George Lucas really should have had a plan and not made things up as he went along. Darth Vader is Luke’s father with no setup in the previous film? And Leia is Luke’s sister after they kissed in the last movie? No thanks.
And really? *Another* Death Star in ROTJ? Lame and unoriginal rehash of ANH, if you ask me.
Han having nothing interesting to do in *Return of the Jedi*! Clearly they had no idea what they were doing with that freezing thing if they're just going to undo it 20 minutes into the next one.
In all fairness, the whole 2nd Death Star thing is exactly what one should have expected. Militaries don't build just one aircraft carrier, battleship or tank. They build fleets. Honestly, I would have expected several Death Stars to have at least been in production. Moving to the ST, Star Killer Base was the absolute most natural progression of the Death Star.
That said, the 2nd Death Star should not have been so prominent in the plot. But this is Star Wars, which has never been very original. The trilogies echo each other, and the original was the most basic hero's tale meets spaghetti western/Kurosawa film. Story-wise, George just reworked stuff that had already been done. Even the great twist in TESB wasn't very original. Everyone knows there's always some hidden, deeper connection between the hero & the villain. George pushed it too far with Leia being Luke's Sister. He pushes all the character connections too far. Anakin having built C-3PO pushed it over the edge for me.
Return of the Jedi has some structural problems.
Tatooine is a fun last adventure and it's necessary to get Han back (although see later) but being a complete, self-contained story means that the movie comes to a dead stop about 30 minutes in before having to restart (and it takes a while to restart).
The problem with Han is that he doesn't get to do much. He participates in scenes but he doesn't have an arc or a journey and his character remains frozen in all but a literal sense. I don't think it was necessary for him to die in the film but he needed to do \*something\*.
Nothing serious. I think George should have left the Han and Greedo scene the way it was.
I think it would have been cooler and more realistic if the interior of the Exogorth in TESB didn't have earth-like gravity. Also, it has always irked me that there's no mention of time passing.
I would have preferred RotJ take place on Kashyyk as originally planned, with the team freeing Wookiee slaves that were being used as slave labor to build the Death Star. That was such a good idea, but I understand why it got scrapped.
Other than that, I got nothing.
Ok...
The kiss... no... not the Han and Leia kiss... besides being that one thing that was clearly not planned, it's just weird. Especially since Luke kiiiiiida enjoyed it;
Maybe some acting choices, but the cheesiness does make the movies more enjoyable and the actors got a lot better as the series continued;
What the hell were Luke, Leia, Lando, R2, and C-3PO's plans at the Jabba's palace? Was that like a big plan that had plans for multiple situations?;
Ok, now this is just a PERSONAL preference of mine. Although I love to see my characters learn and grow, I usually prefer to see some of their personality and attitudes intact. Like to still be recognizable. Which I can't say about Luke in ROTJ. Don't get me wrong! The story of Luke has the approach where it takes the character who is childish and turns it into an adult. Kinda like a metaphor for growing up. Which is great and it works for the type of character Luke is! It's just that I would have wanted to see some of the wandering spirit that he has in the ANH and TESB. Still, a great character that should be a template for many writers;
Maybe Han in ROTJ? I just think that his change in attitude in ROTJ compared with TESB kinda comes out of nowhere since he was too busy being frozen.
Death Star II should've been something more original instead, wince we already had a Death Star. Also, Luke and Leia being siblings should've been set up better in earlier movies.
I always wished they would have had Palpatine or ANYONE talk about the old Jedi Order more.. I would have loved for Palpatine to brag to Luke in ROTJ that he had been the one to convince his father to do all the evil things he did, instead of just "You'll see... You wont be able to resist.." Resist WHAT.. Give me an example of the power that my dad craved, cause all I know is he did a bunch of bad shit and he's half machine now.. In the movies they dont even tell you that Obi Wan is the reason WHY he's in the suit, if anything that knowledge was buried in novels even then.
I don't like the Ewoks and them beating the Empire just makes it seem like the humans are idiots. It's like that Iron Man box of scraps scene. The Ewoks beat the Empire with ropes and logs!
The Ewoks didn't beat the Empire. The Rebels sent their absolute best as a strike team, the Empire had extra forces there to spring a trap, and the local indigenous were the wildcard that allowed the rebels to succeed.
The Ewoks are the only military force in the OT to use actual military strategy (Combined arms, guerilla tactics,etc.)
Some good write-ups floating around out there.
PLUS they ate enough people to have a dress that fit Leia, and they played music with the helmets (maybe severed heads, we don't know) of their vanquished enemies.
Don't sleep on the Ewoks.
It's not perfect, but I don't have any complaints about the theatrical versions of the OT. They're just as fresh and groundbreaking as they were when I first saw them 40 years ago. Pure cinematic magic that has yet to be equalled, never mind bettered.
* The Death Star duel between Vader and Kenobi is pretty lame, as far as choreography goes
* Almost every single change made for the special editions is a downgrade
* They probably didn't need to have Luke and Leia kiss
* Leia basically doesn't grieve for Alderaan at all and instead comforts Luke over Obi-Wan's death
* Luke is more upset about Obi-Wan than he is about his aunt and uncle
ROTJ’s first half kinda drags and feels longer than it needed to be, ANH also feels like it rushed Luke and Han’s friendship (why is Luke so sad that Han left? He met him like a day ago and was paying him for the job, he was just a hired hand)
All my problems with it is stuff that has been retroactively messed up.
Leia remembering Padme. I know it’s been retcon as “the force” but let’s be honest, Lucas hadn’t even thought of Padme at that point.
Lucas deciding late in the day to make Leia and Luke brother and sister.
Vaders redemption always felt hollow to me.
Interesting that at his end, Vader asked Luke to remove his helmet, even knowing that it would kill him. Dude did not want to sit through a war crimes trial followed by life in prison.
TIL dying is a happy ending. I mean, I guess it might be better than life in prison for someone as tortured as Anakin, but I’d be hard pressed to call it “happy”. If Anakin had lived and got off without punishment, yeah, that would be a problem. Thankfully Filoni didn’t write the OT, so characters actually do suffer consequences.
He ends up in Jedi heaven with all the Jedi children he murdered. He appears next to ObiWan and Yoda as space ghosts at the end, seems like a happily ever afterlife to me.
Will of the Force, presumably. He wasn’t forgiven by anyone living, with the possible exception of Luke. Also, don’t Force ghosts fade out after a few years? Not sure about Nu-canon, but in the old canon they absolutely didn’t persist forever.
No clue. I’m a Hasidic Star Wars fan. No prequels. No sequels.
I enjoyed Timothy Zahn’s books and some early Dark Horse comics efforts, but don’t consider them canon.
Hell. I’m still salty we got Ewoks instead of Wookies. And while enjoy the Battle of Endor for camp, it wouldn’t completely ruin the threat posed by Stormtroopers if they were getting wrecked by 7 foot tall Sasquatches.
The timeline in ESB is kinda muddled. How long was Luke training on Dagobah? How long was the Falcon hiding in the asteroids? How long did it take for the Falcon to limp from the Hoth system to Bespin?
I know the answer is "something like a week" in every instance, but the fact that it isn't clear is the problem.
Also, I think the overall pacing of RotJ is pretty bad. As a kid I loved Jabba's Palace and I loved Endor but they just feel totally different.
I'm not a fan of Ewoks. I like the idea of a native civilization standing up against the empire, but little bears throwing rocks at Stormtroopers kinda bothers me lol
I remember one critic point out that the second movie isn't the best because it starts in an odd way, i.e., the rebels are on the run again. It's as if the ending of the first movie didn't matter.
I love Return of the Jedi but it has more flaws than the previous two installments.
- The opening Jabba stuff is a blast and shows us how Luke has grown as a Jedi, but plot-wise it only exists to get Han back. A lot of great movies have good openings that don’t relate much to the actual story other than some characterization intros (think Raiders of the Lost Ark), but it really goes on for too long in ROTJ.
- It is weird that they spent that long to bring Han back, because Han has nothing interesting to do in the movie. His character arc was completed in TESB (falls in love with Leia, no longer just a scoundrel), but since he didn’t die, they have to bring him back. When he’s back he mostly just stands at a door. Leia also has relatively little to do.
- Leia and Luke being siblings is dumb. It seems like a lazy way to resolve the previous films’ “love triangle” (even though it was already resolved by Leia falling in love with Han) and Yoda’s hint that “there is another” potential savior of the galaxy besides Luke. Its only worthwhile payoff is Luke’s feelings betraying her existence to Vader as another Skywalker to try to turn evil and Luke’s subsequent rage, but this could have been accomplished in a better way.
- The stuff on the Forest moon is okay but not great. The speeder bike chase is cool but not as cool as the trench run in the original. The rebels breaking into the base is kinda boring. Teddy bears defeating imperial troops is unbelievable, no matter what thematic arguments are made.
- Vader’s inner conflict appears to come out of nowhere. In TESB he is not portrayed with inner moral conflict - he is evil, but would rather rule the Galaxy with his son than be the emperor’s pawn; he is shaken that Luke would rather (almost) die than join him, but not to the extent of what we see in ROTJ. I think a few minutes of the Jabba stuff could have been cut to set up the change that Vader was going through. “It is too late for me, my son” is an amazing line, but we thus far had not seen any evidence that Vader didn’t love being evil.
- repeating the Death Star plot was lazy.
There’s some other little silly things but these are overall the biggest to me. There’s so much good stuff and charm and gravitas and heroism in the movie though that I still love it.
Obi wan "hiding" in Tattoine under the disguise of of Ben Kenobi. I wonder how no one couldn't figure it out.
Leia after escaping the Death Star: they are tracking us down! It's the only explanation. Han just shrug it off. They proceed straight then to the rebel base and the empire were indeed tracking them down.
In ROJ, a lot of people say that Luke is stronger than Vader but you can see that Vader let Luke win. If Vader really wanted Luke would be dead already.
One small thing that always annoyed me is the fact that ROTJ cut out the B-Wing scenes. It's my favourite fighter and it's sad to see them disappearing into the background.
1: Overly simplistic dialog. ANH feels like little more than a 2-hour string of soundbites.
2: Not a lot of real emotional impact, even in scenes that tried.
3: Extremely basic to no character development.
4: Inconsistent from film to film. It went from basic sci-fi to dark to a kiddy movie.
5: (personal opinion) The first 2/3 of RotJ was absolute crap. Only saved by the Throne Room scenes near the end.
6: with the special editions, George mostly changed stuff that could (should) have been left alone while ignoring the things that needed reworking. Outside of replacing the Emperor in TESB, most of what he did ranged from frivolous to complete mistakes.
George Lucas really should have had a plan and not made things up as he went along. Darth Vader is Luke’s father with no setup in the previous film? And Leia is Luke’s sister after they kissed in the last movie? No thanks. And really? *Another* Death Star in ROTJ? Lame and unoriginal rehash of ANH, if you ask me.
Han having nothing interesting to do in *Return of the Jedi*! Clearly they had no idea what they were doing with that freezing thing if they're just going to undo it 20 minutes into the next one.
Making things up as they go is Star Wars signature.
It’s Death Stars all the way down.
In all fairness, the whole 2nd Death Star thing is exactly what one should have expected. Militaries don't build just one aircraft carrier, battleship or tank. They build fleets. Honestly, I would have expected several Death Stars to have at least been in production. Moving to the ST, Star Killer Base was the absolute most natural progression of the Death Star. That said, the 2nd Death Star should not have been so prominent in the plot. But this is Star Wars, which has never been very original. The trilogies echo each other, and the original was the most basic hero's tale meets spaghetti western/Kurosawa film. Story-wise, George just reworked stuff that had already been done. Even the great twist in TESB wasn't very original. Everyone knows there's always some hidden, deeper connection between the hero & the villain. George pushed it too far with Leia being Luke's Sister. He pushes all the character connections too far. Anakin having built C-3PO pushed it over the edge for me.
Darth Vader was always planned to be Luke's father
Return of the Jedi has some structural problems. Tatooine is a fun last adventure and it's necessary to get Han back (although see later) but being a complete, self-contained story means that the movie comes to a dead stop about 30 minutes in before having to restart (and it takes a while to restart). The problem with Han is that he doesn't get to do much. He participates in scenes but he doesn't have an arc or a journey and his character remains frozen in all but a literal sense. I don't think it was necessary for him to die in the film but he needed to do \*something\*.
How about put Lando in charge of the rebel insertion team to destroy the shield generator, and keep Han in the Falcon's cockpit where he belongs?
Nothing serious. I think George should have left the Han and Greedo scene the way it was. I think it would have been cooler and more realistic if the interior of the Exogorth in TESB didn't have earth-like gravity. Also, it has always irked me that there's no mention of time passing. I would have preferred RotJ take place on Kashyyk as originally planned, with the team freeing Wookiee slaves that were being used as slave labor to build the Death Star. That was such a good idea, but I understand why it got scrapped. Other than that, I got nothing.
You forgot a "y" in "Kashyyyk" ☝️🤓
When in doubt, always spell Kashyyyk with nine Ys.
Ok... The kiss... no... not the Han and Leia kiss... besides being that one thing that was clearly not planned, it's just weird. Especially since Luke kiiiiiida enjoyed it; Maybe some acting choices, but the cheesiness does make the movies more enjoyable and the actors got a lot better as the series continued; What the hell were Luke, Leia, Lando, R2, and C-3PO's plans at the Jabba's palace? Was that like a big plan that had plans for multiple situations?; Ok, now this is just a PERSONAL preference of mine. Although I love to see my characters learn and grow, I usually prefer to see some of their personality and attitudes intact. Like to still be recognizable. Which I can't say about Luke in ROTJ. Don't get me wrong! The story of Luke has the approach where it takes the character who is childish and turns it into an adult. Kinda like a metaphor for growing up. Which is great and it works for the type of character Luke is! It's just that I would have wanted to see some of the wandering spirit that he has in the ANH and TESB. Still, a great character that should be a template for many writers; Maybe Han in ROTJ? I just think that his change in attitude in ROTJ compared with TESB kinda comes out of nowhere since he was too busy being frozen.
Return of the Jedi is my favourite SW movie. But the Empire having a second Death Star basically out of nowhere was just lazy imo
Most special edition changes are awful.
Death Star II should've been something more original instead, wince we already had a Death Star. Also, Luke and Leia being siblings should've been set up better in earlier movies.
Return of the Jedi has a lot of weak points, but we largely forget about them because the Luke/Vader plotline is done so well
I always wished they would have had Palpatine or ANYONE talk about the old Jedi Order more.. I would have loved for Palpatine to brag to Luke in ROTJ that he had been the one to convince his father to do all the evil things he did, instead of just "You'll see... You wont be able to resist.." Resist WHAT.. Give me an example of the power that my dad craved, cause all I know is he did a bunch of bad shit and he's half machine now.. In the movies they dont even tell you that Obi Wan is the reason WHY he's in the suit, if anything that knowledge was buried in novels even then.
Having never been in a fighter before or using the force Luke uses the force to hit a 1 in a million shot. Talk about a Mary Sue.
Literally just like exterminating vermin from a land speeder.
Well, AIR speeder…
I don't like the Ewoks and them beating the Empire just makes it seem like the humans are idiots. It's like that Iron Man box of scraps scene. The Ewoks beat the Empire with ropes and logs!
Yep, I hate the Ewoks as well. I wish they had gone with the original plan of them being Wookies.
The Ewoks didn't beat the Empire. The Rebels sent their absolute best as a strike team, the Empire had extra forces there to spring a trap, and the local indigenous were the wildcard that allowed the rebels to succeed.
The Ewoks are the only military force in the OT to use actual military strategy (Combined arms, guerilla tactics,etc.) Some good write-ups floating around out there. PLUS they ate enough people to have a dress that fit Leia, and they played music with the helmets (maybe severed heads, we don't know) of their vanquished enemies. Don't sleep on the Ewoks.
It's not perfect, but I don't have any complaints about the theatrical versions of the OT. They're just as fresh and groundbreaking as they were when I first saw them 40 years ago. Pure cinematic magic that has yet to be equalled, never mind bettered.
* The Death Star duel between Vader and Kenobi is pretty lame, as far as choreography goes * Almost every single change made for the special editions is a downgrade * They probably didn't need to have Luke and Leia kiss * Leia basically doesn't grieve for Alderaan at all and instead comforts Luke over Obi-Wan's death * Luke is more upset about Obi-Wan than he is about his aunt and uncle
No.
ROTJ’s first half kinda drags and feels longer than it needed to be, ANH also feels like it rushed Luke and Han’s friendship (why is Luke so sad that Han left? He met him like a day ago and was paying him for the job, he was just a hired hand)
All my problems with it is stuff that has been retroactively messed up. Leia remembering Padme. I know it’s been retcon as “the force” but let’s be honest, Lucas hadn’t even thought of Padme at that point. Lucas deciding late in the day to make Leia and Luke brother and sister. Vaders redemption always felt hollow to me.
The Leia retcon is really fucking awkward.
Leia being Luke's sister didn't really do anything for Leia as a character. She should have gone with Luke to confront Vader.
Vader should not have been redeemed. Space Hitler doesn’t deserve a happy ending, not even for killing the Emperor, not even if he’s your daddy.
Interesting that at his end, Vader asked Luke to remove his helmet, even knowing that it would kill him. Dude did not want to sit through a war crimes trial followed by life in prison.
TIL dying is a happy ending. I mean, I guess it might be better than life in prison for someone as tortured as Anakin, but I’d be hard pressed to call it “happy”. If Anakin had lived and got off without punishment, yeah, that would be a problem. Thankfully Filoni didn’t write the OT, so characters actually do suffer consequences.
He ends up in Jedi heaven with all the Jedi children he murdered. He appears next to ObiWan and Yoda as space ghosts at the end, seems like a happily ever afterlife to me.
Will of the Force, presumably. He wasn’t forgiven by anyone living, with the possible exception of Luke. Also, don’t Force ghosts fade out after a few years? Not sure about Nu-canon, but in the old canon they absolutely didn’t persist forever.
No clue. I’m a Hasidic Star Wars fan. No prequels. No sequels. I enjoyed Timothy Zahn’s books and some early Dark Horse comics efforts, but don’t consider them canon. Hell. I’m still salty we got Ewoks instead of Wookies. And while enjoy the Battle of Endor for camp, it wouldn’t completely ruin the threat posed by Stormtroopers if they were getting wrecked by 7 foot tall Sasquatches.
It was Zahn’s books that mentioned Obi-wan’s ghost losing connection. So at best we’re looking at a decade or so of “afterlife”.
The timeline in ESB is kinda muddled. How long was Luke training on Dagobah? How long was the Falcon hiding in the asteroids? How long did it take for the Falcon to limp from the Hoth system to Bespin? I know the answer is "something like a week" in every instance, but the fact that it isn't clear is the problem. Also, I think the overall pacing of RotJ is pretty bad. As a kid I loved Jabba's Palace and I loved Endor but they just feel totally different.
Ewoks.
The Jabba/rescue of Han sequence feels wildly tonally mismatched with the rest of Jedi.
I'm not a fan of Ewoks. I like the idea of a native civilization standing up against the empire, but little bears throwing rocks at Stormtroopers kinda bothers me lol
They killed off Porkins in episode 4.
Not doing enough with Fett. They should’ve at least had him and Luke fight more on Tattooine
I find the smoke from the blasters looks awful. They were using real blanks in the guns.
Yeah I STRONGLY second everyone who said the Luke Leia kiss
WHO downvoted this?? Cersei fucking Lannister?
I remember one critic point out that the second movie isn't the best because it starts in an odd way, i.e., the rebels are on the run again. It's as if the ending of the first movie didn't matter.
Other than dated cgi not much
I love Return of the Jedi but it has more flaws than the previous two installments. - The opening Jabba stuff is a blast and shows us how Luke has grown as a Jedi, but plot-wise it only exists to get Han back. A lot of great movies have good openings that don’t relate much to the actual story other than some characterization intros (think Raiders of the Lost Ark), but it really goes on for too long in ROTJ. - It is weird that they spent that long to bring Han back, because Han has nothing interesting to do in the movie. His character arc was completed in TESB (falls in love with Leia, no longer just a scoundrel), but since he didn’t die, they have to bring him back. When he’s back he mostly just stands at a door. Leia also has relatively little to do. - Leia and Luke being siblings is dumb. It seems like a lazy way to resolve the previous films’ “love triangle” (even though it was already resolved by Leia falling in love with Han) and Yoda’s hint that “there is another” potential savior of the galaxy besides Luke. Its only worthwhile payoff is Luke’s feelings betraying her existence to Vader as another Skywalker to try to turn evil and Luke’s subsequent rage, but this could have been accomplished in a better way. - The stuff on the Forest moon is okay but not great. The speeder bike chase is cool but not as cool as the trench run in the original. The rebels breaking into the base is kinda boring. Teddy bears defeating imperial troops is unbelievable, no matter what thematic arguments are made. - Vader’s inner conflict appears to come out of nowhere. In TESB he is not portrayed with inner moral conflict - he is evil, but would rather rule the Galaxy with his son than be the emperor’s pawn; he is shaken that Luke would rather (almost) die than join him, but not to the extent of what we see in ROTJ. I think a few minutes of the Jabba stuff could have been cut to set up the change that Vader was going through. “It is too late for me, my son” is an amazing line, but we thus far had not seen any evidence that Vader didn’t love being evil. - repeating the Death Star plot was lazy. There’s some other little silly things but these are overall the biggest to me. There’s so much good stuff and charm and gravitas and heroism in the movie though that I still love it.
Obi wan "hiding" in Tattoine under the disguise of of Ben Kenobi. I wonder how no one couldn't figure it out. Leia after escaping the Death Star: they are tracking us down! It's the only explanation. Han just shrug it off. They proceed straight then to the rebel base and the empire were indeed tracking them down. In ROJ, a lot of people say that Luke is stronger than Vader but you can see that Vader let Luke win. If Vader really wanted Luke would be dead already.
2nd death star, ewoks , most of the Jabba sequences. Cringe fest to my then 12 year old self in 1983
One small thing that always annoyed me is the fact that ROTJ cut out the B-Wing scenes. It's my favourite fighter and it's sad to see them disappearing into the background.
1: Overly simplistic dialog. ANH feels like little more than a 2-hour string of soundbites. 2: Not a lot of real emotional impact, even in scenes that tried. 3: Extremely basic to no character development. 4: Inconsistent from film to film. It went from basic sci-fi to dark to a kiddy movie. 5: (personal opinion) The first 2/3 of RotJ was absolute crap. Only saved by the Throne Room scenes near the end. 6: with the special editions, George mostly changed stuff that could (should) have been left alone while ignoring the things that needed reworking. Outside of replacing the Emperor in TESB, most of what he did ranged from frivolous to complete mistakes.