Bloom, IN 50 REASONS Jedi Sucks

This is a interesting artical.


50 Reasons Why 'Return of the Jedi' Sucks:

On its own accord, "Return of the Jedi" has a lot of problems. But compared to "Star Wars" and "The Empire Strikes Back," it's just plain bad. Search your feelings-you know it to be true. Like most of you out there, we love Star Wars more than words can say, and will always respect and thank George Lucas for providing a generation of moviegoers with the most significant mythos of the last 25 years.

But also like most of you out there, whenever we watch the Trilogy, the awed reverence with which we watch Wars and Empire is replaced during Jedi by laughing, moaning and shouted insults that make MST3K look tame by comparison. Nearly 14 years after its release, it's become sadly evident that Jedi hasn't aged well at all, while Wars and Empire increasingly gain acceptance as cinema classics. (We could have just as easily made a list of 100 reasons Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back are two of the greatest films ever made, but where's the fun in that?)

It would be easy to put the blame for Jedi's failure squarely on the shoulders of its director, the late Richard Marquand. But while few would argue that Marquand wasn't the greatest choice to inherit the franchise, the fact remains that it was Executive Producer Lucas who hired him, who told him how to handle the material, and who always had the final say. So we'll let Marquand rest in peace; chances are he did the best he could.

What Lucas was thinking is another story. Whether Jedi's faults are a result of his sincere artistic vision or of something more sinister (read: "marketable") may never truly be known. But by comparing the genesis of each of the three films, we can make a pretty good educated guess. When Star Wars was conceived, no one had any idea how much money it would eventually pull in. Empire was still a risk, as successful sequels were rare at that point in time. When it came time to do Jedi, however, the machinery was fully in place to sell it to the hilt. Lucas knew he could make far more money from merchandise than from theater grosses, so it's likely that the question, "How easily will this translate into a Kenner toy?" figured more prominently in many of his Jedi decisions than it did in those that formed the first two Star Wars films. (And honestly, who can blame him? If we had the chance to build a ranch estate and media empire as vast as those owned by Lucas, we'd sell out in less time than it takes to shut one of those pressure doors on the Death Star.)

There are plenty of fervent fans who argue that by mere nature of its being part of the Trilogy, Jedi should be above criticism. We'd ask those people whose initial response to this list is one of anger to and apply the 50 points below to their next Jedi viewing, and join us in hoping that Jedi's problems were the result of a fluke, and not of downward trends that will continue into the new films.

1. [ Ewoks, Ewoks, Ewoks ]
One of the miracles of the Star Wars Trilogy is that Lucas' bizarre and ever-present fascination with little people didn't hurt the first two films. The Jawas were cool. The Ugnaughts were cool. Kenny Baker as Artoo was cool. But George had to push his luck. The Ewoks are not cool. Period. In circles of die-hard Star Wars fans, to say you hate the Ewoks is like saying you enjoy breathing air. The Ewoks are the primary example of many of the points on this list: their unapologetic cuddliness is uncharacteristic and unwelcome; they look fake; they engage in constant physical comedy; their teddy bear design is wholly uninteresting; they live in boring surroundings; several of the film's dumbest scenes revolve around them; they were originally supposed to have been Wookies and they sing that damn song at the end.

But aside from what we see onscreen, the Ewoks are miserable little creatures for a completely different reason: they are the single clearest example of Lucas' willingness to compromise the integrity of his Trilogy in favor of merchandising dollars. How intensely were the Ewoks marketed? Conside

 

Just finished reading this. Pretty good stuff, I have to agree with most of them. It's definitely my third favorite of the OT for the reasons presented.

 

For these two reasons alone, these people should be publicly flogged with the muffler from a 79 Chevy Impala.

Soooooo tired of people mistaking Ford's reticence and overall droll attitude with "boredom". People have been saying that same **** for years...and those people just don't get it. That's Harrison Ford. What you see is what you get. Ever seen him in an interview, you boneheads? Get a clue.

Second, the score to Jedi might not be as good as Empire, true. But it's still one hell of a damn good score. Forgettable as the Jedi Rocks and Yub-Yub songs are...some of the musical moments in the film rival ANYTHING in any of the other films; the haunting male chorus when Luke downs Vader in the Death Star, the music that plays during the Saarlac rescue, Luke and Leia's theme. It's all absolutely wonderful and vintage Williams. This person needs to seriously grow a brain.

I might be taking this a bit too seriously. But, if there weren't people like me to beat sense into morons like this, the world would be overrun by morons.

 

My favorites

1
3
7
9
20
22
26
30
34
I'm just saying....

 

No, I get it, Eric. And, yes...some of them are pretty valid, not to mention funny.

I wasn't being entirely serious, anyway. You know how I am...you have to take a lot of what I write and say with a grain of salt.

Some of the things they wrote are completely hysterical and quite true (stormtrooper afraid of teddy bears? Uh...okay. Never mind that they have laser cannons and guns). It's just that the two complaints I singled-out resonate with me on a personal level...as you can easily imagine why. And I happen to completely disagree about the music. Like I said, the score to the third chapter may not be as good as the second film's. But, it's as operatic, grandiose, and emotional a score as Williams has ever written (Yoda's death, Vader's death, etc...these are moments of music in which you can FEEL the weight of what's going on in the film).

So, to each their own. Respect, buddy! : )

 

I think they were really stretching to get to 50 -- there are a few in there that aren't very well thought-out.

Also some of them, like 11, were just complaints that some aspect of RotJ wasn't as quite good as ANH or ESB. They're taking a true statement (e.g. Story wasn't as good as the first two films) and drawing a completely warped conclusion from it (e.g. Therefore the story is terrible). It's not a very good argument for why Jedi sucks, but it they do make a lot of solid points as to why it's not as good as the other two.

Still this article was written mostly for fun and to incite nerdrage so I'm not going to go through point by point and pick out why their reasoning is invalid. Also I feel like a good 20 or 30 of them were completely true in every regard, and the rest were mostly minor nitpicks that were greatly exaggerated.

 

Well said. And, despite the score NOT being up to the snuff standard set by the second film (in all fairness to Williams, many people regard the score to Empire as his best ever), the score to Jedi is STILL magnificent in its own right.

It'd be like someone saying, "Well, this $200 bottle of 1978 Don Perignone champagne isn't as good as the $350 bottle of 1958 Don we just drank. We should just hail it as a big bottle of suck."

A Williams score is STILL a Williams score. It's brilliant in its own right. And just because it doesn't measure up to what is considered his greatest feat of film scoring does NOT mean the score sucks.