re: Denis Villeneuve says Return of the Jedi was when Star Wars went to shite

And don't forget the always excellent John Williams and his score for Return of the Jedi.

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I agree with him ROTJ is a step down. it's why I think it's funny people act like everything was amazing until Disney took over.


Star Wars is an A+ film
Empire Strikes Back is an A+ film
Return of the Jedi is an A- or B+ film

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so you agree with me that its a step down

its still an enjoyable movie.

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The difference between the prequels and the sequels, however, is that the former had an overarching vision and a coherent story that we could follow from beginning, middle, and end. The sequels were a disjointed mess that were clearly crafted by two separate men with two different visions.

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that's fine but the majority of Disney star wars content has been tv shows. the sequel movies encompass less than 5% of Star Wars stuff Disney has put out. They have put out more hours of good Star Wars content than George Lucas did. The Mandalorian alone is 18 hours of good star wars content.

And instead of Ewoks, it was supposed to be Wookiee’s. Instead of a bunch of goofball little cuddly teddy bears it was gonna be big 8-9’ Wookiee’s ripping arms off storm troopers in the battles. But George was swayed by toy sales. The Ewoks would sell more toys than Wookiees so he chose that. What a huge letdown. May have been the best of the original 3.

You wonder what the original concept was going to be.

Wasn't it Wookies instead of Ewoks?

Regardless, the teddy bears were a hard miss, even though they were a merchandising bonanza

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ROTJ wasn’t as good as the first 2 but it wasn’t shite and is light years better than anything they put out today.

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I'd put Rogue One and Andor over ROTJ. I still like ROTJ, though.

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It started when George changed the title from Revenge of the Jedi.

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That’s actually the one change that makes sense Revenge is not a good motive especially for something like the Jedi.

Going with Ewoks over Wookiee to sell
toys to younger kids is horrible.

Harrison Ford and one of the writers, Kasdan maybe? Wanted to kill Han Solo. Kid me would have been livid but adult me thinks that is better from a story perspective to have that sacrifice. It’s particularly bad if it’s true that Lucas told Ford dead characters don’t sell toys as the reason he wouldn’t kill Han.

Making Leia Luke’s sister was also a bad choice imo. It was clearly not the intention in the first 2 movies and old story treatments had Luke going off at the end to find her. I’ve heard the Mara Jade character in the Thrawn trilogy comes from that idea.

Return of the Jedi kicks arse and no one will ever convince me otherwise. Five-year-old me will fight you if you try.

I like those two as well but ROTJ had the episode on Tatooine, the final battle and the final confrontation with Vader and the Emperor which were all better than anything in those other two movies/shows so IMO ROTJ is pretty well ahead because of those things. I get it nobody likes the Ewoks and it does drag it down a bit but those other elements were as good as it gets in SW.