Draven

Luke got his shit tossed in ESB. Lost a hand, found out about his father's fate, disobeyed his teacher.

In the downtime (which I think was longer than a month or two...they had to get all of the players in place and execute the plan) he went back to his training and said "okay, I get it now. I need to work on this" and got his act together. The rescue plan isn't flawless by any means, but he has had enough time to calm down and embrace his training and trust his instincts.

There is no reason he needed to be a cowering shell of his former self. Doesn't seem to be as big of a stretch to me.

Jackskeleton

All it had was a bunch of muppets.

taa455

I enjoy Episode VI. It's just a few things that bring the whole movie down a notch. The most glaring example being the cheesy characters (Ewoks; Lando's copilot - stupid looking alien with the mucus covered skin flaps on his face...never says anything but laughs all the time; the fat pig dudes in Jabba's palace...when I was young I thought they were kinda cool but now not so much, the ridiculous Jabba band especially with the extended SE sequence, Jabba's annoying pet) I feel these characters were regretably added for comic relief and kids enjoyment, which I feel brings the whole film down just like Jar jar did for Episode I.

Nuff

The only real problem I have with Jedi is the Ewoks...ugh just get rid of them please and the movie improves immensely!

Terrell

That is not the same thing as blood. Showing blood is practically taboo in Star Wars. Most of those things you mentioned occured in the prequel trilogy, and even then there were little to no blood shown. Showing a fair amount of blood would have garnered an R rating. As I said, expecting Underworld type violence and blood in Star Wars is silly.

That is more than enough time for Luke to get his shit together.

jonjj7

Only time I remember seeing blood is when Obi-Wan slices up the dude in the Mos Eisley cantina. Also, what about when Luke chops off the Wampa's arm? Can't remember if you actually see blood there.

Legolas

As opposed to TESB, where Luke's Jedi training lasted for as long as his friends were on Cloud City.

Hokeyboy

Man, there's so much awful stuff in ROTJ. Yet it has enough impressive moments to remain a nostalgic favorite. I don't HATE the movie, but man this is the defining moment where Lucas decided to cash out.

Giantrobo

I was thinking the same thing. Plus, and allow me to speculate in a fantasy world, it seems to me Luke's heritage probably allowed him to ramp up rather quickly. Everyone and their mother knows that the Force is strong in him so coming back all "Badass" doesn't seem so far fetched.

Supermallet

ROTJ used to be my favorite of the three. I loved the Jabba scenes and the final space battle. Plus, Vader is so threatening in the opening scene.

Watching it now, it clearly is the weakest of the three. My biggest problem are the proliferation of utterly useless or badly played scenes. Jabba's palace goes on for way too long, and there are a trillion exposition scenes on Endor that could have been shortened. The scene where Luke tells Leia they are siblings is badly acted all around, and yes, the Ewok battle is just embarrassing. But the OP is right, the film gets far too much criticism for what it is. It's a good action film, it's just not up to the level of the last two.

As a standalone film, it's not so bad. As a Star Wars film, it's lacking. I would rank it as fourth best (Empire, Star Wars, Sith, Jedi, Clones, Phantom Menace).

Doughboy

There's no blood in either version of Empire when Luke chops off the Wampa's arm. There is a decent amount of blood on Luke's grill when the Wampa knocks him off the Tauntaun at the beginning. It's really noticable when you watch the DVD.

milo bloom

There's supposed to be six months between the end of Empire and the beginning of Jedi. I'd gather that Luke spends a lot of time meditating and really getting ahold of himself.

As for Degobah, I've always figured at least several weeks, though if you consider it concurrent to the Falcon traveling between solar systems on a <FTL drive, you're looking at centuries of course


I always did like ROTJ, I never had a problem with the Tarzan yell, I was fully aware that the Ewoks were about to barbecue Han, and some of my liking comes from knowledge of the novel which has both Luke, Han and Leia giving big speeches to the Ewoks about why they should join the fight. The new ending to Jedi helped it a bit too, though my perfect version would have the original song in Jabba's palace, but with the SE ending save for having Sebastian Shaw's ghost, and after we do the tour of the galaxy, come back down to Endor and close out on the YubYub song.

Supermallet

Oh, and don't get me started on the special edition. Han shooting first is NOTHING compared to the fucking MUSICAL NUMBER they put in Jabba's palace. Talk about unecessary, distracting, and wholly out of place. Then they took out the best part of the entire score: the Yub Yub song! The only thing the Ewoks were good for.

Also, something that always bothered me about Jedi: At the beginning of the space battle, after Lando tells the fleet to break off from the Death Star, there is a shot where you see several waves of fighters from the view of the Falcon's cockpit. As best I can tell, these fighters come from literally nowhere. They're TIE Fighters, so they don't have hyperdrives, but they just seem to appear out of nowhere. There are three waves, if I recall, and they don't come from out of the bays of the Star Destroyers. They just...appear. One moment we see empty space, the next, it's a TIE Fighter.

toddly6666

My fav is Jedi - maybe not the most respectable of the three, but definitely the most re-watchable. I also thought Jedi was the most touching with the Luke, Vader, Palpatine finale in the same type of emotional finale as Return of the King. Return of the King is probably the best 3rd movie in a trilogy out of all movie trilogies.

Basically, Jedi is like X-men 3 - X3 is not the most respectable or greatly reviewed film in comparison to the previous ones, but it's gonna be the most rewatchable one for me, just as Jedi has been...

Jedi was mainly critisized due to the Ewoks....Thanks to the crappy three prequels, I love the ewoks now and has made Jedi look even better and not dated...

Supermallet

Return of the Jedi is NOTHING like X3. The worst of Jedi is far, far, FAR better than the best of X3. Saying that Jedi is anything like X3 is as much hyperbole as saying that X3 was as bad as Batman And Robin.

Michael T Hudson

First thing I thought when I saw the thread title.

PopcornTreeCt

muppets > cgi

A New Hope had as many if not more "muppets" than ROTJ. I never knew Return of the Jedi sucked till DVDTalk told me so. Luckily, I've never meant anyone in reality that thinks the same way.

Joseph B

People keep bringing up the Ewoks as source of frustration with Jedi.

Actually, the Ewoks had to be depicted as "cuddly Teddy Bears" or Palpatine would have perceived them as more of a threat.

The fact that Palpatine had thought that he had totally manipulated all the major players (Vader, Luke, and the Rebels) so that he could finaly obtain a healthy, young, apprentice while simultaneously wiping out the Rebels; and then to have all his plans foiled by the intervention of a race he had thought harmless, is not only a great irony, but, in my opinion, one of the great triumphs of the entire Star Wars saga!

Hulkabrgr

To me Jedi is my least favorite of the six movies. When I first saw it in the theater as a cik in 83, it was my favorite, but as I have gotten older, it's flaws have bothered me more and more. The drop off from Hope, and Empire to Jedi is steep. For better or worse, at least the prequel trilogy was more consistent in tems of quality. The one scene that has always bothered me in Jedi, and always will is the scene where the Death Star is getting ready to fire for the first time. Most of these shots are taken Directly from ANH, and to me that always seemed like lazy filmmaking.

Breakfast with Girls

I find it unbelievable that someone can prefer The Phantom Menace or Attack of the Clones to Return of the Jedi. Revenge of the Sith, maybe.

Jedi has never bothered me the way it bothers some people here. It has flaws, sure, but a lot of movies I love have flaws. I also like Back to the Future Part III better than Part II and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade more than any other Indiana Jones film (even Raiders, believe it or not).

I guess I'm more interested in empathetic characters that I can relate to. That's Darth Vader being redeemed by his son, Doc Brown falling in love, and Indy coming to terms with his father and seeing him in a new light.

jdslater1

I saw ROTJ when I was ten as well, brianluvdvd. I actually like Jedi quite alot aswell. to me it just gets on with the action. Watching it when I was younger it didn't slow down. Unlike ANH does with Luke and ESB does when Luke meets Yodi. Looking back now you are older you realize those scenes are needed.
The Biker scouts have THE best uniform out of the whole Imperial Force. I agree with the small AT-At scene, love the speeder chase ( I always wonder how this would look if it was down nowadays, properbly greenscreen the shit out of it!). And the end battle is the best. Favourite bits in that are the Falcon coming towards you and
turning and Wedge destroying the generator, I just love that sound of breaking glass.

Oh yes, and when Yoda died I cried like a baby, it was actually my 10th birthday when I saw it.

Spiderbite

I was sad but it was nothing compared to the weeping I did in the theater at E.T. at age nine. Hell, I only have to hear the score nowadays and I still tear up sometimes.

Dr. DVD

I seem to remember GL saying on one of the many VHS releases of ROTJ that the reason for the kid friendly Ewoks was to balance out the whole dark issue of Luke confronting and having to possibly kill his evil father.

I too am kind of disappointed that they didn't have Luke be more of a rogue type warrior in ROTJ. After going through what he did, one would think that he might be more of a brooding loner type. Granted, he's no longer the whiny kid he was in ANH, but he isn't quite the mental wreck he was at the end of ESB; he's not even much of a balance. I guess I would have liked to see him go more all out when he was saving Han over the Sarlacc Pit. Granted, he did his share of slicing and dicing, but I wish the camera hadn't cut away so abruptly all the time and shown some hands and limbs flying everywhere.

Egon's Ghost

Well said. How can a person not feel Luke's pain? Shit, he found out Darth Vader of all people is his father, then has fight him, and on his death bed turns out to be a good person.

milo bloom

Newsflash, it was green/bluescreen back then too. Actually, if they did it nowadays, they might be able to digitally repaint Luke's glove on the proper hand. It keeps switching hands.


Are you talking about the closeups of the controller's hands? I guess I never noticed it was reused footage, certainly never thought it worth being bothered about honestly.