the never-ending "let's improve star wars thread"
- Thread starter astroboy
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I'm not sure I understand... I was 2 (and a half) when Star Wars came out and my parents went to see it and took me with them. I was 5 (and a half) when Empire came out. I was 8 (and a half) when Jedi opened. Are you saying I somehow enjoyed it more at that age than those who were in middle or high school when they came out did?
Even at that age, and with repeat viewings on laserdisc, and readings of the novelizations and comic adaptations, and the influence of the early EU (Splinter of the Mind's Eye, Brian Daley's Han Solo books, the Marvel comics...), Empire was instantly, and remains, my favorite. I loved Jedi when it opened, but even from the first viewing, something tickled the back of my mind that seemed... off. Looking back in high school, I was able to start parsing where the disconnect was, but it was there when I first saw it. A vague, not-quite-there sense of "wait... what?" that wasn't there for me for the first two films, on first viewing or any subsequent one.
My love of all things Star Wars has remained over the years, only getting more complex. I have, in the intervening years, seen many films and TV series that play on multiple levels so both kids and adults can appreciate them. That's why this thread and my own dead horse thread. That's why the need some of us feel to fix the narrative or the execution or the pacing or like that. The Powers That Be dropped the ball to varying degrees, most egregiously by forgetting/ignoring the adult audience who had grown up on and loved the original films. That's a ready-made audience. They will have disposable income. They will take their kids to see the new stuff. They will be more likely to uy their kids Star Wars toys than non-fan parents. And so on and so on.
I've read accounts online from people who stuck with the Prequels and/or the Clone Wars longer than their kids -- the frikkin' target audience -- out of their lifelong love for the universe. But it says something that the target audience was getting bored with the new stuff coming out and going back to watch the original movies and play with their Luke and Vader action figures. Fun, flashy swashbuckling adventure or taut character melodrama is best when it's woven into a compelling and consistent story.
So no, I don't dismiss one age bracket over another. Now, more than ever, Star Wars needs to play to young and... less young, alike.
--Jonah
I strongly agree that SW shouldn't cater to 8yo kids at the expense of the older audience. But just as it's possible to do the reverse. The teenage demographic has A LOT of pull on movies & pop culture. It's always easy to shoot those fish in the barrel with something too dark & cynical & ironic.
ESB was to SW what the Chris Nolan movies were to Batman - Very high quality, but it was on the ragged edge of too dark & adult for the franchise. The behind-the-scenes literature about ESB even mentions the filmmakers' worries at the time that they were going too far in that direction.
ESB was to SW what the Chris Nolan movies were to Batman - Very high quality, but it was on the ragged edge of too dark & adult for the franchise. The behind-the-scenes literature about ESB even mentions the filmmakers' worries at the time that they were going too far in that direction.
RotJ demonstrates they've overcompensated... waaay overcompensated.
Overcompensated? I wouldn't go that far.
Think about it:
Jabba's palace.
The Rancor monster.
Leia as a slave girl.
The Sarlacc pit.
Yoda dying.
The Emperor almost killing Luke.
Luke nearly turning evil & cutting off Vader's hand.
Vader dying.
Yeah the Ewoks made a big impact. But they were pretty much the only cute/light element in the whole movie.
Think about it:
Jabba's palace.
The Rancor monster.
Leia as a slave girl.
The Sarlacc pit.
Yoda dying.
The Emperor almost killing Luke.
Luke nearly turning evil & cutting off Vader's hand.
Vader dying.
Yeah the Ewoks made a big impact. But they were pretty much the only cute/light element in the whole movie.
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Here's how I see it:
Jabba's palace (and pretty much all of RotJ) is a muppet-fest.
Even the Rancor and Sarlacc weren't scary at all. I was 17 when I watched it in the theater and thought the creatures in this film were just poorly done compared with the first two movies. The walking pig-caracatures? I rolled my eyes and couldn't believe how bad the monsters were done. The way they were lit just made them seem toy-like.
It's not a reflection of the effects of the time, either. Remember that eight years before this movie there was Alien. This muppet show was far from state of the art.
The bikini just came across as a shamelessly calculated attempt to provoke the teenage libido for those of my generation who were smitten by the princess in the first film. At 17 I was more offended than attracted. I couldn't susoend enough disbelief to think she could choke out Jabba. That's like me trying to choke out an African elephant with a length of chain - not bloody likely.
The list of characters dying doesn't make the film dark. Originally Han was supposed to have been killed in the first act. Now THAT would have been dark.
RotJ wusses out in so many ways. I've commented before in greater detail that every male character is stripped of testosterone. Han becomes an instant mushy Romeo overnight. Boba Fett dies in a comic gag. Stormtroopers become keystone cops. Vader is devoid of menace and is just a guy struggling to emote through a helm.
The Emperor looked laughable to me even in 1987. When he's zapping Luke you get that hilariously amateurish shot of Vader watching a tennis match to demonstrate his conflict.
To me the they just cranked up the scale and number of effects but the execution was the poorest of the trilogy. The effects weren't better - there was just more of them. It was all just a big merchandising grab. The editing in contrast to the first film was also senseless but I digress ...
In essence every single character became one dimensional.
Don't get me started on the many ways this film violated the internal logic established in the earlier film. Or how long story arcs were either abbreviated or abandoned in order to manufacture a Hollywood cop-out ending.
Then there's the Ewok issue...
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batguy Disagree. Even as a kid, the Jabba's palace sequence felt more played for laughs than serious danger. Indeed, the serious-danger elements were far enough between, it didn't take many viewings for me to realize I was wanting to fast-forward through the dippy stuff. The droids' entrance is fine, but the torture chamber is... weird. Jabba killing Oola is great, especially the Special Edition version. But in between the two is a musical number I skip past. Then Boushh comes in with Chewie. Great sequence up through Han's unfreezing. Then... what? The entire court was hiding behind a couple of curtains, awake and waiting for this? Never got that. Bear in mind, all this is interspersed with burp jokes and muppets flip-ducking to hide, which landed with me not at all at the time.
The rest of it...? I liked Han's reunion with Chewie. Luke had a good entrance, but I wondered then and now at his choice of wardrobe. If he was passing himself off as a Jedi, why didn't he grab some of Obi-Wan's spare robes, or otherwise dress in what the OT gave us as the uniform of a Jedi? The Force-choking of the guards seemed a bit Dark Side-y to me, even then. Likewise killing the rancor when it wasn't necessary. All that hesitating, he could have smashed the door controls and trapped the rancor in that antechamber before it got its head under the spiky door. And the less I say about the sarlacc sequence the better.
I also never understood why the official timeline gives so much time between Empire and Jedi. Why did they wait a year and a half to break into Jabba's palace? (Admittedly, I understand the Marvel comics even less -- why were our heroes splitting up to try to find where Boba had gone with Han -- they knew, and Luke even said he'd rendezvous with Lando and Chewie on Tatooine. :facepalm )
That's why Jedi overcompensated. What could have been an epic story -- not even going too far toward "dark" ended up being jarred far too frequently with stupid and/or cute moments. As an 8-year-old on first viewing, I keyed to:
-New Death Star (where's the Executor? Why's Vader arriving on this ship? Nice shuttle.)
-The door sentry at Jabba's palace
-The mistress of Jabba's droid pool (even if the rest of that scene left me cold)
-Oola (hey, I've always liked girls)
-the Boushh sequence
-the fight at the sarlacc pit
-the absence of the sandstorm scene and Han's commentary about being frozen (I'd read the novelization right before)
-the Emperor's arrival (and my utterly falling in love with the Royal Guards)
-Yoda dying and Luke's conversation with Obi-Wan
-the Rebel fleet in all it's awesomeness (this applies through the rest of the movie -- maneuvering, going to lightspeed, commencing the attack, the space battle...)
-"Fly casual!"
-the Biker Scouts and their sweet rides
-Luke and Vader -- very nice scene (notice I gloss over all the tedious, plot-derailing stuff with the Ewoks)
-"It's a trap!"
-Luke and Vader fighting (after a lot of wishing the Emperor would shut up -- that was annoying, not tempting me to the Dark Side)
-Special mention for the space battle here, especially as I kept waiting to get back to it when we'd cut to the ground battle
-Specialer mention for my "Really....?" moment at Chewie's Tarzan yell (not in a good way)
-Specialest mention for Han's boob-grab
-Death of the Emperor and Vader/Anakin shortly after, and the funeral pyre
-Party (like the Special Edition version better) and Luke has three Force ghosts to keep him company now (something I thought the EU dropped the ball on, and am curious to see what they do with in the new films)
Notice 8-year-old me preferring the character moments and drama and wanting the seconds lost to those burp jokes back. Coulda done without most of the Ewok stuff, too.
--Jonah
The rest of it...? I liked Han's reunion with Chewie. Luke had a good entrance, but I wondered then and now at his choice of wardrobe. If he was passing himself off as a Jedi, why didn't he grab some of Obi-Wan's spare robes, or otherwise dress in what the OT gave us as the uniform of a Jedi? The Force-choking of the guards seemed a bit Dark Side-y to me, even then. Likewise killing the rancor when it wasn't necessary. All that hesitating, he could have smashed the door controls and trapped the rancor in that antechamber before it got its head under the spiky door. And the less I say about the sarlacc sequence the better.
I also never understood why the official timeline gives so much time between Empire and Jedi. Why did they wait a year and a half to break into Jabba's palace? (Admittedly, I understand the Marvel comics even less -- why were our heroes splitting up to try to find where Boba had gone with Han -- they knew, and Luke even said he'd rendezvous with Lando and Chewie on Tatooine. :facepalm )
That's why Jedi overcompensated. What could have been an epic story -- not even going too far toward "dark" ended up being jarred far too frequently with stupid and/or cute moments. As an 8-year-old on first viewing, I keyed to:
-New Death Star (where's the Executor? Why's Vader arriving on this ship? Nice shuttle.)
-The door sentry at Jabba's palace
-The mistress of Jabba's droid pool (even if the rest of that scene left me cold)
-Oola (hey, I've always liked girls)
-the Boushh sequence
-the fight at the sarlacc pit
-the absence of the sandstorm scene and Han's commentary about being frozen (I'd read the novelization right before)
-the Emperor's arrival (and my utterly falling in love with the Royal Guards)
-Yoda dying and Luke's conversation with Obi-Wan
-the Rebel fleet in all it's awesomeness (this applies through the rest of the movie -- maneuvering, going to lightspeed, commencing the attack, the space battle...)
-"Fly casual!"
-the Biker Scouts and their sweet rides
-Luke and Vader -- very nice scene (notice I gloss over all the tedious, plot-derailing stuff with the Ewoks)
-"It's a trap!"
-Luke and Vader fighting (after a lot of wishing the Emperor would shut up -- that was annoying, not tempting me to the Dark Side)
-Special mention for the space battle here, especially as I kept waiting to get back to it when we'd cut to the ground battle
-Specialer mention for my "Really....?" moment at Chewie's Tarzan yell (not in a good way)
-Specialest mention for Han's boob-grab
-Death of the Emperor and Vader/Anakin shortly after, and the funeral pyre
-Party (like the Special Edition version better) and Luke has three Force ghosts to keep him company now (something I thought the EU dropped the ball on, and am curious to see what they do with in the new films)
Notice 8-year-old me preferring the character moments and drama and wanting the seconds lost to those burp jokes back. Coulda done without most of the Ewok stuff, too.
--Jonah
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Chewy had their boots in his bandolier bag.
I still feel like I'm hearing a lot of reasons why ROTJ was weak, not reasons why it was too light/cute. Dark violent stuff, interspersed with jokes & clumsy storytelling, is still dark violent stuff.
Maybe I'm using the wrong word by saying "light". A character getting killed in a violent painful way is dark. If that gets played for laughs then it can be cruel as often as light. It may spoil the serious tone the scene wanted, but that doesn't mean it's going to please a person who prefers light/cute stuff. Only the Ewok scenes would please a light/cute person.
I like watching Bugs Bunny whupping Yosemite Sam as much as the next guy. But the wackiest comic-violent moments of ROTJ are not very comparable to that. ROTJ was a disappointing movie but the problem was not too much cuteness.
Maybe I'm using the wrong word by saying "light". A character getting killed in a violent painful way is dark. If that gets played for laughs then it can be cruel as often as light. It may spoil the serious tone the scene wanted, but that doesn't mean it's going to please a person who prefers light/cute stuff. Only the Ewok scenes would please a light/cute person.
I like watching Bugs Bunny whupping Yosemite Sam as much as the next guy. But the wackiest comic-violent moments of ROTJ are not very comparable to that. ROTJ was a disappointing movie but the problem was not too much cuteness.
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Let me put it this way.
Any potential emotional gravity (not just "darkness") was completely lost when ROTJ degenerated into sheer farce (e.g. Chewbacca Tarzan yell).
Characters dying alone doesn't make ROTJ a "dark" film.
A lot of characters were also injured or killed in the film Airplane but nobody's calling it a "dark" film either.
Rupert_Angier
Sr Member
Keeping Vader as the one who betrayed and murdered Anakin would be one change.
Bugs & Yosemite, Airplane characters . . . same difference. We agree, violence isn't always darkness.
ROTJ did fall into farce at times but I don't think that was the back-breaking problem either. More like one more annoying part of the film's issues. There was plenty of emotional gravity in the Emperor's throne room. And inside Jabba's palace. And on Dagobah. And at night in the Ewok village. The movie didn't lack it.
Lucas probably took some of ROTJ's criticism to heart because his very next movie was a lot darker than its predecessor. Temple of Doom. It also had emotional gravity in places, like the enslaved children & Indy being possessed by Kali.
But this didn't fix GL's post-1981 slump, did it? In fact it's generally though to to be a low point!
The following movie in the franchise (Last Crusade) went back much warmer in tone and also was the most humor-loaded of all six early SW & Indy movies. That one is the best-loved movie that GL ever did after ESB & Raiders.
So I argue that darkening & removing humor from ROTJ would not have been the right move. I think the big problem was the plotline and the lack of quality in general. I don't think any one specific change in the tone would have really fixed it.
I think the Ewoks were a problem but only because they were handled badly. IMO in different hands the Ewoks could have been a great (though probably smaller) part of the film.
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^ Pretty much spot on. He said in interviews around and just after Jedi that "I don't want to spend the rest of my life doing Star Wars". Even though a few years earlier, while "Star Wars 2" was in pre-production, his announced timeline was to have all nine (by that point) films released by 2001 -- one every three years. I think he should have stepped back to Executive Producer and story consultant and editor and let good writers and directors do the nuts and bolts work of getting him the raw footage to work with. That way, he might have been more free to do the more indie stuff he wanted to do.
The locations are not related to that, though. The giant trees thing was really only do-able in the California Redwoods, and Yuma was just as good as somewhere in the Sahara, and a lot less logistically problematic.
--Jonah
The locations are not related to that, though. The giant trees thing was really only do-able in the California Redwoods, and Yuma was just as good as somewhere in the Sahara, and a lot less logistically problematic.
--Jonah
I think it was to give Lando time to successfully infiltrate Jabba's circle of trusted goons. You can't just walk in off the streets and ask for a job. Lando more than likely had to prove not only his worth but his loyalty to Jabba. That could be a story in itself! Who knows what trials Lando had to go through... What if he had to commit murder to save his friend?
. . . or the opening crawl in ROTJ could have mentioned how the Alliance had purchased Han back from Jabba for a hefty sum (and/or some other concession). Entire problem solved, no need to build another 1/3rd of a SW movie around Harrison Ford's sequel contracting.
It still ends up feeling weird that they took so long to rescue Han no matter how it was finally done. And it would have made Luke's ascent to Jedi status more believable if the ESB-ROTJ gap had been longer than it was.
Everything else that happens in the later 2/3rds of Jedi could have been set up better - the death of Yoda, the 2nd Death Star, Leia becoming Luke's sister, Lando's full redemption, whatever else was done with Han, and Anakin Skywalker's entire redemption.
Most plot problems can be technically excused in some way or another but they still damage the story in the broader sense.
It still ends up feeling weird that they took so long to rescue Han no matter how it was finally done. And it would have made Luke's ascent to Jedi status more believable if the ESB-ROTJ gap had been longer than it was.
Everything else that happens in the later 2/3rds of Jedi could have been set up better - the death of Yoda, the 2nd Death Star, Leia becoming Luke's sister, Lando's full redemption, whatever else was done with Han, and Anakin Skywalker's entire redemption.
Most plot problems can be technically excused in some way or another but they still damage the story in the broader sense.
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