite inaccurately precieves him to be, I doubt he will make another post on the subject.

Now, with that said, to step into the conversation myself, I don't think I like Return of the Jedi half as much as you do, but I also seem to like it a good deal more than Anchorhead did. To me it is kind of a mixed bag, on one hand it has some of my absolute favorite parts of the OT, such as the speeder bike chase, the throne room finale, the space battle...*cough* Leia is a gold bikini *cough*, and on the other hand it also contains the parts I personally feel are the absolute worst in the trilogy (I think we have already discussed these at length). To me it certainly isn't worth throwing out the baby with the bath water on ROTJ. I can tolerate choking on a little cheese and fluff in order to enjoy the delicious steak that comes with it.

I don't really get the mentality of watching things that suck so you better understand how they suck, or even the need to see something through to the end even when you don't enjoy it. These things exist to entertain us, if we are not entertained, why even bother? Should I go see everything that sucks and also happens to be mildly related to something I love just so I can understand how it sucks and be able to compare the two? As if that would somehow benefit me in someway. It just doesn't make sense to me.

There's a lot more to be gotten from movies than light entertaiment. Analysis of a movie to tease out its mentality and figure out how it does things can be quite fascinating. And who says it's not entertaining to analyze how the films fuck up and laugh at their awful screw-ups? And the prequels are big for me no matter how much I dislike them, because they're where the Star Wars I love gets conspicuously fucked over and they're what we got instead of the long-promised other Star wars films we wanted all those years. They're a big issue. So I find it relevant to understand them and how they go wrong. And if I'm going to criticise them, I should know the material I'm criticising. You may feel there's no benefit in better knowing the stuff that ruined the franchise we love, but I do find benefit in such knowledge and understanding.

VINH, don't you think you might be riding Anchorhead a little too hard? It is perfectly fine he thinks Return of the Jedi is crap, he has explained to you why he doesn't like it, and you have written off those reason as irrelevant or inadequate.

I wrote them off as inadequate as proof that the film sucks, but I readily acknowledge that they're perfectly good as proof that he doesn't like the film. And it's perfectly reasonable for me to write them off as inadequate in defense of the film I love, as I do feel they are inadequate. He is entitled to dislike ROTJ all he likes, but if he implies that his reasons for disliking it are proof that it is a bad movie then I have a right to defend it against that criticism.

I don't see how I ever rode him too hard. I merely defended ROTJ against his criticism of it and defended my position that common criticsms of it are unfounded and unjust. Also, in my last post, I had to defend and clarify what I was doing, seeing as he seemed to be saying I was saying something I wasn't. And I disagreed with him about what we were both saying, because I didn't share his view of the discussion and I felt the need to make my view of it known. But I don't see that I rode him hard. I thought my behavior was quite reasonable in the situation and quite restrained. I don't feel I was the aggressive one in that discussion. 

On the other hand, I'm inclined to feel he rode me a bit too hard, with his unfounded accusations of trolling and baiting. Earlier on, he started his discussion with me on the ROTJ topic with what I felt was an angry and unnecessarily aggressive tone (though he denied that), but I still didn't expect accusations of trolling and baiting later on, as I felt I was being perfectly civil. I don't feel I wronged him anywhere on this board, but I do feel I have been wronged. I was pretty shocked and offended when I saw that accusation of trolling and baiting.

There is really nowhere else for this particular branch of discussion to go. I know you want to engage the subject more indepth, but I don't think Anchorhead wants to play ball with you on this one. He has said his piece and heard yours, and being the old wise sage type figure my mind's eye probably quite inaccurately precieves him to be, I doubt he will make another post on the subject.

And that is fine with me. My last response to him does not require any response from him. I was merely responding to what he said to me, as is my right. What he said to me needed answering.

And to be honest, I don't know if I'd reply to another aggressive post from Anchorhead. I don't come here for the arguments. I recently left a thread on this board because a poster was getting unnecessarily aggressive with me. I don't intend to leave this thread, but I may avoid replying to anybody who is repeatedly aggressive with me.

(Edit: Yes I asked him why he wouldn't see the later two prequels and tried to convince him to see them, but I don't consider that to be the same debate, because it's going off on a tangent. There was nothing hostile in my attempt to convince him to see them, merely a conviction that people are better off with knowledge than without. Nor was there any hostility in asking him why he wouldn't see them, just an interest in understanding his motivations. But if he doesn't want to discuss that stuff that's his right.)

miker71 said:

 I'm fairly certain there was no UK exclusive strips.

 

 

There were a dose of UK-exclusive Marvel stories. Two collections of them were reprinted in the US in mass market paperbacks as volumes of Marvel Illustrated Books or something like that (way back in the early 80s) and a dose of touched up ones were reprinted in the 2-issue Dark Horse Devilworlds comic series in 1995/1996 or so. The recent huge Luke Skywalker Last Hope of (for?) the Galaxy TPB has at least one Marvel UK story too (stuff that was reprinted in the Marvel Illustrated books back in 81 or so).

I love the imperial troop transport. My grandmother gave me that for my birthday when I was a wee thing.

I thought was a big deal considering these guys were supposed to all be clones, even back then.

 I don't think the clone status was paid much attention to. Marvel ignored it elsewhere.

Bingowings said:

ROTJ was badly written, badly structured, directed in an anodyne way and at times it's painfully cartoonish (Henson style puppets around that time were very much the equivalent to the CGI creatures of today. ESB Yoda = LOTR Gollum, ROTJ Jabba's court = TPM Jar-Jar and most of the Pod Racers including Anakin).

While some of the special effects were amazing achievements those that were were undermined by some really sloppy work mixed in.

If it wasn't for the original cast (some of which are not doing their best) and Ian (who does a lot more work in the film than people give him credit for) it would be just as bad as the PT.

No major characters were killed in ESB but there is a palpable feeling of danger throughout.

Almost every loose end character is dispatched in ROTJ but at no point (even when I was 13) did I feel that our heroes were in serious danger.

The way Yoda is removed from the picture is almost comical in it's current form.

After a few weeks training Luke in the previous film and waiting for him to save Han, Yoda hangs on just long enough to die after a few sentences..."Hi Luke, nice to see you back, I've got a bit of a cough, I'm a bit old, actually I'm going to die right now, oh yeah Vader's your dad...Ben will explain the rest byeee!".

The whole film just feels like a giant post-it note floating in space saying, "Contractual Obligation Finale" in big amber letters.

George Lucas doesn't get Star Wars (he hates the "I know" line).

It's the heavy weight champion of paradoxes.

He gave us all this amazing toy and then charges us cash once in while to watch him smash it in front of us and we still come back for more.

 

ROTJ was badly written, badly structured, directed in an anodyne way and at times it's painfully cartoonish (Henson style puppets around that time were very much the equivalent to the CGI creatures of today. ESB Yoda = LOTR Gollum, ROTJ Jabba's court = TPM Jar-Jar and most of the Pod Racers including Anakin).

ROTJ's writing had some faults, but it was written much better than you seem to be giving it credit for. ESB's Yoda was way better than LOTR's overrated and unconvincing Gollum. Jabba's monsters were way more real than the horrible 2-dimensional cartoon cgi creatures in TPM. Not that there weren't some faults in the Jabba creatures -the Gammoreans weren't always convincing. But give me three dimensional creatures that at least try to be convincing any day over cartoon creatures that look 2d and seemed designed to be comical with no attempt at believability.

If it wasn't for the original cast (some of which are not doing their best)

There's a myth that Harrison did poorly in the film. But I looked very closely at his performance today and it proved to be the best performance in the movie. Leia isn't given a lot of good material, but Carrie Fisher is still good. Mark Hamill is at his best and does a great job maturing Luke. I don't see where they fall short. Lando is good. Kenobi is good. James Earl Jones is great. Quality performances all around.

Ian (who does a lot more work in the film than people give him credit for)

He does a very good job in ROTJ. It's overacting, but it's calculated controlled overacting that works as a believable distinctive character. Whereas his ROTS portrayal includes hamming that's just plain horrific wild hamming and falls flat. I now pretty much roll around laughing every time he does that horrific "gooood" in ROTS. He said "gooood" in ROTJ, but not in that awful overdone way.

it would be just as bad as the PT.

I think there's a lot more than good acting separating ROTJ from the PT. A lot of sincere feeling and heartfelt stuff. A conviction of vision. It's vibrant and alive and feels genuine. Maybe too cutesey at times, maybe a bit childish at times, but the foundation feeling is genuine. Whereas the prequels never ring true. 

The way Yoda is removed from the picture is almost comical in it's current form.

After a few weeks training Luke in the previous film and waiting for him to save Han, Yoda hangs on just long enough to die after a few sentences..."Hi Luke, nice to see you back, I've got a bit of a cough, I'm a bit old, actually I'm going to die right now, oh yeah Vader's your dad...Ben will explain the rest byeee!".

Maybe if you look for a fault there you can find one, but if you don't it works quite well. Luke's final encounter with Yoda and Yoda's death are portrayed well.

The whole film just feels like a giant post-it note floating in space saying, "Contractual Obligation Finale" in big amber letters.

Not at all. The film feels energetic, alive, vivid and heartfelt. There's lots of life and feeling. And the Luke-Vader part is striking stuff. There's tons of sincere real feeling in this movie, so it's way more than fulfilling a contractual obligation.

No major characters were killed in ESB but there is a palpable feeling of danger throughout.

There's a palpable feeling of danger in ROTJ. On the death star. In Jabba's palace. To be honest, I don't find that ESB always has a feeling of danger.

Almost every loose end character is dispatched in ROTJ but at no point (even when I was 13) did I feel that our heroes were in serious danger.

Maybe you didn't, but I did, as much as I felt they were in danger in the previous two films.

George Lucas doesn't get Star Wars (he hates the "I know" line).

It's the heavy weight champion of paradoxes.

He gave us all this amazing toy and then charges us cash once in while to watch him smash it in front of us and we still come back for more.

That much I can agree with, but with regard to more recent things than ROTJ. George did fine in ROTJ as far as I'm concerned. It wasn't perfect, but it was still a great movie.

EyeShotFirst said:

Vaderisnothayden said:

1. I'm never going to watch the second two prequels or the SEs.

Why is that? If you see them you'll understand better what went wrong with the prequels and what has happened to Star Wars. Those last two films are quite an eye-opener. They go wrong so horribly and in so many ways. I find it very interesting to analyze their fucked-upness and their mentality and mood. I think you could get much out of watching them and finding out what people here are talking about. Certainly, I think it is unfair to say ROTJ is similar to "the prequels", which indicates similarity to the dreadful later two prequels (along with the first), without having seen the two films you are comparing it to.

I am sorry but I believe it is better for him to not see them. Watching the prequels is like walking in your parents..... I am not going to finish that, we are adults here.

You basically ask yourself the same questions. "Why did I have to see that?" "Oh god my life is ruined." "I think I am going to be sick."

But really, I think it is better for Anchorhead to just end it with the OT. He is a happier guy for it. I wish I could be that way. But no, I am OCD, I have to see something complete. I love the Beatles, so I have all of there albums. I love Star Wars so I have them all. I wish I could love only one thing.

THE PT films bothered me too, but I'm much happier for having seen them. I'm not happy about what was done in them, but I'm happy I know that stuff and have some understanding of it. You can't know the prequels from having seen just TPM, because TPM is way better than the other two. The awfulness of AOTC and ROTS really needs to be seen. And some amusement can be gleaned from it. I'm into studying the prequels and their faults and I have reached the point where I can get quite a bit of amusement out of lines like "You underestimate my power!" and that crap about the high ground. Better to know something than to not know.

Good avatar, btw.

I have to say, I don't feel Luke going dark in ROTJ was under the surface the entire movie.  In the way Luke is portrayed (acted, written) in ROTJ before he meets the emperor, I see zero sign of the dark side or struggle with it. I know that way back, like when making the film, Lucas said the black outfit was supposed to symbolise Luke's struggle with the dark side. But that sounds to me like just rationalization for putting Luke in a cool outfit, because I see zero struggle with the dark side in ROTJ before he meets the emperor. Luke is calm, collected and balanced. He even tries to negotiate politely with Jabba. He's the model of a good Jedi knight. Yes, he uses a force choke, but seeing as this was set in a portrayal of him that had no sign of the dark side, it ends up suggesting a force choke is ok for jedi to use rather than that Luke was dabbling in darkness. I think if the aim was to portray Luke as having troubles with darkness then they failed. It just doesn't come through. Only once he meets the emperor does he show any sign of the dark side. But his slide toward darkness in the presence of Vader and the emperor is portrayed vey convincingly, so that it works when he goes berserk at Vader.

Noting also, Luke's bionic hand, its damaging and the glove he puts over it is probably to some extent intended to symbolize elements of darkness in him, but this only works once he's in Vader's presence and chops off Vader's own bionic hand. Because actual darkness is nowhere to be seen in Luke earlier in the film. For example, we see him fight a whole bevy of foes in the Jabba section without the slightest sign of anger or lust for battle or going too far. Contrast that with Mace Windu with his I'm-badass act. Luke does look afraid in his fight with the Rancor, and fear leads to the dark side, but it seems so reasonable in that situation that it doesn't make you feel it's a sign of darkness and I doubt it was intended to be a sign of darkness. Nor does he show sign of special aggressive feelings toward the rancor. He does pull a gun on Jabba, which is aggressive, but that scene was getting confrontational anyway and he isn't foaming at the mouth or anything. He looks a bit bothered and aggressive in the speeder bike chase, but hardly unreasonably so, not in a way that looks like a guy losing control of himself. We've been told anger, aggression and hatred are the dark side and they're just not evident in Luke in the film before he meets the emperor. We can take note of the sinister implications of his black glove, but there's no follow-through in the character portrayal. And when he does meet the emperor, it is anger, hatred and aggression that's the problem, the very stuff that was absent before.

If Lucas wanted us to feel Luke was having problems with darkness, he should have shown it somewhere in the various situations he was in which aggression/anger problems might come to the surface in. As it is, it looks like Luke is having no such problems until he meets master manipulator Palpatine, in the presence of his father, while his rebel friends seemingly go to a doom orchestrated by Palpatine. So I don't see Luke as having any struggle with the dark side in ROTJ before he meets the emperor, because I don't feel it any time in the movie before he meets the emperor.

Contrast with dark siders Palpatine and Vader. Vader loses it every time an imperial screws up and then executes the guy. Palpatine seriously flips out once Luke refuses to be turned. This is the dark side. We see none of that in Luke in ROTJ before meeting the emperor. Nor anything like what Anakin showed in AOTC and ROTS. Look at Anakin in the Tusken village, or Anakin in his two fights with Dooku -that's the dark side. Loss of control, anger, malice. Like Luke when the emperor and Vader get him annoyed. But where is that or any hint of it earlier in ROTJ? Luke shows no sign of it. He's marked by distinct self-control. Thus the Luke-struggling-with-the-dark-side subplot does not work, except in his conflict with Vader and the emperor. Personally I suspect it was not something Lucas entered into more than half-heartedly, or else he would have put it more into the film.

There is a bit in the novelization where Yoda tells Luke there was vengeance in his heart when he was saving his friends. But this draws a big "Huh?" from me, because I see no sign of him being especially vengeful. The novelizations include things from Lucas that were for one reason or another not put in the film (maybe rejected? not considered important enough?), but they also include stuff invented by the novel writers. I don't trust the novelizations except where they agree with what's in the film (and then only as a guide to how we might be expected to interpret the film). Here the novelization is coming out with something that isn't supported by the film. 

Some people think the subplot of Luke struggling with the dark side is important part of what's good about the film. Personally, I think the film does fine with what's actually on the screen -the story of a nice guy who usually has no big darkness problems but who gets worked up when faced with the master manipulator who probably corrupted his father and who's orchestrated the probable deaths of his friends. Luke certainly struggles with the dark side when he's in the Death Star and that's enough for the story.

As for ROTS and Anakin's turn, I heartily agree with anybody who says that was badly done. We see clear signs of Annie getting dark as early as AOTC, but his actual turn doesn't work. One minute he's still a good guy and a short while later he's agreeing with Palpatine that jedi are going to attack the senate and he's going off to kill kids (and not Tusken ones he can pretend are animals). If there was a convincing actual transformation in that interval, it might work, like if he suddenly seemed evil and sinister and maybe powerful as soon as he turns, but he seems like a wet noodle right after his turn and then there's Hayden Christensen's lame attempts at making the character seem sinister and evil. Petulant sulks and big frowns do not a dark sider make.

Mind you, by what was indicated in the OT, Anakin should have gone to the dark side after he totally lost it and murdered a whole village in AOTC. I think it's revisionist that he was able to do that without going over too the dark side. Granted, it's supposed to be the first step, but it should have been a lot more than a step. 

The killing of the Tusken kids is a confused area. Clearly we are not supposed to feel it's as serious as killing kids in ROTS. Are we supposed to except Anakin's description of them as animals? After all, it's nasty to kill a whole lot of baby animals, but not as nasty as killing human children. In the OT, aliens are not always taken fully seriously as people. They are more so in the PT. But the Tusken Raiders are still portrayed as just vicious killers, as in them shooting at podracers for no reason. This leaves us in an uncomfortable position. We're in the new revised Star Wars universe that is full of increased integration of aliens and increased inclusiveness, but here we seem to be expected to treat the massacre of a bunch of alien children as not so serious. As if it's a mistake but not a cardinal sin. Padme just shrugs it off, while she's horrified by his ROTS child-killing. That double standard does not sit well the implied attitude of the prequels towards aliens.

C3PX said:

xhonzi said:

CO, you really need an Avatar.  You've been around too long to still look like a n00b upon first glance.

 

Yeah, seriously CO, especially since the avatar's size has just been blown up beyond all reason and now covers a huge portion of each post's real estate. I honestly didn't even realize you had no avatar until the things got jumbo sized a few days ago. Weren't you a Snowtrooper back in the days of the old software (back when I was a red eyed Ewok with a cowboy hat)? Perhaps someone should make you a lovely Snowtroper avatar that you can use, since you are too lazy to do it yourself. Oh, I have a great avatar of the Pope with a very Palpatinian look on his face that I am not using if you want it...

I also have a fine selection of Planet of the Apes related avatars, and I think I might even have a South Park Stormtrooper (which goes nicely with my South Park Cylon).

The void of all these blank faces around this place is starting to disturb me... Massive avatars might be a cool idea for a forum, if you have a forum where your members actually use avatars... Perhaps Jay should come up with a default avatar that all non-avatared user get. It could just be text stating something to the effect of "This user lacks technical know-how and/or the will to setup an avatar. Get over it."

 "Oh, I have a great avatar of the Pope with a very Palpatinian look on his face that I am not using if you want it..."

Lol! I have a friend who keeps saying the pope is very reminiscent of the emperor. People are always drawing comparisons between Palpatine and real-life people. For my part, when Obama got elected and Biden got up there on the dais with him, Biden's grin reminded me instantly of Palpatine, particularly Palpatine in TPM in full-on politician mode. 

The void of all these blank faces around this place is starting to disturb me... Massive avatars might be a cool idea for a forum, if you have a forum where your members actually use avatars... Perhaps Jay should come up with a default avatar that all non-avatared user get. It could just be text stating something to the effect of "This user lacks technical know-how and/or the will to setup an avatar. Get over it."

Some forums have a lot of stock avatars which people can choose from if they don't want to create a custom avatar, like avatars of lots of different characters, etc. But setting up such a selection might be a big project.

Anchorhead said:

Vaderisnothayden,

Since you've moved on to baiting & trolling, let me leave you with three things.

1. I'm never going to watch the second two prequels or the SEs.

2. You don't get to decide whether or not Return is a good film - just as I don't get to decide it's a bad film. Our thoughts can only represent our worlds.  In yours, you like the film and think it's good - in mine, I dislike the film and think it's bad. Those are truths that are not debatable, even though you continue to try.

3. I don't care about Return - at all. Watch it weekly if you want. I'm never going to watch it again.

 

Now, you'll have to champion the film without any further input from me.

Besides, I have a plane to catch.

 "Since you've moved on to baiting & trolling, let me leave you with three things."

Ok, you've lost me there. How in god's name did I move on to baiting and trolling? It seems to me like you're taking great offense at, well, nothing. Stuff that is not offensive and was never meant to be offensive. That is not fair behavior.

Edit: Just for the sake of fairness, I went back and carefully reread my last post to you which you had found so offensive, and I still cannot for the life of me see any sort of "baiting and trolling" in it.

1. I'm never going to watch the second two prequels or the SEs.

Why is that? If you see them you'll understand better what went wrong with the prequels and what has happened to Star Wars. Those last two films are quite an eye-opener. They go wrong so horribly and in so many ways. I find it very interesting to analyze their fucked-upness and their mentality and mood. I think you could get much out of watching them and finding out what people here are talking about. Certainly, I think it is unfair to say ROTJ is similar to "the prequels", which indicates similarity to the dreadful later two prequels (along with the first), without having seen the two films you are comparing it to.

You don't get to decide whether or not Return is a good film - just as I don't get to decide it's a bad film. Our thoughts can only represent our worlds.  In yours, you like the film and think it's good - in mine, I dislike the film and think it's bad. Those are truths that are not debatable, even though you continue to try.

I am entitled to my opinion on how good ROTJ is and entitled to express that opinion. And when somebody says something totally at odds with that opinion I am entitled to convey my belief that they're mistaken. As for deciding ROTJ is a bad film, that's precisely what you've been doing. Nor have I ever debated whether you dislike the film and think it's bad (I explained very clearly in my last post to you that I wasn't doing that). I merely debated that your reasons for disliking it do not make it in actual reality a bad film.

I don't care about Return - at all. Watch it weekly if you want. I'm never going to watch it again.

That sounds to me like you care about it rather a lot, even if only in the negative. I think you said you last watched it twelve years ago. I think if you're going to be passing judgement on it you need a more recent look at it. Like for example I watched it today while keeping in mind the criticisms of yourself and other people here, my aim being to give those criticisms and similar ones a chance. My conclusion was that while the film has childish elements, it transcends the problem of those elements and ultimately comes through with flying colors and contributes much to the saga. Unlike the prequels, it is a vibrant, sincere and heartfelt film. And damn desperately good-natured, which makes the hatred of it seem all the more unfair.

C3PX said:

I think the large (or perhaps "absolutely vast" is a better way to put it) number of teenage fans Star Wars had back in the late seventies (and we are not only talking about the "geeky" kids here) is a pretty big testament to Star Wars having not been a kids movie.

Name one single kids movie that was released in the last ten years that has wound up with a large number of teenage fans. This sort of thing just doesn't happen.

Perhaps Star Wars is hard to place because it was something so new, there really wasn't anything else like it back in its day. Sure, there were plenty of sci-fi films, but Star Wars had a certian unique quality to it. Star Wars really caught audiences off guard and they fell in love with it, young and old alike. Nowadays Star Wars' style is often emulated by kids movies, perhaps this makes it easier to retcon it as strictly a kids film, that adults just happened to like (which is what Lucas claims it was all along). But evidence still indicates that it was intended for an audience much larger than just children.

 "Name one single kids movie that was released in the last ten years that has wound up with a large number of teenage fans. This sort of thing just doesn't happen."

Just because something doesn't usually happen doesn't mean it can't happen.

"Nowadays Star Wars' style is often emulated by kids movies, perhaps this makes it easier to retcon it as strictly a kids film, that adults just happened to like "

There's a difference between saying it's a kids film designed to appeal to adults and saying it's strictly a kids film that adults just happen to like. Like I said, Lucas talked about it as for kids back in 1977, so that's not a recent retcon.

CO said:

Vaderisnothayden said:

It was always a children's story.

VINH, I have to respectfully disagree.  SW77' and ESB were not MADE for children, they were essentially made for an older teenager audience that kids and adults can enjoy.

Lucas had NO idea that children like myself would latch onto it in 1977, or else he wouldn't have marketed to at Comic Con back in 1976.  The demographic for that audience was teenage/early 20's comic/scifi geeks who were a niche audience.  Lucas even said if the movie made 50 million he would have been happy.

What happen to SW was an utter phenomenon, and I have always stood by the success of the movie to the masses was the worse thing to happen to the series, because essentially Lucas tried to please everyone.

SW & ESB are true hard hitting scifi movies that are edgy, yet have a touch of humor, but really not TARGETED to kids.  You don't have burning skeletons in a kids movie!  You don't have Luke get his hand chopped off in a kids movie!  Trust me, I watched alot of kids movies in the late 70's/early 80's, they were more in line with 'The Muppet Movie' and 'The Apple Dumpling Gang'.

Well, back in 77 Lucas said Star Wars was for kids, so that view is not a new development. And I don't think your arguments work as proof that it is not a kids film that was made to be appreciated by adults. As for being hard hitting science fiction movies that are edgy, I see ROTJ as being that. I think there's more room for different things in a kids film than you allow.

Also, it's been pointed out to me that the ending of ANH (big happy celebration, they all get medals) is hardly mature and is distinctly kiddy. While Leia's bikini outfit is certainly not a sign of a film that is aimed strictly at kids.

TPM WAS aimed strictlly at kids and there you get a guy being chopped in half. I don't see how that's so different from burning skeletons and a hand getting chopped off. And we had a guy burning up in the second ewok movie.

Anchorhead said:

Vaderisnothayden said:

Not successfully demonstrated, not backed up with examples that prove the point. 

There are plenty of examples in this thread (and others) of people's reasons for feeling the way they do.  No need for me to quote them all.
And for the record, people's examples of what they dislike are not incorrect, myth, cliche', etc - they're people's examples of what they dislike.

People's opinions of a film - of anything - are not incorrect. If someone doesn't dig Eggs Benedict, they really don't dig it - it's not a myth or a cliche - it's a meal they don't care to eat.  Even if it's your favorite meal, it doesn't mean the people who don't like it are wrong.

You liking Return doesn't mean my reasons for disliking it are cliche - it means that in 1983 I didn't like the film. I've given you my reasons and I assure you, they are correct - they're actually the reasons I don't like it.  They're not final say on what the film is - they're my reasons for not liking it.

You're appreciation of the film doesn't render my dislike of it as incorrect. You can rest assured that no matter how many times you tell me my opinion is incorrect - it's not. I've disliked Return for 26 years. That dislike is genuine.

...the later two prequels (which you really should see before you make generalizations about the prequels).

Regarding my not having seen the last two prequels or the SEs - I always preface my limited comments on them with the statement that I haven't seen them and that I can only base my opinions on the one prequel I have seen.

 

Re your ewok picture, picking on one creature that appears only briefly and is a very minor part of the film does not work as an argument to condemn the whole film

It doesn't have to work as an argument to condemn the whole film - it only has to work as one of the reasons I dislike the film.

V - I find some of your comments and posts to be very interesting & insightful. My problem isn't with you or your defense, enjoyment, and feelings regarding Return.   My problem is you continually telling me that my thoughts & opinions are incorrect. They aren't.  With God as my witness - I honestly don't like Return. I was disappointed by it about 30 minutes into in 1983 and that has never changed, nor will it ever.

I notice from your tone that you are getting a tad pissed off with me.

Not at all.  However, if that ever does happen, you'll know immediately.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to pack.  I'm getting in about 300 miles of riding tomorrow and then I'm off to California for a week.

The issue is not whether you or anyone else dislikes ROTJ. The issue is whether that makes it an inferior film. I can't believe you don't realize that such dislike and the reasons for it are presented as reasons why the film is actually in reality inferior. You yourself have presented such reasons for dislike as reasons why the film is simply bad. Obviously I'm not arguing whether or not people dislike the film. I'm arguing with the assumption that the reasons they dislike the film make it a bad film. Those arguments when presented as reasons why the film is a bad film can indeed be cliched and incorrect and the view of the film they promote (as being this bad film with all these supposed damning faults) can indeed be a myth. Similarly, while people can give examples why they dislike ROTJ, they cannot and have not given examples that successfully prove it is a bad or inferior film. Which was what I was talking about. The whole topic of this discussion is not whether or not people dislike ROTJ. It's whether or not ROTJ is a bad film in actual reality.

Regarding my not having seen the last two prequels or the SEs - I always preface my limited comments on them with the statement that I haven't seen them and that I can only base my opinions on the one prequel I have seen.

Not in this discussion. You compared ROTJ to "the prequels", clearly speaking of the prequels in general, with no reference to the fact that you had not seen two of them and thus could not accurately make that generalization. And not watching them leaves you out of the loop on a major area of Star wars knowledge. You really should watch them to get the full picture.

It doesn't have to work as an argument to condemn the whole film - it only has to work as one of the reasons I dislike the film.

I disagree. It was presented as an argument why your dislike of the film meant the film was bad. As such it does have to work as an argument against the whole film.

My problem is you continually telling me that my thoughts & opinions are incorrect. They aren't. 

If your thoughts and opinions are presented as reasons why ROTJ is actually bad (as opposed to simply reasons why you dislike it) then I will certainly contend they are incorrect.

Gaffer Tape said:

I suppose I can sum up ROTJ in a word:  competent.  Most of it is overwhelmingly... competently done.  The beginning is a train wreck. 

 The beginning was some of the best stuff out of all three films.

Sylar as Spock? Mockery plain and simple. To reduce Spock from the heights of Nimoy's performance to the lowdown pettiness of watchacallims performance. Awful.