RETURN OF THE JEDI - Yay or Nay?

Nice poll.

Return of the Jedi is a wasted opportunity.

It's a yay, yet it's the weakest yay of the whole series. The Emperor/Luke/Vader scenes, and a fantastic finale, redeem the rest of the film.

Wrong. Jedi brings the saga full circle and in doing so completes the story perfectly. The story is about Anakin's redemption through his son, dispite the warnings and feelings of Yoda and Obi-Wan. The Luke/Vader/Palpy material is paramount to the story, therefore the film works as the strongest element is the central idea.

What geeks bitch about is the ewoks, which are kiddie eye candy in a very dark kiddie film. They are no dumber than Chewbacca or the funny antics of Artoo and Threepio.

Where the film fails...I'll admit this...is the handling of Han Solo, reducing him to weakened straight man no longer a cynic but rather another trooper working for 'The Cause.'

The film works in the Jabba stuff (especially the reappearance of Luke, The Rancor, and Sarlac Battle), the speeder bike chase, and the final space battle. None of these have anything to do with the Light Side/Dark Side Final Battle...but they kick ass none the less.

Jedi is a much better film than geeks admit. The best? Probably not. But emotionally and character wise...it's damn close...

Well let me get in there with a big fat nay!

I have to say that after Empire, Jedi comes across as a lazy sequel....

Death star battle in New Hope? lets have a bigger one in Jedi....
Vader vs Luke in Empire was good? then lets do it again in Jedi....
Luke rescues Leia and swings away Errol flynn like in New Hope? Lets do it again in Jedi....

Then of course theres the killing of Boba Fett which was almost as criminal a waste as the death of Darth Maul, the bloody ewoks.... god this post is giving me dejavu.....

The "surprise" reveal that Luke's been slipping the tongue to his sister for the past two films.... which neatly sorts out Han's role as love interest.

A crappy ground battle, involving ewoks on speeder bikes luring away the trooper patrols like some kind of pantomime moment.

The list goes on....

As said though the film is almost pulled back from the brink by the simple hissing of Vader's line....
"Sisssster, Skywalker has a twin ssssisssster.... if you will not turn to the dark side then perhaps. She. Will!"

Cue proto duel of the fates gregorian chant music and Luke going apeshit on Dad!

It doesn't hold up as well as ESB. I dug it when I was a kid, but watching it again recently, I wasn't impressed. Anakin's rejuvenated ghost at the end fails to help matters.

The last hour is pretty damn good, the first hour pretty dull. If the rest of the movie was as good as the scenes on and around the Death Star, it could have been unbelievably great. As it stands, it's just good.

I'll say sort of a half-yay. Good but definitely room for improvement. It's got a lot of interesting stuff in it but as my taste in movies matures I realize there's a lot that could have been more impactful and there are a lot more interesting places the story could have gone. But still, I watch it maybe a couple times a year and find that I still enjoy it overall.

I quite like Jabba's palace. it's like 'a day in the life of our star wars heroes'.

That it could be skipped by a couple of lines of expository dialogue is not the point...

ROTJ's geratest problem these days is that it serves as too easy an example for the aplogists to say that the OT was pretty stupid too. if you want to defend the PT, pointing at ROTJ is not the way to do it.

'Meh'. Perfect.

The space battle is pretty amazing, the rest I can take or leave. Mostly leave.

I like the whole Jabba sequence. When I was a kid, I totally was sold on the Rancor sequence. And I think the sail barge fight is fun. When Luke ignites his lightsaber and starts kicking arse, I thought it was pretty exciting.

Mind you, the new musical number is a travesty.

Return Of The Jedi was the first Star Wars movie I got into, and was much better when I was a kid. Much of the movie is frustrating given the quality of the previous installments. On re-watch, the Jabba's Palace opening and first half of the movie are sluggish and annoying. The Jedi Rocks song is unspeakably bad and on its own is a case against Lucas's revisionist filmmaking. Darth Vader, so scary in Empire, is completely de-balled, becoming a hesitant background figure. The only really resonant scene is the death of Yoda, which is an effective moment.

It's not as bad as The Phantom Menace, and I think many of the complaints in Film Threat's famous article are absolute crap, but I now think Attack Of The Clones is much better and that the series as a whole is very uneven.

Django hits the ball right out of the park.

I saw Empire again recently, and it made certain things work in RotJ better. Yeah, the opening is a little long and weak but in the context of a three year wait, it kind of works. The slow reveal of all the main characters coming into play makes sense in that context, as makers know that each reveal deserves its own applause. Unfortunately their plan is more based around set pieces than any sort of logical plan. I mean Luke knows well enough about the Sarlaac pit, and can orchestrate split second timing there, but has no idea about the rancor pit? His plan also requires the droids to go into slavery and Leia to become a giant slug's sex slave.

In fact neatness for the sake of itself fucks up much of the film, especially in the twins reveal. And, arguably, this episode features the weakest acting of the OT, simply because the bad acting is lingered on. The ewoks are sort of overhated, I say that because in their original idea they were based on the Vietcong, and in that I sort of like them. Unfortunately they do seem a little too adorable. And unfortunately endless sand and snow seem more foreign than endless trees. Especially since nothing in the forrest (other than the Ewoks) feels all that otherworldly.

Also, RotJ features what may still be the greatest special effects sequence ever put to screen.

In fairness, Leia is the main plan - when she becomes the sex slave Luke has to step in.

"The story is about Anakin's redemption through his son,"


This, by the way, is bullshit.

I always liked the opening Jabba sequence because it's necessary for two reasons: 1) it gets Han Solo back in the picture; and 2) it demonstrates that Luke has grown since the end of Empire. Whereas in that film he rushed off to save his friends without any idea what he was doing (and in fact making things much worse in the process), here he not only has a main plan and a back-up plan, he has a back-upback-up plan. The whole sequence shows that he has become a Jedi better than simply saying he's become one in the opening crawl.

The whole Jabba scene just seems so unbalanced. You come out with Vader pissed at construction works, that's good, then Threepio and Artoo slowly getting to Jabba's and slowly delivering the message, and slowly getting to a lame dancer number until it all crawls to a halt. Suddenly, Han Solo gets rescued, the Rancor dies and we're back at the Death Star before we can say 'How did they all stay so quiet behind that curtain?'

I totally agree about lingering on bad acting. The first bunker scene is a prime example, where it should be a lightning fast scene, just intro-ing for the fleet attack, but yet it all goes so slowly, and you have Carrie Fisher saying 'Han <two-second pause> hurry.' It's awful.

So Chewie and the Droids were fucked, then?

I'm assuming it was Billy Dee's job to free them.

Which is why R2 had Like's lightsaber, and knew to be on the deck of the sailbarge. NOT BUYING IT.

Agree with Django and Charles overall. However I really liked the beginning with Jabba and of course Luke, Vader and the Emperor are gold.

The whole "Artoo on the deck of the sailbarge" escapade is loopy however you look at it. Why did he give Artoo the saber... He was worried about being searched? He's a fucking Jedi who walks right into a crimelord's den using force persuasion and he was worried about being searched? All he has to do is wave his hand and say "You do not need to search me" and he's in like Flynn.

I try not to think too hard about these things.

Still good, but the weakest of the Original Three. I like the Jabba stuff. I love all the Death Star stuff and the amazing space battle. However, the movie comes to a screeching halt for about 15-20 minutes in the middle, where you get the useless scenes of C3PO being mistaken for an Ewok god and his "Previously on Star Wars" storytime performance. Kills the momentum and it takes the film awhile to dig out of that hole.

I have a couple of links that might be of interest:

http://www.filmthreat.com/Features.asp?Id=172

http://www.filmthreat.com/Features.asp?Id=173


One major letdown of Jedi, for me, is Harrison Ford's phoned-in performance as Han Solo. He looks totally bored and unenthused to be here. Compare it to his lively, energetic performance in the first two Indy installments that came out around the same time. It doesn't help matters that all the script calls for him to do is to be a catch-phrase spouting cartoon .

Still, I think Jedi's very good and it's got some good stuff: The Luke/Vader/Emperor confrontation, Ian McDiarmid's performance as the Emperor, the speeder bike chase, the vocal chorus going on in the background as Luke lobs off Vader's hand, and the great space battle.

Not great, but good. I like it overall besides some fairly hokey bs that didn't need to be in there (ewoks for one).

I'd take it over the prequels any day personally. Jar Jar made me realize how much worse than the ewoks things could really get.

Like it's been said in previous posts, the film picks up a lot towards the second half.

Its bad real bad but honestly it doesn't seem he could do much with the material.

Why don't you elaborate was to why you say such a comment and prove to us that you aren't once again trolling in a Star Wars thread for the sake of being asinine.

It's bullshit because Devin hates the prequels. Simple as that.

Jedi's biggest problem was Marquand, no doubt. And Dellamorte has a point about the set pieces, which is always a problem with action/adventure filmmaking. But again I can forgive that.

If only cause Boba Fett going out like a bitch makes me giggle. I for one love Lucas' mean streak.

Meh

I remember the first time I saw anything related to JEDI. It was 8th grade homeroom and someone had clipped the advance article from Newsweek and tacked it on the bulletin board. Remember, this is before we all got used to spoilers and making-ofs and script rumors. I remember my heart sinking as I beheld another god damned Death Star and some Dungeons & Dragons armored pigs. This was going to be it?

Then I saw the flick and marvelled at how the first half was a complete waste of time. How uncomfortable Carrie Fisher looked in her harem getup. How Harrison Ford was clearly trying to get himself fired by reading his lines in the most boring way possible. How Lawrence Kasdan had completely forgotten (if he ever knew) how to write Yoda, and how the DP had no idea how to light Vader. Then came the teddy bears. And the 'battle of wills' between Luke and the Emperor that consisted of three lines from EMPIRE repeated over and over.

I never EVER bought the 'twins' thing and no one can convince me it was always part of the plan.

All this and still a 'meh', you ask? Well, the speeder bikes were pretty awesome. And the chicken walkers. And the space battle. They're the only parts I still watch, now that the matte lines have finally been cleaned up.

Agreed, a couple of people should have died...hello, Lando. Or Admiral Ackbar...his death would have left me in tears. He's the greatest seconday (ok, third tier) character since Lobot.

Death Star space battle and lightsaber fight are awesome. The rest of the film is a middling affair.

YAY! An almost perfect ending to the star wars saga, crappy Ewoks but almost everything else is brilliant exciting fun. None of the star wars films are masterpeices IMO but they are all really good. ESB is still the greatest star wars film ever made though.

Harrison wanted his character to be killed off, that's why he looked *apprently* so bored. i didn't really notice it to much, get to mixed up with everything else in the film.

My favorite scenes in the whole saga are in JEDI. But as a whole, it's not the masterpiece that EMPIRE is.

Chewbacca does a fucking tarzan yell. Peter Mayhew might as well have looked directly into the camera taken his mask off and winked at the audience. Jedi was simply a sign of things to come. Star wars was a sly amalgamation of retro sci-fi and western serials that turned into a singing, dancing, burping farce with Jedi.

The only reason we forgave it in the first place was because it was coasting on the momentum of the first two films.

Definitely a yay. The first act keeps me involved, the second act sorta loses me (when they arrive on Endor), but once the 3rd act begins and Luke has his first face to face conversation with Daddy Darth since losing his hand to him, thats where it gets the "yay" from me. Hell, the Palps/Vader/Luke scenes make the entire movie worth watching by themselves.

"Your hate has made you powerful. Now fulfull your destiny, and take your fathers place at my side!"


*Luke looks at his fathers stump, looks at his hand, then realizes what he's done*

"Never. *tosses saber*. I'll never turn to the dark side. You've failed your Highness. I AM A JEDI. LIKE MY FATHER BEFORE ME."

To this day, that line gives me chills of joy and makes me yell out "YEAHH!!!!!"

Exactly. The end makes this one all good. The prequels still have yet to come close to matching this moment. I think Ep. III will be good, but it won't compare to these.

Clearly The worst of the three.

I'm in the opposite camp. The escape from Jabba's palace is a thrilling example of what makes Star Wars so much fun. The Luke-Vader stuff is okay, but not as good as it could have been. It doesn't carry any of the emotional weight found in Empire.

Not according to George Lucas, watch the commentary.

It couldn't have been the Wookies because they are a technologically advanced society, the whole point of the primitive Ewoks winning a small battle against the Empire was to throw an uplifting message into the story about how spirit and determination can defeat technology.

Of course that little subplot did end up dragging the whole film down but whatever.

Ewoks own your ass!

I think the scenes between Luke-Vadar has the same emotional weight as EMPIRE. It's pure brilliant and near the end is almost overwhelming, it was what saved ROTJ. Shame you don't feel the same.

The Ewoks are easily the greatest characters in ALL the films. They easily make the main characters look like a big waste of time. They rule and should be respected with all your heart and there should be a movie based on them.

you didn't believe that did you?

Ewoks are just mini-me versions of Lucas.

Vader's redemption = bullshit

Well, I'll agree that Lucas' commentary is about Vader's redemption. I just don't see it as a consistent theme in the actual films. Besides, Lucas likes to change his stories a lot and deny he ever meant to do anything but what he's currently trying to sell. You notice that?

Love ROTJ.

My problem with the ewoks is that they don't have a clear motivation. What compels them to be "determined" and werewolf girl there suggests. The empire seems to leave them alone and they seem unafraid to capture and eat just about anything. But then, all of a sudden, they follow our heroes and rally to war for no appparent reason. It's not like Endor was a slave planet or anything and they don't seem sophisticated enough to understand the politics behind the fighting. They're animals. Its as if the common cat took a side and voted a certain candidate or something.

I also don't like the empire's tactical decisions. The shield generator facility is a major cog in their machine. Why doesn't it have a perimeter?!! To lure the rebels? who would believe that a facility like this does not have an outer perimeter even if it's just a fence to keep out the animals? And about the emperor's "Legion of best men" they did a shitty ass job setting up the ambush. Forget the ewoks which can be written off as a fog of war fuckup. These guys started to panic the minute something didn't go their way.

Now that I'm thinking about this, Admiral Ackbar is a fuckup too as is Lando. Take a few of the capital ships with you Lando? And risk losing the rest of the fleet to the death star. What sort of fucking leadership is that?? Basically kamikazi themselves is what he wanted. Not a sound tactical call.

The throne room stuff is cool though.