Return of The Jedi revisited

Okay I am going to say some things that I have wanted to take out of my chest since 1983: Return of the Jedi was a HUGE letdown when I first watched it. I was blown away by the first film, Star Wars (no freaking 'New Hope', just plain 'Star Wars' as it was known until it got rereleased years later), I was mesmerized by 'Empire Strikes Back' and couldn't wait until the third and supposedly final episode was released, 'Revenge of The Jedi'. Then a few months later we were told that the title was changed to 'Return of the Jedi'. I didn't care. I just wanted to be transported to that galaxy far far away once more. When the movie was finally released I went with a bunch of friends, like 10 or 12 in total. We were hyped. We were ready. We cheered at the music & logo in the opening scene. We were scratching our heads at the 'tortured droids' at Jabba's dungeons, we were salivating at Leia's slave outfit, we were thrilled at the barge rescue battle and Luke's cool looking green lightsaber. We totally loved the speederbike chase and had a monumental WTF at the whole Ewoks sequence. We were scratching our heads at the convoluted space dogfights at the 'Its a Trap!!!' scenes as it was hard to catch who was shooting who. We were covering our eyes in horror as the ewoks were easily defeating the stormtroopers just with rocks and arrows. At the end we were smiling, but it was more a forced smile than genuine glee. We pretended that we loved this film too. We didn't. At least not me. I wanted badly to enjoy this film, but my mind was telling me 'this film was so inferior to the other two!' I started analyzing why I couldn't enjoy this film as much as the prior ones and came to this conclusion: while the empire vs rebellion was okay, the whole Skywalker family revelation turned not only forced, but just plain DUMB! I mean, Leia was Luke's TWIN SISTER??? GTFOH!!! In 'Empire' they kissed, for crying out loud! Luke had a crush on her since the first film! Those two films didn't meant to fool us for the 'big revelation' in 'Jedi'. No. It simply demonstrated that George Lucas had NO IDEA what to do next with these characters each time a film was made. It was lazy storytelling. Like Ben Kenobi's explanation for saying that Vader betrayed and murdered Luke's father...from a certain point of view! Heck, even the second duel with Vader wasn't as good as in 'Empire'. Vader aged badly between films and was rusty as hell.

Because of all this and more is that I was more forgiving with the prequels. I wasn't expecting much after the abysmal letdown of 'The Phantom Menace' which is not a terrible film, just merely watchable (Darth Maul was great, though). I learned from two disappointments, 'Return of The Jedi' and 'Phantom Menace' to not set my expectations too high on future Star Wars films.

 

I'd pretty much left Star Wars behind by the time this came out.
Same as you.

 

I have never left Star Wars behind. I am still a fan and rank it as my all time favorite movie franchise. But as with any franchise I know that not every film is great just 'because is Star Wars'. I know that hardcore geeks view the original trilogy as a sacred cow and to this day trash without mercy the prequels and hate George Lucas. Those are the same geeks that regardless of what they say now, camped outside the movie theaters for days prior to the release of each prequel dressed in prequel padawan or Darth Maul costumes alm: None of them said 'this movie sucks' at that time. Instead they watched the now hated films at least six times each

J.J. Abrams knows the fandom well and already experienced backlash for his two Star Trek films. He knows that 'The Force Awakens' will be a monster hit financially, but he is more nervous about fans reaction as he knows that the film will be judge against the first two classics and not everybody will like it. Maybe that is why he is stepping down from directing the next one.

 

yeh the 'empire or jedi' convo in Clerks never made sense...'blasphemy' my arse!

 

I enjoyed it. It's just that The Empire Strikes Back was SOOOOOO GOOD that it was gonna be damn near impossible for ROTJ to match it.

The final lightsaber duel was a disappointment, though. The one in ESB was dark, eerie even, and then capped off with "No, I. Am your father" was just PERFECT... They should have done something else to make the final fight with Vader and Luke more dramatic, but I think they wanted to play on the "temptation" Luke would supposedly feel to join the Darkside so they did it the way they did.

I'm a fan of all 3 films. But yes, ROTJ isn't perfect, especially when you measure it up to it's predecessors.

 

Remember in Empire Strikes Back when Luke left Dagobah and Obi Wan said, "That boy is our last hope" and Yoda informs him, "No, there is another"?

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Well, if he meant Leia (as revealed in Return of The Jedi ) the conversation should have been something like this:
Yoda, "Reckless, he is!"
Obi Wan, "Well, he is not our only hope: he has a Force sensitive twin sister and is none other than Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan!"
Yoda, "Out of here, get the fuck!"
Obi wan, "You were there when they were born, remember?"
Yoda, "Yes, yes...if we know that, why this conversation we have?"