CT Speeder bike chase in Return of the Jedi

Man, even after so many years and so many viewings, it still holds up brilliantly.

It's just so exciting and visually and audially interesting!

Definitely makes my top 5 scenes from the original (original!) trilogy.

What do you think? Does it still impress you?

 

Yes! When I was a kid, this was my favorite scene in the film, and it still holds up. The speed at which they were travelling, with potentially deadly trees EVERYWHERE, used to freak me out (in the best possible way). Intense!

And when Luke gracefully flips off his bike, stands his ground, blocks all those blaster bolts and takes out the stormtrooper's bike with one slice of his saber - daaaaaamn! My young self fantasized about being Luke in that moment countless times!

 

If you ever watch the behind the scenes documentaries on how they filmed it (pre-CGI), it is very interesting.

 

Yup, still love these scenes.

 

Great scene. The FX holds up very well. The screams and whoops the bikes make as they wind their way around the trees are very cool.

 

Yes. The sounds effects really help sell the insane speed of the scene.

 

First five minutes or so.

 

When the prequels where announce this is the scene that I thought of. I thought cool were gonna see more of that. That scene and the battle at the pit of Carkoon pretty much defined what a Jedi really could do in ground combat against non force users prior to the PT in fact they are the only time we get to see the lightsaber used against ground forces that are not Sith in the OT(not counting the Wampa and the AT-AT).

 

Speeder bike scene > Pod race.

 

I agree wholeheartedly

 

It's great that you guys brought up the sounds. I've always been intrigued and fascinated by this. Thinking that someone (Ben Burtt) actually made the decision of inserting those whistling high pitch sounds that don't really make much sense is great. It stands out but doesn't bother. They even kind of become part of the soundtrack even if there's no music throughout most of that scene.

There's a whole world of these little tiny details in movies and not just sound wise but things that lead to the thought "Wow, someone really thought about this, filmed it (or recorded it) and inserted into the movie".

It's great.

 

One of the best action sequences in the whole saga IMO. Not overloaded for the sake of it. Just the main elements very well done.

 

I know a thing or two about aerodynamics, and I'd be surprised if a speeder bike went by without making a whistling sound. That vehicle is stupendously unaerodynamic and is covered with doodads that ought to whistle at high speed.
Are you familiar with the F4U Corsair fighter plane of WW2? The Japanese called it Whistling Death because of the sound it made as the air flowed through its oil coolers.

 

Love it.

 

Perfect editing and gorgeous, visceral sound.

 

I can only echo what's been said: The speeder bike chase is one of the highlights of ROTJ (that and Ian McDiarmid).

 

Some shots are still great, but overall I don't think it holds up. Specially the close ups. Since they've done the special editions, I think they could make a better composition of the elements to reduce the "layered" look.

 

If they did that then we would get something like when Anakin goes off to find Shmi and in that scene It was so obviously a CGI backround that my brain registered it a fake right away(the same happened with a lot of Genonosis as well). For some reason I still prefer the old style composite stuff even when its bad. An example of really bad compositing is some of the driving scenes in the early James Bond films. It must have something to do with my brain registering the older composite stuff as really photography as opposed to computer made or something like that. I wonder what it looks like to people who grew up after the CGI revolution who may not have seen older compositing in film

 

I didn't. Either way, it would result in something similar to the Rancor sequence or some shots of the Death Star battle, where they recomposited the original elements to better integrate the surrounding environment.

 

The difference there though is speed and backround. the Death star battle is easier to handle a recomposite because everything is against a black background and the rancor scene the background is not moving the monster is. The speeder bike chase they are compositing actors sitting on props against a moving background(filmed by driving a truck with a camera on the back really fast through the Redwood forrest.)

 

That's darn interesting. I appreciate the info!

 

Its a great scene and so much better than the pod race. I hope we get to see the speeder bikes again. Sadly with CGI if they do a speeder bike scene they will get carried away and it will be doing flips and all kinds of unreal moves

 

It is great, but obsolete. The flight of those speeders is not fluid, they go up and down, also, Luke's and Leia's reactions are not very convincing as they're flying at those speed.

 

It's actually one of the few OT action set pieces that hasn't aged that well for me. The integration of the forest as the speeder is made to move through it kind of reminds me of sitcom driving scenes, where the focus point of the characters and their vehicle doesn't quite look to exist in the same environment they are supposedly moving through. Still love the Ewok stealing the bike (hardcore little guy!), but for me the sequence as a whole does not match the high standard I see with set pieces like asteroid chase and pod-race.

 

All of the POV shots hold up incredibly well. Some of the side view compositing and shots of the bike models look a little dated today but the scene as a whole still works really really well because it's characters I care about in a new and obviously dangerous situation and the scene doesn't over stay its welcome.