Dave2112
Level of Cherry Feather
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Thought is cool to bring this up as ROTJ turns 20. It's mainly considered the weakest of the films so far, but there are a lot of reasons why this film is still cool. Yeah, Ewoks blow and Lando's acting was atrocious, but...
Some reasons (in no particular order) why ROTJ still rocks:
* Anakin Shines through in Luke - Luke wears black, Force-chokes two Gammorean gaurds and has quite the cocky lil' attitude towards Jabba. He doesn't even have his lightsaber with him at first (something I still don't get). Note the brash smile as he tells Jabba "It's the last mistake you'll ever make." Anakin loses it whenever one of the women in his life is threatened or dies, and this is passed to Luke. After Vader intuits the identity of Luke's sister, he forgets his inner conflict and goes apeshit on Vader's ass. Still, he forgoes killing him, Vader returns to the Light and the force is in balance.
* Threepio Delivers - He's always going on about being fluent in over six million forms of communication, but this time he actually uses a few of them. Neat Reader's Digest version of the whole story as he tell it to the Ewoks.
* The Boussh Outfit - The design of Leia's bounty hunter disguise is a costuming high point. The electronic voice filter is fitting, yet alien. Who knew that "yatay" and "yotoh" stod for "I have come for the bounty on this Wookie"?
* "About a great....many....things"... - Ian McDiarmid's performance of Emporer Palpatine was priceless, each syllable dripping with liquid hatred. He's the only one who could talk to Vader like he was a twelve-year-old child and live. Check out his facial expressions and condescending tone as he tells Vader that "He will come to you, and you will bring him before me..." You almost expect him to add "Think you can remember that, dipshit?"
* Ummm...you can put the hat back on, now... - You knew it was coming, but Vader's transofmation back to Anakin when the mask comes off is powerful every time. Lucas said in The Annotated Screenplays: "I knew that he had been in a lot of battles, and at one point I thought that he'd had a confrontation with Obi-Wan, and Kenobi sent him into a volcano. He was still all but dead, and basically he was manufactured back together again even though there was very little of him left."
* - The Battle of Endor - This was a milestone in filming space combat. Even today, few undertake such a grand scale assault. The action is fantastic, realistic and blessed with a depth that puts you in the middle of the action. It is interesting to note that with all the digital updates to the original trilogy, Lucas didn't change one second of the battle for the Special Edition.
* - Family Ties - even after being shocked by Vader's paternal revelation in The Empire Strikes Back, we never saw the Luke/Leia thing coming.
* - The Gold Bikini - Leia's slave girl outfit added the first bit of sex appeal to the Star Wars saga, and showed us just how depraved Jabba really is. No other piece of Star Wars costuming inspired a Rolling Stone cover, a subpolt on Friends and the imaginations of a generation of young sci-fi fans.
Some reasons (in no particular order) why ROTJ still rocks:
* Anakin Shines through in Luke - Luke wears black, Force-chokes two Gammorean gaurds and has quite the cocky lil' attitude towards Jabba. He doesn't even have his lightsaber with him at first (something I still don't get). Note the brash smile as he tells Jabba "It's the last mistake you'll ever make." Anakin loses it whenever one of the women in his life is threatened or dies, and this is passed to Luke. After Vader intuits the identity of Luke's sister, he forgets his inner conflict and goes apeshit on Vader's ass. Still, he forgoes killing him, Vader returns to the Light and the force is in balance.
* Threepio Delivers - He's always going on about being fluent in over six million forms of communication, but this time he actually uses a few of them. Neat Reader's Digest version of the whole story as he tell it to the Ewoks.
* The Boussh Outfit - The design of Leia's bounty hunter disguise is a costuming high point. The electronic voice filter is fitting, yet alien. Who knew that "yatay" and "yotoh" stod for "I have come for the bounty on this Wookie"?
* "About a great....many....things"... - Ian McDiarmid's performance of Emporer Palpatine was priceless, each syllable dripping with liquid hatred. He's the only one who could talk to Vader like he was a twelve-year-old child and live. Check out his facial expressions and condescending tone as he tells Vader that "He will come to you, and you will bring him before me..." You almost expect him to add "Think you can remember that, dipshit?"
* Ummm...you can put the hat back on, now... - You knew it was coming, but Vader's transofmation back to Anakin when the mask comes off is powerful every time. Lucas said in The Annotated Screenplays: "I knew that he had been in a lot of battles, and at one point I thought that he'd had a confrontation with Obi-Wan, and Kenobi sent him into a volcano. He was still all but dead, and basically he was manufactured back together again even though there was very little of him left."
* - The Battle of Endor - This was a milestone in filming space combat. Even today, few undertake such a grand scale assault. The action is fantastic, realistic and blessed with a depth that puts you in the middle of the action. It is interesting to note that with all the digital updates to the original trilogy, Lucas didn't change one second of the battle for the Special Edition.
* - Family Ties - even after being shocked by Vader's paternal revelation in The Empire Strikes Back, we never saw the Luke/Leia thing coming.
* - The Gold Bikini - Leia's slave girl outfit added the first bit of sex appeal to the Star Wars saga, and showed us just how depraved Jabba really is. No other piece of Star Wars costuming inspired a Rolling Stone cover, a subpolt on Friends and the imaginations of a generation of young sci-fi fans.
