CT "Noooo" in Return of the Jedi

I couldn't believe George Lucas seriously added the Vader "Nooo" right before he decides to take down the Emperor. When I first saw the news I thought it was a joke. Even when I saw the video clip I thought it was a joke. I couldn't believe George Lucas would ruin one of the best and defining moments of Star Wars. But ruin it he did. I could write so much on why this is so wrong on so many levels. Starting on why did he use the exact same sound from Revenge of the Sith. And the fact that so many people considered that scene in Rots to be full of narm. And finally, that it was a perfect scene in which it was understood that Vader was in conflict and adding that sound just kills the scene. George Lucas please STAHP.



What are you're opinions?

 

It's dreadfully awful

 

Ancillary detail which sends chills down my spine when it happens during the actual movie. I don't understand the malignment.

 

The only redeeming factor is that it sort of ties in with Revenge of the Sith. But even then, it wasn't needed. Though I'll explain:

George Lucas' explanation for the original Special Edition changes were to fulfill his original visions for the movies that he was unable to make at the time. While I may not always agree with them, I can accept those changes. But making a change just out of afterthought? That's where I begin to draw the line. They had all the capabilities to overdub a "NOOO" for Vader in 1983, but they simply didn't deem it necessary. Therefore, I doubt this was a part of Lucas' original vision.

Now, this doesn't make the movie unwatchable, nor would it even have an effect on the casual viewer. But to people who are used to the prior versions, it just begs the question; "why?"

 

I don't even believe him when he says that about the special edition. He says lots of things. The truth seems to be that the guy is just a tinkerer, he tinkers. He'd probably keep tinkering with them if he had not sold Lucasfilms.

I don't buy for a second his "this was my original vision" talk. Look at the changes he made to Tatooine, in the original version you could feel the isolation of the planet, it's stark and desolate nature. And what does he do? Adds all kinds of slapstick and traffic to it. Clearly two very different artistic visions.

 

The special edition did make the ending for me. The music was just perfect and literally made me fall in love with Star Wars. They are the best versions of the films, in my honest opinion.

 

I actually like this change. In fact, it's one of my favorite additions. Why, you ask? Well...

1. It establishes that Anakin is back
Anakin was also impulsive and emotional. His reaction here shows us just that. Vader is no more, the cold, emotionless husk of a man that once was, has been swept away by Anakin Skywalker, back from the dead.

2. It's symmetry
Vader seemingly cemented himself into the dark side with a "Nooo!", both as he maimed Mace Windu and as he was told the twisted truth about Padme's fate. Now, to counter that, as Anakin returns to the light, he uses the same powerful word again.

3. It maintains a SW tradition
Imagine a SW without "I have a bad feeling about this.". The big dramatic "Noooo!" is just another little SW tradition.

 

1. So we're back to the emotional, whinny, jerk Anakin from the prequels who quickly decided to murder everyone he knew. Bleh and Ugh. No thanks. This isn't THAT Anakin. This Anakin is Luke's father. Plus it's obvious by Anakin's actions that he has come back no need to hit you over the head with it.

2. Symmetry? They aren't the same moments. If they are exactly the same how are supposed to know that Anakin grew and changed.

3. It's a terrible tradition. The original in Rots is bad enough (people laughed when it wasn't supposed to be funny). Bringing it back again just ruins the RotJ. Again Lucas STAPH RUINING THE OT!!!

 

It's pretty hacky

 

The special editions were an odd beast to begin with. What started as a simple restoration turned into much more than that. I believe his intentions were good early on, but some things were added just for the fun of it. CGI was the latest gimmick, and Lucasfilm was an industry leader in visual effects. I'm sure no one in theaters had any issues with this (it might've even been cool to see Jabba in A New Hope for the first time), but it's in the home video releases that some of these changes haven't aged well.

 

That Jabba scene is a perfect example of change for the sake of change though. It's redundant, the Greedo scene has almost the same dialogue. It's a completely unnecessary change and it hurts the movie.

 

Like I said, it would've made a great bonus feature. Though I can still buy that George intended it to be part of the film (the only problem with that was Jabba wasn't developed as a character yet).

The editing was what killed the scene, though. Pickup shots filmed later in production were added to compensate for the loss of the Jabba scene, mainly the Greedo scenes with Maria De Aragon. He could have taken those shots out to eliminate redundancy, but then we would really have a mess on our hands.

 

I can buy that he intended for Jabba to originally be in the first Star Wars film.

 

The Greedo scene was rewritten & partly re-shot because of the excision of the Jabba scene. So yes, the Jabba scene was made redundant, but only after it was decided that it would be deleted (which was simply because GL didn't feel it worked very well).

He may also have thought Jabba would work better as an alien - although at the time of shooting, he was intended to be a human. A number of 1980s concept drawings do indicate that he was toying with the idea of somehow restoring the scene with an alien Jabba for a SW/ANH Special Edition while ROTJ was being developed, however.

 

That's true, but once the film was released with the Greedo scene, entering the Jabba scene into the special edition is a mistake, it just doesn't work.

Change for the sake of change. The movie in it's final form worked better without the scene

 

Oh, don't get me wrong, I agree. Despite the holy war it's caused since 1997, , the Han/Greedo scene is much better than Jabba in Docking Bay 94 anyway, and yeah, there's no point in having both.

Still fun to see extra scenes, but I'm perfectly happy for them to be presented separately.

 

I do agree with this. I think it would have been better to see this scene as some sort of bonus footage.

And there is some tinkering that I like. I like putting Ian in the Empire hologram although I don't like them changing the lines

I like adding windows in Cloud city to see through.

 

It really is. The elongated "noooo" has honestly become one of the more parodied things out there in films as a whole, and I'm kind of baffled that Lucas not only keeps using it, but would actually go back and add it to a scene that went two decades without one just fine.

I tend not to get worked up about changes to the films, but I've always found this one just cringeworthy.

 

As a general rule I don't believe in changing films unless it's about restoring a vision that was taken away & butchered by a studio (which did happen to GL with THX-1138 & American Graffiti, and he was eventually able to release director's cuts), but the windows in Cloud City were a genuine improvement, and you wouldn't really know it was any different before.

Other than that, though, I think the OT's better as it was the first time. Restore the picture, remaster the sound, remove some matte lines & so on, but don't mess with the content unless it's to fix something that can't be restored properly (happened with some audio, apparently).
Some of the changes I don't mind at all, but I don't think they added anything beyond the novelty of more SW - the Luke/Biggs reunion at Yavin is a good example, along with the Jabba scene. Ian McDiarmid as Palps in ESB - understandable enough, but the dialogue didn't need to be changed.

Then there's the more divisive changes - and the now infamous ROTJ "NOOOOOOO" is almost a parody of itself.

 

"NOOOOO!"
-Luke Skywalker

-"NOOOOOOOOOO...noooooooo..."
-Luke Skywalker, again

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
-Obi-Wan Kenobi

And that's just off the top of my head. just sayin'.

In general I don't even like lifting a finger in edition debates... They're all the same movie to me, no matter who shoots first.

 

That's one reason why I didn't buy the blu rays. I'd rather watch the dvds, thank you very much (unfortunately I don't have VHS or laserdisc to watch the originals).

 

Adding the "Nnooooo" to ROTJ is one of the changes I do like and I can totally see why GL did it.

The pain he felt over Padmes death is really what turns Anakin into Vader fully in ROTS just as the pain he feels by watching his son on the verge of death in ROTJ brings him back.

I'm not to sure how else they could have projected Vaders emotions in ROTS without the no....they could hardly rely on facial expressions now could they.

 

I think throwing Palps into the pit and Vader looking at Luke, then at Palpatine then at Luke again was emotive enough. The scene did work perfectly before the change.

 

Worked brilliantly for 28 years.

Now in this new version it's just a bit of a joke, echoing ROTS's second-most cringeworthy moment (first being "You... are.. [like...] so... beautiful...).

 

If you watch the 1997 Laserdisk Special Edition Interviews with Lucas, he wasn't even going to touch Empire or Jedi when they originally decided to start 'updating' The Original Star Wars. The original plan was to just release Star Wars:ANH with the changes in 1997 to celebrate the 20th anniversary. Then when they were working on ANH, they decided they could make more money by releasing all 3 OT movies with 'updates' in 1997, and that is why there are very few changes in ESB and ROTJ in 1997. Lucas started really tampering with ROTJ in 2004 DVD, and 2011 BluRay by adding Hayden as a ghost, and the 'NOOOO' scream by Vader.

I genuinely believe Lucas that he wanted to update some special effects in the Original Star Wars, but after that he just started tampering with the ESB and ROTJ with changes that didn't need to be made.