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#1 User is offline   Mnesymone Icon

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Posted 08 June 2005 - 07:12 PM

"Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father."
"He told me enough, he told me you killed him!"
"No, I am your father."
/"That boy was our last hope."
"No, there is another."
/"I love you."
"I know."
/"I have sensed a disturbance in the force."
/"You may take him to Jabba the Hutt."
/"We can rule the galaxy as father and son."

At the end of Empire we had countless exciting plot threads - then in ROTJ they were all closed off in the simplest possible way - most of them by Ben sitting on a log and telling all, some by simply putting them up on the screen.
(spoiler)DARTH VADER IS LUKE SKYWALKER'S FATHER (spolier)
For all that Ben and the Emperor said, it turns out that what they were saying was wrong - "The son of Skywalker."/"He betrayed and murdered your father." -
But then in Jedi, we are told the simplest and crudest spin on the plot - Anakin Skywalker turned to the Dark Side and suffered some terrible injury, and assumed a new identity, that of Darth Vader. Not that Anakin and Vader were separate people, once staunch allies, then divided by some schism (perhaps Luke's mother) and when Vader fell to darkness he fought Anakin and in the ensuing battle Anakin was killed and Vader suffered the injuries that forced him into the suit. In fact, when Anakin and Vader are separate people you are given a world of possibility (and also you never see the child, because while George is fine with showing Anakin as 9-year-old Ani, even the flanneletted one couldn't bring himself to put lil Darthie on screen). More on the possibilities later.
(spoiler)THERE IS ANOTHER PERSON CAPABLE OF DEFEATING THE EMPIRE(spoiler)
Of course, Ben, while sitting on a comfy log, tells us that the other is Leia, now revealed as Luke's twin sister. How this classifies as an actual hope seeing as Luke would have to train her from scratch while he wasn't even a fully-fledged Jedi is beyond me. Leia being his sister also closes off another plot thread, more on that later. In ROTJ we are told that Ben and Yoda are the last of the Jedi, so there can't be another one kicking around. And since Vader and Anakin are the one person we can't have any possibility of the cloned or original Anakin (cloning anakin is reasonable speculation - after all he did fight in the Clone Wars, and some of the older stuff about Vader was that he was Anakin's clone), returning at all - it might have been cool to see a counter-Vader, Anakin inside his own life-support suit but one that makes you go "He's a good guy" to relive the old battle with Vader that crippled them both so - might it have been cool? Finally - even in ROTJ "There is another Skywalker" from dying Yoda could be taken to mean Vader, that somehow Vader is the last hope (more on that later), but log-sitting Ben tells us unequivocally that the other is Leia.
(spoiler)LEIA LOVES HAN SOLO(spoiler)
Though the scenes were cut from ESB, it is pretty easy to see from the last bit where Luke calls out to Leia and the tenderness with which she cares for him that Leia does love Luke, however, she also realises that she loves Han, and she will, as long as Han languishes in carbonite, love him with a fierce and tragic passion.
So they go on much fun shenanigans, rescue Han, she manages a very simple and painless "one who loves you" rather than the emotion-choked attempt to bring down Slave I or her breaking loose from the stormtropers to kiss Han one last time. However, everything goes swimmingly for Han - they are reunited, have a few hissy fits, kill stormtroopers together and find out that Luke is Leia's brother so Han has a clear run. Cause that was the simplest, crudest and most soap operatic way to resolve that idea.
The Emperor.
We started with Tarkin, the charming, intelligent villain brought out so well by Peter Cushing, then the role of Vader widened to turn him into the ultimate screen villain - but the best thing with a really cool villain is the idea that he is a front for another, even better villain. From Empire, we know that Vader is a front for the mysterious sage Emperor - tall, calm, imperious, with the Force to see all and the wit to understand it. Then in ROTJ we meet an entirely different person - a short wizened cackling bumbling fool with bad teeth. The Emperor radiates horrendous and hideous evil, yes, but the Emperor in ESB was genuinely sinister and godlike.
Also, Vader chafed under the Emperor's rule, but never openly. He offered Luke the chace to join him and overthrow Clive Revill, but when Ian McDiarmid turns up he goes soft and says "I must obey my master." Then in the end, Vader kills the Emperor and we are told he is now a good guy because he did what he intended to do as a bad guy.
Jabba the Hutt.
Jabba was mentioned as a crime lord in Star Wars, the shortlived Greedo who didn't shoot first was enforcing for him. Then in Empire Strikes Back we met the extremely cool bit character of the bounty hunter (his name was not mentioned in the entire movie, so unless you bought the Kenner action figure or watched... the holiday special sick.gif ... you have no idea who he is) Boba Fett and Vader turned over the frozen Han Solo to Fett and mentioned Jabba the Hutt. When Vader mentions someone they have to be cool, especially if he mentions them to someone as cool and menacing as Boba Fett (who is not Jango's clone).
But when we meet this guy who is supposed to be cool enough that Han was afraid of him and Vader mentioned him we see an awful fat slug mouldering in a rusty castle on Tatooine with all the technology of a nineteenth century orgiastic sadist.
Also he is put in this silly prelude bit that has no bearing to the movie, let alone the saga - I and probably quite a lot of other people feel that the movie doesn't begin until the Emperor arrives on the Death Star. He could have been tied in somehow, and might have made a really cool character - perhaps when Luke escaped Vader he would have realised that once Luke recovered he would seek out Jabba the Hutt and Vader could have set a trap for him there, thus kicking off the story.
In the end, we got Return of the Jedi - and it does have some of the memorable moments of the trilogy (Vader and Luke battling before the Emperor, the technical brillaince of the space battle) but it does have some truly forgettable scenes (the Ewoks, the tension-free speeder bike pursuit, the somehow succesful bungled rescue scene, the slow-moving pansy rancor and Jabba eating frogs).
It isn't trash, it isn't a masterpiece, it is the weakest film of the original trilogy in my opinion, and it is an extraordinarily wasted opportunity.
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#2 User is offline   barend Icon

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Posted 09 June 2005 - 08:00 PM

i like that vader is lukes father....

it may seem old now (largley due to lucas' own policy of every bastard is relaterd), but to give the man some credit...

it was the best plot twist of all time (although Usual suspects, Crying Game, and Fight Club, have successfully made us drop our jaws).

the best thing about it is that it gives lukes character more to deal with.

getting revenge for his fathers death is one thing... but to have a fatherless upbringing, and loss of his mentor, and unlce and aunt who raised him.... and have to face the father he doesn't even know to atone for it all... and ontop of all that it puts him in the unique position that he also has the option to join his father...

I'm generally a good guy, but if that had been me up there when i heard the news and was invited into the fold, i would have held out my bloody stump and said: "i'm in.... got a bandaid?"

the fact that there was a choice, left open a huge junction that added so much to the story...

so personally i still think that it was one of the more interesting choices...

making liea luke's sister was a cop out though...

having han die so that luke could have liea would have been too easy as well...

i liked the fact that the guy who wasn't the heir to the empire, and knight of an order, got the girl... it was different...
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#3 User is offline   Mnesymone Icon

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Posted 09 June 2005 - 09:29 PM

I wasn't saying Luke should get the girl, I just thought "he's my brother" was a lame cop-out.
Also, the whole Leia being the other thing was silly when the actual other in ROTJ is Vader, finally killing the Emperor at the end. Also I find the idea of the separate Vader and Anakin interesting and it provides a better explanation for why Obi-Wan said "he betrayed and murdered your father" than 'a certain point of view'.
But Vader definetely as Luke's father - if Anakin is a separate person than he's the man who was rightfully supposed to be Luke's father.
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#4 User is offline   WalkingCarpet Icon

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Posted 16 June 2005 - 01:03 PM

The title of this thread sums up my frustration with the Prequels as well. There was the chance for a great 6-piece series. It could have been the saga to end all sagas. And now that chance has been lost forever. The films can now be encased in carbonite and taken to the most unlikely looking gangland boss anyone can find.
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#5 User is offline   Bohrok Awakener Icon

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Posted 16 June 2005 - 03:09 PM

Yes. While everyone talks about Star Wars as though it's the coolest thing ever (I agree, to a certain degree), only 2 (or maybe 3, if you like ROTS) of the films are actually any good.
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#6 User is offline   WalkingCarpet Icon

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Posted 16 June 2005 - 06:01 PM

Exactly. Out of 6 films we've got 2 that can be remembered as truly great films. That's a third. Same as the Matrix.

In the words of C3PO........"oh Dear!"
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