Now I don't hate the Ewoks. Wait..let me correct that statement...I do hate the Ewoks. They are the antithesis of what I'd come to expect from the Star Wars universe, a romanticized good guy-bad guy situation, but one with a sometimes grimy appearance and sometimes a gleaming appearance. Aliens were weird, really weird, but one thing they never ever were was...cute. The Ewoks brought "cute" to the franchise much to its detriment and the ersatz teddy bears proceeded to demolish not just those Imperial walkers but my trust in George Lucas.
Now that doesn't mean that the movie doesn't have its charms. And for that I'll point to every Star Wars fanboy's wet dream, the ravishing Princess Leia in her slave bikini. Now in the previous flicks Leia had been more tomboy than vixen, a damsel well capable of getting herself out of distress in the first one, and a no-nonsense warrior in the second. She does give in to her love for Han in the first sequel, thus cracking her tough skin just a wee bit, but it's not until she's chained at the...uh...ahem..."feet" of Jabba the Hut that classic sci-fi sexuality is allowed to sizzle forth from Carrie Fisher's portrayal. She soon strangles the nasty Jabba with is own chain showing her mettle (no pun intended) has not slackened. But make no doubt about it,s slavegirl Leia she's occupying new territory in the fanboy imagination.
Another thing I didn't care for in Return of the Jedi was the quick dispatch of Boba-Fett, a character I thought was worthy of a better send-off. We get his origin decades later and that helped soothe my woes, but it was a prickly point at the time. On the plus side, I did very much enjoy seeing a confident Luke Skywalker taking it to the Emperor as well as arguably the most delinquent father in film history. He's gone from white to gray to black and with each shift in color his skills have developed. Now the swiftness of the training is a bit of a nag, but that's not uncommon in these stories and give Lucas a pass on that one. The relationship between Leia and Han Solo is really nicely done as they can now get on with the lovemaking since we now broken off the Luke angle on the triangle. (That was a tad icky by the way.)
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Your opening paragraph is exactly how I feel. Why do the Storm troopers bother wearing all that armor if they can be taken out by an adorable teddy bear with a stick?
ReplyDeleteAnd sadly, it was mostly down hill after that.
I've read that Lucas wanted the Ewoks to actually be Wookies and that makes more sense in terms of the story sense. He did that with the prequels years later, but damn it there was no reason not to do in the third film, since money was no object. Never figured that one out.
DeleteThe revelation that Leia is Luke's sister is totally ridiculous. So Darth Vader is Luke's father, Leia is Luke's sister - what next? R2D2 as Luke's second-cousin twice removed? The 1977 film is great but I just pretend the rest of the films never happened.
ReplyDeleteIt's the Leia connection to Vader that rubs logic the hardest, since in the first movie he had to know who she was and what her connection was to him and he wants to kill her repeatedly. If he knew about Luke than he knew about Leia. If we assume he just a strong "Force" vibe off Luke and maybe some off Leia and learned between movies about their actual lineage, that might work, but seems dodgy given what was supposed to be his back story. Clearly there was something up with Vader in the first one or they wouldn't have saved him and no one else from the Deathstar, but I wonder how much of that original story was established.
DeleteI get pretending about stuff. I behave most of the time like the Crisis on Infinite Earths never happened. For me, the JSA has always been around and Superman and Batman and Wonder Woman were on hand. The rest I just ignore, as does DC from time to time. If it's good enough for Bob Haney it's good enough for me.
Jedi is by no means the best Star Wars movie, but it does have some pretty great moments:
ReplyDelete- the climax of the duel between Luke and Vader: Vader taunts Luke about turning Leia to the dark side and Luke literally comes out swinging. Mark Hamill's furious attack and John Williams' operatic score make this sequence a highlight of the series for me.
- Han and Chewie reunited in Jabba's dungeon, with Harrison Ford's soulful "I'm all right, pal. I'm all right."
- Luke's revelation of his family to Leia in the Ewok village. Hamill really gets into unburdening himself of a terrible secret, and Carrie Fisher sells trying to wrap her head around some world-shattering news.
- The forest battle, where the two little Ewoks get knocked down by an explosion, one gets up and realizes his friend is dead. The mourning wail he makes drives home the cost of the battle.
- The final sequence of the Death Star battle. When the Millennium Falcon dives into the Death Star superstructure, it still throws my stomach into a roller-coaster lurch. And the ending, with the Falcon racing the encroaching flames to escape the explosion, still thrills me almost forty years later.
SIDE NOTE: If I could make a change to the movie, I would alter the Sarlacc pit sequence so that Jabba would fall into the Sarlacc and Boba Fett would get strangled by Leia's chain. Jabba loves feeding his enemies to monsters (the Rancor, the Sarlacc), so the karma here is wonderful. And having Fett die at Leia's hand enhances what a badass she is, and he no longer dies by the Star Wars equivalent of slipping on the soap in the shower.
If I could make a change to the movie, I would alter the Sarlacc pit sequence so that Jabba would fall into the Sarlacc and Boba Fett would get strangled by Leia's chain. Jabba loves feeding his enemies to monsters (the Rancor, the Sarlacc), so the karma here is wonderful. And having Fett die at Leia's hand enhances what a badass she is, and he no longer dies by the Star Wars equivalent of slipping on the soap in the shower.
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