Bustin' on ROTJ Yes, it IS a good film.
#1
Posted 11 March 2004 - 05:47 PM
I think there is a better argument that the original SW is closer to these PT films than the other two OT movies. {especially since SW, TPM and ATOC, were all directed by George Lucas). The acting is eerily similar in some places. You also have more of that arcade shoot em up feel rather than the epic story feel that ESB and ROTJ created. Star Wars is still a far better movie to me than the PT films, and has nostalgia among fans because it was unique at the time and was the first intoduction to the story. SW created a sci-fi story, ESB and ROTJ turned the sci-fi story into an epic story.
I think it is absolutely NUTS that anyone thinks ROTJ is a bad film and willrespond to any challenge to that notion. (Hear that Civillian two :angry: !!! LOL)
#2
Posted 11 March 2004 - 05:56 PM
Mike Mac from NYU is like Don King for Vwing and civilian_number_two.
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#3
Posted 11 March 2004 - 07:34 PM
(but seriously, all this talk about lukes training has really rekindled by love for SW:OT, I do like ROTJ - I can nitpick but it's just for fun)
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#4
Posted 11 March 2004 - 08:10 PM
Mike Mac from NYU is like Don King for Vwing and civilian_number_two.
Heh heh I just laughed out loud reading that Chef, good one. Well I'm sick tonight so he'll have to schedule it for another time, maybe tomorrow. Oh damn I need theme music don't I? Hmm. How bout "Into the Trap," since that's what Civilian'll be walking into tomorrow! Let's get it on!
Sorry bout that, must be the sickness kicking in.
#5
Posted 12 March 2004 - 12:17 AM
Lucas directed ROTJ, too, regardless of what the credit says. Marquand was no more in charge of the film than Yoda was of Frank Oz.
And brilliant my ass:
*Emperor's presence - Kind of necessary after the buildup in ESB, the solution: Make him look like the wicked queen in Snow White? NO! No no no no no!
*Luke's ascendance - Again necessary after ESB, but the manner: "Well, you knew everything you needed to before you left to go fight him, but you shouldn't have confronted Vader because he's your dad. Now, go confront him, because he's your dad. Oh, and Leia's your sister, so cut back on the getting bizzay."
*Jabba the Muppet... er, Hutt - I wanted a gangster, not a slug. I wanted a fearsome man, not because he slobbered on frogs and dropped his dancing girls to man-eating monsters, but because he could straddle both sides of the law and make allegiances through quiet demonstrations of power. Instead, we get a slimy puppet that is terrifying to a 4-year-old but pretty hokey compared to a real flesh-and-blood actor.
*Jabba's Set... er, Palace - The whole thing looked fake. I mean, the exterior shots were good and all, but those encompassed all of a minute of film time. Instead we have all the rest wasted on a sound stage in England and many of the costumes were horrible. From the Greedo whose fingers and face just looked more rubber than in ANH (By the way, did he shoot first here, too?), to the misshapen Jawas and poorly articulated Gamorrean guards.
*Yoda's death - Aside from being boring and pointless, it lacked certain human qualities, like any concern on Luke's part for Yoda's health. "You can't die," came out more like, "You can't go to the Prom." I'm not necessarily blaming Hamill for the reading, but instead that he had no other follow-up dialogue like, "What do you have?" or "Can I get you a pillow or a glass of water?" Instead it's like, "Soon, will I rest, yes, forever sleep," Yoda goes to lie down and BAM he's dead. Talk about prophetic. To quote from Oscar Wilde, "Bumbrey died because his physician said he could no longer live." "Well, I'm glad to see some people still have faith in their doctors."
*Redemption of Vader - Shouldn't have happened. I liked the idea that he sold his soul, Luke needed to kick his ass for it and could have done so with complete righteous indignation and he should have whupped on that little bitch in the black robes, too, who didn't have time to actually show up until the final flick.
*Ewoks v. Gungans - Well, let's see, do you like morons or idiots better? I'm not picking sides because I think both were incredibly stupid and pointless. The only advantages the Ewoks had were more collective character development and the fact that they really were there on set creating an actual screen presence.
*ANH v. ESB and ROTJ - ANH set up the story, sure. It was a standalone pic anyway, but it stood to establish the rules of the game and it also worked well on its own. It was masterfully edited, scored, the cinematography was beautiful and the small number of effects shots were handled well (excepting one or two cheesy costumes in the cantina).
ESB raised the bar on all levels primarily because of Kasdan's writing and improved special effects, but mostly because of Kirschner's direction (oh, and less focus on aliens in speaking roles).
Finally, in ROTJ, Lucas'... I mean, Marquand's directing was poor, the performances were awful. Yes, the space special effects were pretty good, while the terrestrial effects were awful (see Rancor and speeder chase for examples). Lucas put the hammer down on Kasdan because ESB didn't make the bank that ANH did so instead of allowing for further exploration of the SW galaxy, he regurgitated old plot points from ANH and ESB: Death Star, check; Shocking family revelation, check; Death Star, check; wisecracking Han Solo, check; Tattooine, check; death of mentor figure, check; Luke being orphaned again, check; Death Star, check.
I've already posted a link to the 50 reasons JEDI totally sucked, but I'll get it again.
--FW
#6
Posted 12 March 2004 - 12:45 AM
I'm sitting back. My opinion of ROTJ has already been well-documented in these forums, so all you have to do is look back through the archives. And besides, nothing I say will add much to what Ferris has said.
(Ferris, you're like a completely different person in this forum than in another I won't mention here. Lucid, funny, quoting OSCAR WILDE! What up?)
I disagree wioth Ferris that Jabba was intrinsicaly bad, but that's splitting hairs. He was used poorly, so that's enough. The earlier post, about Lucas writing himself into a corner, is pretty much what I have said. There's no way Lucas planned to have the Luke-Leia bro-sis thing any sooner than just before he went to camera. And even f he'd planned to have Vader be Luke's father, there's no way he pplanned to have the series end the way it did. EMPIRE promised a sequel, all right, but it didn't promise us the one that we got.
Quibble: Mike Mac, I'm not going to touch "JEDI is good because it's not as bad as PTM or AOTC." I am just not going to touch that.
#7
Posted 12 March 2004 - 01:29 AM
the only thing about it that annoys me is that the scene is directly lifted from 'Return of the king' with the dyning father figure "I have to save you" replied with "you already have" by our young hero. which just cheapened it a little when we finnally got to see it in it's original context.
but aside from that and the ewoks, who only offend me because they worship C3P0 a daintly little intereter, and yet will will go to war against AT&T walkers!!! and even worse WIN!!!
but jabba was cool, his palace was fine and his presence wasn't scary, his wealth was, he could afford to send anyone after you and he would!!!
he'd give John Gotti, Al Capone, and Fat Tony a run for their money...
I'll agree, it's a peice of shit compared to ESB, but it's better than other stuff...
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#8
Posted 12 March 2004 - 12:45 PM
"No more training do you require. Already know you that what you need."
"Then I am a Jedi."
"Not yet. One thing remains. Vader. You must confront (notice no past tense) Vader. Then, only then, a Jedi will you be."
"Master Yoda, is Darth Vader my father?"
"Rest I need. Rest."
"Yoda I must know."
"Your father he is."
"Told you did he. Unexpected this is. And unfortunate."
"Unfortunate that I know the truth?"
"No. Unfortunate that you rushED to face him that INcomplete WAS your training. That not ready for the burden WERE you."
Translation: You weren't ready before and you were a dumbass to go before I trained you enough that you could handle him. Now, however, on your own, you have learned enough and are now ready for the final challenge of facing Vader. What's so hard to understand about that?
And barend, in the book version of ROTK the scene with Theoden was different, and didn't use those words. The movie actually copied ROTJ there, which is funny since like you said ROTJ and the other movies copied LOTR. But for that one instance, it wasn't really ROTJ lifting anything from the books. Also barend, the ewoks didn't win. As I've pointed out time and time again, they would have lost over time. By commandering the AT-ST, Chewie turned the tide, so really he and not the Ewoks won the battle. The Ewoks fought valiantly and distracted the Imperials for a time, but it was Chewie who really won the battle.
And Civ, no one's saying ROTJ is good because the PT is bad. They're saying how can you even consider placing ROTJ in with the PT? Even if you think it's the worst of the OT, you still can't possibly lump it in with the PT, that's what they're saying. I'm going one step further saying, how can you think it's so much worse than the other 2?
As for Yoda's death, I thought it was fine. I thought it did have emotional qualities, and was a very sad scene, especially with the music and, I thought, Hamill. I liked him, I thought he did a very good job in the entire movie, and in this scene. And Yoda died because he was ready to. You want to go into spiritual stuff here, then I'll say his purpose was ended and he was able to rest. He knew Luke was the only one who could do this now, and that he had no part in the rest of Luke's life. So, instead of living in pain, he gives himself to the Force. I don't see what's so bad about that.
The performances were not at all awful. Hamill gives his best of the trilogy. He actually is able to make the transformation from a whiny brat to a disciplined Jedi who kicks some ass. Ian McDiarmid is genuinely evil. I think the look suited his persona pefectly, and he gives a fabulous performance. David Prowse/James Earl Jones also give a great performance, and I actually will give most of the credit to Prowse. Without even seeing his faith, he is able to show such great emotion. In the "Then my father is truly dead" conversation, when he walks to the window, you can really see the conflict in him, the foreshadowing that perhaps there really is good in him, and all of this without seeing his face or hearing Jones' voice. Then of course, in the final scene I'll say the same thing, when the Emperor is killing Luke, you can see Vader's anguish. Ford is by no means as good as he was in ESB, but he is also by no means horrible. The same thing goes for Fisher, though I would say that she's no worse than she was in the original Star Wars. However, where the performances really counted in portrayals of Luke, the Emperor, and Vader, the people who had the most screen time by far of anyone, I thought it was gold.
I loved Vader's redemption. Why not have a positive ending for once? It was being shown throughout the final part of ESB and in the entirety of ROTJ that Vader was conflicted. I thought it was just very cool to see him redeem himself to save his son. And remember, in the Star Wars universe there are no shades of gray. There is no "righteous indignation" because ANY indignation will lead one to the dark side. There is good or evil, and at that climax when Luke beats Vader (by the way, you want a reason why this is good, look at that scene. Not only because in and of itself it is a great scene, but look at the parallelisms it has the duel in ESB. Luke is doing what Vader did. Swinging violently, with anger, causing sparks on the railing with his wild misses, driving Vader back. It's really just a beautiful scene), Luke is on the verge of evil. Even if it was justified anger, it was still anger, which gave him power, which would have seduced him to the dark side.
And give me a break. "The space effects were pretty good." Even the guy who wrote the 50 reasons JEDI sucked admitted that the space effects were fantastic. And "the terrestrial effects were horrible". First of all, in 1983, the rancor effect was pretty fucking good. Hell you know what, in 1993 it was good. Look at the Attack of the 50 Ft Woman, with Daryll Hannah. It looks so amazingly fake it's not even funny, and it was almost 10 years after ROTJ! Of course 20 YEARS after it won't look as good, but for the time it was an extremely ambitious project and you know what, they pulled it off pretty damn well. Second of all, the speeder bike effects were horrible? Are you blind? Again, even the guy who wrote the 50 reasons admitted that he loved the speeder bike chase. The chase was and remains a fabulous and exciting scene.
You know what, I agree with ONE thing. It would have been nice to not have had a second Death Star. It would have been nice if he had stuck with his original plan of going with and attack on Coruscant (not called Coruscant then but was the same basic planet). But the execution of the attack on the 2nd Death Star more than makes up for it. It's an unbelieveable space battle, with the best escape from explosion scene in movie history. Again, Coruscant would've been cool and more ambitious, but the way they portrayed the 2nd Death Star was original enough and the execution of it was so good that, again, it more than made up for it.
If I missed some of your points I'm sorry, but I'm tired of writing. Oh and sorry for the long post too.
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This post has been edited by Vwing: 12 March 2004 - 12:47 PM
#9
Posted 12 March 2004 - 04:36 PM
These are my own problems. Unfortunately, the 50 Reasons were published first. But the dude has 50 grievances, among which only 2 or 3 are questionable. As for the Yoda thing, I got that more from Chefelf's problem with the Padme/Yoda exchange in AOTC than from the 50 reasons.
As for the link, brilliant idea:
50 Reasons why Return of the Jedi Sucks
--FW
#10
Posted 12 March 2004 - 06:05 PM
What are you talking about? Seriously, I'm not dissing you or anything here, I just have no idea what you're talking about or how it relates to this.
#11
Posted 12 March 2004 - 07:22 PM
1. The Ewoks in ROTJ have at least 3 purposes in the movie and the trilogy on the whole
1. They are supposed to represent the concept that a low tech society that may be considered primative could defeat a high-tech army. Much similar to historical examples {the Barabarians vs the Romans, the Ethiopians vs the Mussolini army, the Viet-Cong vs the US. Army).
2. They are an essential part of the scenery concerning the forest moon of Endor. They show that their is more to this moon than meets the eye. Remember to the Rebels and the Imperials the forest moon is just simply a base were the shield generator is located. The Ewoks are that great unknown element that the allies and the enemy do not anticipate.
3. Wicket in particular serves a purpose in shaping more of Leia's characterization. For all of Leia's strength leadership and resolve, she is in many ways still the little girl princess. The scene is very warm in many regards and harkens back to Star Wars' fantasy elements. A lot of people make the mistake of calling Star Wars a sci-fi movie, when in a fact it is a new genre. Star Wars was the first succesful SCI-FI-Fantasy hybrid. No other film had meshed those genres so well.
Some points about the Ewoks
The Ewoks are treated and portrayed as an actual tribe and culture. In fact listen to some of the scenes where the Ewoks are talking. Lucas spent so much care and respect in fashioning the ewoks after real tribes like the African Bushmen, the South American Yanomamo (sp?) as well as Native American tribes. The Ewoks are a living culture and are given the same respect and treatment from the human actors that Luke shared with Yoda, and Han Solo with Jabba the Hutt. Never once do you get the feeling the actors are patronizing the Ewoks. By comparison the Gungans are a complete bunch of Buffoons. I mean look at Boss Nass, he is essentially some big guy who spits up a storm after he completes his sentences. Nowhere is this guy a realistic or believable the character that Yoda, Jabba and the Ewoks are. Boss Nass does nothing that disproves him as a failed comic relief character. Speaking of Failed comic relief, Jar-Jar binks fits the bill as being just that. The only purpose of the Gungans to the story is that they are the only army to defeat the Droid army on Naboo. That's it. They don't enhance the planets scenary, they are not primitives (they have laser weapons and vehicles) and they don't particularly enhance anybodies character or add to the fantasy element.
The Ewoks can't be the Wookies. If you make the Ewoks the Wookies you have to spend more valuable screen time explaining their connections to Han and Chewbacca. It also means you have to explain a bunch of backstories regarding the imperial history. Too much for a bunch of supporting charcters. Plus, don't you think the Imperial army would spend a lot more effort in destroy the Wookies if they new the moon was invested by potential dangerous large, strong semi-intelligent tribal creatures?
Conversely there is no other way to NOT make the Ewoks look like Teddy Bears. If you make them hairless, you bring up some nudity issues and potential racial conflicts. So they have to have hair. If you make them bird creatures, they could look even more ridiculous and you would have to explain why they are on the ground with the humans. If you make them into lizard creatures, they would look too frightening and menacing which would destroy their heroic qualities and make them look more like demons. So they have to have hairs. Should they look like dogs.. No that is ridiculous. Monkeys or Apes? No, brings to many planet of the ape references as well as possible racial issue especially if they are speaking in a Bushmen like language. Cats? No just as ridiculous as dogs, and could look potential demonic in a certain way? Okay, what then? We need a hairy animal, that would look warm and friendly and non-human. What's left, but bears. Tall human size bears. No, because it debunks them as being overlooked by the Imperials as being a nuisance. The Imperials would have dealt with such creatures existing in the wild. Hence they have to be little bears. Logic deduction- smallish teddy bear like creatures. But not miniture "carebear" types, some realistic tribal looking teddy bears, with weapons, speaking in a distinct native language and have a cultural life. These creatures would look like beings that really could evolve from the forest moon. Hence -The Ewoks.
Wow, I have gotten so involved with this, I AM going to post my rebuttals. Look out, Ferris! :angry:
#12
Posted 12 March 2004 - 09:01 PM
#13
Posted 13 March 2004 - 12:44 AM
The Empire's best troops and tacticians:
"Yep, follow the teddy bears into the woods, their home turf, where they might have an ambush set up. No biggie. Oh, defending the base? Our primary objective? It'll defend itself. We don't need a concentration of firepower, we can spread ourselves thin."
If you're a tactician or soldier worth your salt you NEVER underestimate an enemy. If you hold a tactical advantage or stronghold you MAINTAIN it. Particularly if your objective is only time-based. I mean, it was only a matter of time before the Imp fleet wiped out the Rebel fleet. Once that's done, send down a few wings of TIE fighters to firebomb the hell out of the little furry bastards, but until that point, STAY WITH THE SHIELD GENERATOR! And where the hell were the AT-ATs?
The land battle on Endor was not the making of an epic, but Saturday afternoon kiddie fare, complete with a score more like that of a cartoon than a powerful and dramatic film. Yes, the thirty seconds on Endor before the Ewoks turned the tide were very sad and all, especially when the one little Ewok died. Okay, not really. But as soon as (and this is pointed out by the 50 reasons) Chewie and his little buddies shanghai the ATST everything gets stupid.
Finally, and again, this is pointed out by the 50 reasons, the Ewoks were a bullshit marketing ploy. They were intended to sell action figures, plush dolls, t-shirts, mugs, posters and spinoff their own TV series.
--FW
#14
Posted 13 March 2004 - 04:12 AM
Yet you DO believe that a one-man fighter craft can defeat a planet-destroying battle station just by firing a missile down an exhaust shaft.
"If you're a tactician or soldier worth your salt you NEVER underestimate an enemy."
You don't kill your own men, either. I don't see you complaining about that.
Cut the crap. There's always been lapses of logic in Star Wars. I respect that you don't like ROTJ, but the fact is that Mike has made sense out of these supposed absurdities, but you just keep saying "I don't care I've got a mental block against ROTJ, read 50 Reasons."
Frankly, the 50 Reasons ROTJ sucked is worthless. Some of the statements are completely in-accurate, while others rely on interpretation or purely on subjective reasoning. There's very few that are objective, and like Mike, I could come up with counter-arguements for each and every one of them.
Personally, I thought doing the Ewoks as "cute" little teddy bears was a good thing. If every alien species we encountered in Star Wars was some sort of freak from a KISS Album, the universe would be just as flat as Star Trek's "All aliens are just humans with lumps on their foreheads" setting. Having cute bears showed how diverse the universe of Star Wars really is.
And second, don't even bother to mention marketting. Wether or not the Ewoks were meant solely for merchandising is totally irrelevent as it has nothing to do with the quality of the film. I used to argue with a guy over He-Man who had a similar arguement--he always tried to say it was bad, his reason being "Its based on a toy." and I said "So what? It's still a damn good show." If you want to argue the movie, argue the movie ITSELF, not some points outside of it that only tenuously relate to the issue at hand.
#15
Posted 13 March 2004 - 09:12 AM
If we're talking old-school He-Man, then yeah, HE was right. The show was inane. Just like SuperFriends. If you can actually say that He-Man was a quality show then that invalidates your arguments about ROTJ at least a little in my eyes. I have read articles on X-E by Matt, who, incidentally, loved the show and still does, and even he in full apologetics mode cannot reconcile the problems with the show and many of its more stupid elements.
There are films and TV shows that can be written exclusively for merchandising purposes - example, Batman, The Animated Series - and they can still have stories that kick ass, but He-Man and ROTJ did not. Kids loved He-Man because of big, muscle-bound guys with big swords, giant green talking Tigers, wizards, mutants and skull-dudes. Most didn't attempt to unravel the plots so long as He-Man and Man-At-Arms were able to defeat Skeletor while introducing a new must-have accessory for the Masters that the kids could play with later, inventing their own stories.
Many people view ROTJ with their beer goggles on... or better, their childhood goggles and your argument for He-Man is an example of this. I loved ROTJ as a kid, but when I got to about 17 or 18 years old, when the SE came out (and before I had read the 50 reasons), something changed. The other films still rocked hardcore, but ROTJ was filled with cute stupidity aimed for children:
-Salacious Crumb, the weird yet cute-in-his-own-way Kowakian Monkey Lizard
-The slapstick between Jabba and Threepio and Jabba and Bib Fortuna
-The cuteness of Max Rebo
-The 'droids bumping into each other inside of and later falling off of the sail barge (Where were Artoo's rocket boosters, by the way?)
-The belch joke that Boba Fett became
-Han's silly one-liners
-Leia and Han's over-simplified love life
-The sitcom sound effects - I actually can hear a "Wah wah waaaaah" noise when he says that it would be against his programming to impersonate a deity, and there's Chewie's Tarzan yell
I'll stop short of the Ewoks because it's easy to shred on them. I will say this, though, I watched From Star Wars to Jedi, the documentary, and in it, they were working out the scene where Luke is instructing Threepio to say he'll get angry if the Ewoks don't release his friends. The original plan was to have Han and Luke simultaneously yell out, "Just tell them!" Fortunately, this was dropped, but it was all a big silly joke to them. Carrie at one point even goes "Oh, can I say it, too?" I can't fault Kas for this; his writing has been too solid on other occasions, ESB, Raiders, etc. so I fault Marqand (French, by the way for hand-puppet - not really) and Lucas, who probably went over the film with a fine-toothed comb to make sure it was up to his "esteemed" level of writing.
By the way, I can accept the Photon Torpedo explanation because of the associated techno-jargon that went with it. And yes, there have been plenty of successful yet ruthless military leaders who have killed their own men for failure because they see it as efficient. You can't argue the point about the stupidity of the chasing of the Ewoks so you instead shred on the other two films? Good move. Um, no, it won't work here. Thank you, try again.
Not to pick on a dead guy, but has anybody explored Marquand's body of work beyond ROTJ? Not terribly positive. I mean, aside from ROTJ and Eye of the Needle (7.0/10.0), his few shitty films rank at best a 6.5 and all the way down to 2.1. Pretty pathetic.
--FW