CT Battle of Yavin vs Battle of Endor

I'm sure there is a better place for this in another forum.

 

Love both.
But this is the wrong forum section.

 

Endor!

 

Both awesome...! Slight edge to Endor.

You know what I would have loved to see at the end of Yavin? Vader actually landing on the red planet and walking away from his Tie Fighter... It would have really evoked a Sith look with his black armour against a red background...

 

Endor was both a space battle and a ground battle. Endor was bigger. Jakku might be bigger than both.

^ Vader didn't land on Yavin after the Death Star was destroyed. Yavin was a gas giant. Vader's TIE was not a typical TIE - it had a hyperdrive so he could have gone anywhere.

 

Correct! Locking.

Edit: Unlocking and moving to the Classic Trilogy forum.

 

Yavin for story and suspense, Endor for jaw-dropping spectacle.

 

I like both, but I like Endor more. It feels like such a larger scaled battle, and is really complex, more like a battle. Yavin felt very small scale, more like a skirmish that ended in the Death Star's destruction.

 

The bigger scope of ROTJ was amazing but the tension of ANH was way better.

 

Love both, Endor slightly more, if only for the confrontation on the Death Star II.

Spoiler

Strange Old Hermit I was under the impression the Battle of Jakku took place a few years before TFA.

 

Spoiler

Spoiler

1 year

 

I love both, but I'm going with Endor because it had the ground battle as well.

 

Once the shield goes down in ROTJ, there is no tension.
Once that happens. We know its over for the better.
The Battle of Yavin, went down to the final seconds for me.

 

Spoiler

1 year after Endor not 1 year before TFA.

I love the tension during the battle of Yavin, but Endor is more impressive visually and in scope.

 

The Battle of Jakku took place either 29 years or 31 years before the events of TFA, whichever timeline you want to believe. The Battle of Jakku was only 1 year after the Battle of Endor.

 

I think it is only fair if you compare just the space battles.

Although Yavin has more tension, I like the larger scale of Endor's space battle.

 

Looking purely at the space battles it all comes down to scale... and that tips it in Yavin's favour for me. Being English I guess a small band of pilots setting off to take on an apparently unstoppable foe taps into the cultural memory and pride of the Battle Of Britain and The Few.* Endor they went in planning for a battle, Yavin was do or die fighting for the survival of the whole Rebellion in the face of overwhelming odds (which admittedly turned out to be the case at Endor too but they didn't know it going in.)

*which does of course include the non-British pilots but it was Britain's first outright unqualified victory over the Axis powers

 

I have to admit, I never much cared for Endor. While it’s undoubtedly a technical masterpiece, in terms of visual effects, there was just no weight or substance behind it, in my opinion. I never really felt like anything was at stake. It just didn’t have enough tension or danger to it, and it always felt relatively underwhelming for a final, decisive battle. Yavin has more of an urgency towards it. We’ve seen the Empire use the Death Star to blow up Alderaan. We know that they will destroy the Rebels if Luke fails, and we know that they’ll probably destroy other planets as well. There’s a real feeling of danger there, as if Luke might just not make it.

One of the reasons I love THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING so much is that the final battle has a real sense of weight, hopelessness and despair to it. There’s a feeling of doom throughout. Even though I’d already read the books, Peter Jackson was able to fool me into having a gut feeling that Sauron might win. You really feel that our heroes are in peril, and that it’s gonna be a huge task to overcome the forces of darkness. You really can tell that none of the good guy armies could’ve defeated Sauron on their own. It really required all of them to stand together just in order to barely eke out a victory. RETURN OF THE JEDI never succeeded at fooling me into thinking that the heroes might be defeated. I mean, obviously, you know going into the movie that the good guys will win, but a great movie, like LOTR or the first two SW films, can make you forget that as you’re watching the movie.

Oh, and LOTR doesn’t end with a goddamned teddy bear luau! It ends with our hero, completely drained and exhausted emotionally, physically, mentally, and spiritually, eventually forced to leave Middle-earth, unable to survive there any longer. Middle-earth gets a happy ending, but Frodo doesn’t. I almost kinda wish JEDI had followed that tactic. The galaxy gets a happy ending, but Luke doesn’t.

 

I feel the same way. I like the Ewoks, as well, and Lando is all-business and heroic in space. The first time I saw it, I was wondering if Lando and the Rebels would die, and I felt bad for the Ewoks. Of course, everyone's favorite part of the battle is the Luke-Vader-Sidious dynamic. I don't fault Lucas for trying to follow multiple threads as some do. As great as TESB was, it did set up this epic conclusion at Endor.

 

That's why the real tension and focus of the climax of Return of the Jedi is a personal one between Luke, Vader and the Emperor. You can't just add tension over tension over tension because you lose focus. The external aerial battle (in which none of the heroes are involved) is just a backdrop (and a technical masterpiece of course), and a way to end the movie with a bang, AFTER the climax has been reached with Vader's redemption and the death of the Emperor.

So, of course, the Battle of Yavin is much better as a climatic battle -because it's the ONLY climatic battle of the two!

I disagree with your opinion about the battle of Return of the King (assuming you're talking about the Battle of Minas Tirith!). First of all, it's not a climatic battle at all, it's the second act of the story, and therefore, has less sense of "final battle" than the Battle of Helm's Deep for example (which is much smaller of course, but much more focused and a real climax of the movie). Second, I find that the battle is a bit too long and unfocused (with a rather sudden ending with a ghost army that makes everyone else worthless), and lacks the presence of the heroes of the story.

That depends on how you look at the Star Wars Saga, honestly. Yes, Return of the Jedi alone (or as the end of the OT) is a rather happy ending. However, as the end of the Saga, it's a bit more tragic, because the original hero was Anakin and he doesn't get a happier ending than Frodo. And if you want a tragic ending, watch Revenge of the Sith!

And Lord of the Rings (which I love, btw) makes a great effort to be tragic and dramatic, but the truth is that barely any of the heroes dies at all! Of the original 9 members of the Company, only Boromir (the "evil" one) dies. Gandalf appears to die and is broght back in the sequel (which lessens the impact of his death) and none of the others die. The only other "big" death is Theoden, and he was a secondary character (and an old one).
No, Lord of the Rings wants to be dark and tragic, but it's not as dark and tragic as it wants to be.

 

He's referring to the Battle of the black Gate.

 

Oh, I agree that the tension and urgency is given to the more personal conflict between Luke, Vader and the Emperor, and that’a well-done. But THE RETURN OF THE KING was able to intercut between the Siege of Gondor and Frodo’s encounter with the giant spider and give both of them equal weight. Hell, EMPIRE gave equal weight to the Luke/Vader battle and Leia, Lando and Chewie’s escape from Cloud City.

I never felt the battle ran on too long. I felt that it had just the right amount of highs and lows, as well as investing us in the fates of the various characters. Pippin and Merry are finally forced to prove themselves. Faramir nearly gets himself killed trying to win his father’s approval. Éowyn wishes to prove that she can fight just as well as any man and help defend her friends and all that she believes in. Théoden knows that they stand no chance in a fight against the forces of Mordor but knows that they must fight anyway because it’s the right thing to do. It has just the right balance of characterization and spectacle to keep me interested. With JEDI, it’s all spectacle and no characterization. Frankly, as impressive as the effects are, I always impatiently wait for it to cut back to the Emperor’s throne room. With KING, I never impatiently waited for it to cut back to Frodo.

The whole ghost army actually never bothered me. It’s a very exhausting and exhilarating sequence in the film, and the film(s) had gripped me so much at that point that I wasn’t really in any mood to quibble with them. We’ve seen just how difficult this fight is and how our heroes are barely managing to withstand this onslaught, so having the ghost army come in never diminished their efforts for me. It also reinforced the idea of everyone needing to stand together to repel the forces of evil. Gondor can’t do it alone. Rohan certainly can’t do it alone. It took a combined effort from everyone to defeat the enemy.

And it may not be climactic within KING as a standalone film, but it’s certainly the climactic battle of THE LORD OF THE RINGS as a whole. (NOTE: I said climactic battle, not climactic conflict, which of course occurs at Mount Doom.)

LOTR has more of a bittersweet ending than a tragic one. REVENGE OF THE SITH’s ending is just downright dour and depressing (which i don’t mind, but it was never intended to be the end of the story the way JEDI and KING were).

And how many of the STAR WARS characters die? The two old dudes- Obi-Wan and Yoda. I guess those anonymous Rebel soldiers at the beginning of the first film died. Um…Porkins died. Hard to think of that many main characters, though.

Oh, and if Darth Vader counts, then so does Gollum.

Out of curiosity, is this a criticism of Jackson or Tolkien?

 

I love both but prefer Endor a little more. The size and scale of the battle is impressive especially with them just using models. The second Death Star run was probably my favorite part of the battle just for how tense it with Lando barely escaping.