Episode III versus Episode V: Which is darker?

Jedi_Ford_Prefect, I think you gave Lawrence Kasdan too little credit but... other than that I wholeheartedly agree with you. Kershner is praised too often when it comes to TESB.

 

Wester-- perhaps. The Han & Leia stuff certainly feels like Kasdan's work, but by his own admission the bulk of the ESB screenplay is Lucas'. He's always said that his work on the SW movies were a alot less than his work on Raiders.

Still, you're certainly right. ESB wouldn't be ESB without the contribution of Kasdan, who by the way is a much better director than Kerschner ever was.

 

ROTS, no contest. Anakin fall to the darkside and all the Jedis get slaughtered. What more do you need?

 

I fail to find a movie with droids cartoonishly yelling "Ouch" and falling apart in a cartoonish fashion dark.

ESB is without a doubt the most serious and mature of the saga. I don't think any of the films are DARK, since it all leads up to a happy ending.

 

You have to consider each movie as their own individual movie sometimes. Sure they all lead to the ending in RotJ, but we're talking about each movie separately.

Every Star Wars movie has their own share of cartoonish droid antics, ESB and RotS are no different. However, how can you not say RotS is not a dark film because of these cartoonish droid antics? They happen towards the beginning of the film and the film goes on the decline right after that. Things turn dark, Jedi are murdered, Anakin has lost his sense of good and evil, Padmé is destroyed by Anakin and his ways, Kenobi must fight and kill his best friend, Palpatine and Yoda face off in a classic battle of Jedi v. Sith, the once loyal Clonetroopers do a 180 and kill all Jedi, Luke and Leia are born into the world without a mother or father ... did I miss anything?

 

Eh. I could've done without Threepio's showboating in ESB, frankly. It's just as distracting, especially during the carbon-freezing scene.

 

I was actually joking when I said I fail to find a film where droids are acting cartoonish dark. I thought you would uh sense the joke. Guess not. LOL.

I still think ESB is darker because there is NO happiness going on in the movie except Han and Leia's temporary romance. That is, till Han becomes a carbonite ice cube.

ROTS is all happy and cheery in the beginning. It isn't until Anakin's dream and his meetings with Palpatine that it goes on a downward spiral. All hope is lost... until Episode IV.

 

Happy and cheery? I'm not sure I agree. When ROTS begins the Clone Wars have reached Coruscant, the capital of the Republic, and the Commander-in-Chief has been kidnapped by the enemy. Furthermore the whole conflict, it turns out, is all just an elaborate plot to get Anakin to perform unspeakable deeds and maneuver the galaxy into Sith control. Sure, Anakin's got his love with Padme-- but it's gotta stay a secret. And if you think that her pregnancy makes him happy at all, just pay close attention to that scene when the DVD comes out-- he sounds a bit reluctantly excited to me.

Also, in ESB, there is plenty of happiness and hope to be found in the fact that none of the principal characters have died. Yeah, Han's an ice cube, but at least he isn't dead. Leia's been left alone, but at least she's admitted her love. Luke may have gotten the shock of a lifetime and been beaten within an inch of his life, but at least he's still alive.

In fact, Luke's survival in ESB has always been one of the points that made me unable to see it as an exclusively dark film. I was always impressed that he was able to stand his own against one of the deadliest villains in the galaxy with a minimal amount of Jedi training. Also, he knows the truth, now, and it sets him free. ESB is a very cathartic film, in which all of the pains are redeemed by the lessons they bring.

ROTS isn't cathartic, though. By the end every hero's been beaten, killed, maimed, corrupted and/or humbled. There aren't any bright spots except for Luke and Leia, who now have to live and learn to fight against a fascist police state.

Oh, and by the way:

I was actually joking when I said I fail to find a film where droids are acting cartoonish dark. I thought you would uh sense the joke. Guess not. LOL.

Isn't it just as obvious I was joking about Threepio? I guess not.

 

Jedi_Ford_Prefect, TESB is so painfully and obviously dark, from the tone/vibe of the film, it hasn't coyed anyone to consider it a light-hearted story. It IS a dark film, and I think by the end of TESB we all know our heroes are in serious danger. Yes, Luke escapes Vader, at the cost of his hand, Han Solo, a great relevation, and his training.

I hate to say this, but all these excuses scream the nature of a, well, fanboy attempting to defend something that's not true.

To proclaim TESB to be not all that dark is simply just silly. I know it can just be all a matter of opinion, but there's nothing really dark about ROTS until the 2nd half of the movie, which is apparently very tragic. I don't see anything dark about two Jedi Starfighters sweeping through the glory of war over coruscant and child-like battle-droids muttering "UH-OH" with high-pitched voices - or with those droid fighters with their childish antics - or with the clear as day and *extremely* light victory earned all in a day's work after crash-landing on Coruscant.

Just some examples, and some food for a thought.

 

Hey, Wester: Don't get me wrong. I don't entertain any delusions of ESB being a light hearted film. In fact, I never called it a light hearted film. I just said that it wasn't exclusively a dark story, not that it was "not all that dark at all." What I said was that because of the cathartic aspects of ESB's ending there's a more substantial silver lining than in ROTS.

Sure, our heroes are in danger because they haven't beaten the Empire yet, but they've survived the biggest millitary assault since the Clone Wars and they're still standing. Sure, Luke lost his hand, but he got a brand-new bionic one that looks the same, works the same and for the most part is the same, though it certainly acts as a painful reminder of his defeat to Vader and the potential within him to become just as twisted and mechanical as he.

The other losses you mention? Han Solo's been captured-- he isn't dead. Yes, Luke's learned a terrible truth about his father, but at least he knows the truth. And his training? Again, he fought Darth Vader and lived to tell about it. Yoda says himself when Luke next sees him that he doesn't need any more training. For all intents and purposes Luke is a fully fledged Jedi Knight by now-- all that remains is him to confront his father and the potential for the dark side within himself one more time.

I mean, hey-- ESB's dark, no question there. I'm just saying that whenever I've watched it I felt everyone involved had grown stronger from their experiences. And as for childish droid antics-- do I need to mention Threepio again?

As for the fanboy thing: C'mon, man. That's just not cricket.

Anyway, regarding ROTS' lack of first act darkness-- granted, the action-adventrue elements of Palpatine's rescue do a good job of masking the more disturbing elements of the first reel, but the same can be said of ESB, which doesn't become too overtly dark until Luke's bad cave trip (by the way, there's a connection there with ROTS, where the really obvious darkness doesn't begin until Anakin's similarly trippy Padme nightmare). Aside from the excitement of the battle over Coruscant and the Mickey Mouse voices of the "Roger Roger" droids one shouldn't forget Anakin's brutal execution of Count Dooku or the fact that this is all just another huge game Palpatine's been playing to engineer his dictatorship. Also don't forget the fact that there's plenty of losses on the side of the Republic shown in this scene, just like the losses the Alliance suffers at Hoth-- just because in ROTS it's just clones that die here doesn't mean their deaths are less meaningful. Again, all the visual whiz-bang of everything tends to drown out the "reality" of these losses, but it shouldn't be forgotten that this is a pretty harrowing battle they're going through.

By the way: "The Glory of War"? My friend, path like that only lead to the grave, with all th

 

I see my post prior set you straight off. A real shame, really.

Anyway, TESB is dark from the beginning of the movie. There's just such a susbantial loss with the Battle of Hoth, the whole tone of the planet, Luke being posed in gravely threatening danger from the get go (The Wampa, the whole storm, etc), The Empire discovering the location of the Rebels and them having to retreat and flee off quicker than the speed of light (it's like a game of cat and mouse, really...) Dagobah and Luke failing his training, Han, Leia, Chewie and C3PO always being relentlessly pursuited by the Star Destroyer, Vader and the Empire, and if that's not bad enough let's pour Boba Fett, most ruthless Bounty Hunter of the Galaxy into the fray and track them down, they're always in exigency these circumstances in TESB. And just when you think everything is dandy and has shifted to cloud nine on Cloud City, Bespin, think again..........

 

Eh, you say tomayto, I say tomatah. I'll take this post point-by-point if only because The Hours is really, really boring. Especially when you have to imagine the prosthetic noses yourself...

Battle of Hoth-- Yeah, the planet's weather is a downer. So is Luke being attacked by the Wampa and caught in the snowstorm. Still, we get to see his Jedi skills improve by pulling the lightsaber and encountering the spirit of Obi-Wan who tells him how to improve his skills. There's real bonding shown between Luke and Han during the rescue, and the darkness of the Empire's chasing away the Alliance is downplayed thanks to the Rebels getting-away-to-fight-another-day (except for Dak and the guy who found Han and Luke in the tundra) and the whole action-adventure ingenuity of tripping the walkers.

Luke on Dagobah-- No doubt, this whole section of the film is damn spooky and humbling for Luke, but Yoda and Artoo's antics lighten the mood considerably. The nightmare and Luke's relative failure to get any of the points Yoda tries to teach him certainly make for darker proceedings, but too much of this still cracks me up for it to be too disturbing.

Granted, though: When this part gets disturbing, it gets just this close to David Lynch disturbing.

The trials and tribulations of the Millenium Falcon-- Oh, c'mon! You've gotta be kidding me! This part of the film's just too damn fun to be dark! The Falcon's interstellar acrobatics with the Star Destroyers, the space slug and the asteroids, Han and Leia's going through the motions of a Bogey and Bacall style romance and Vader's quip to Captain Needa-- I'm sorry, but this is the adrenaline part of the film.

Heck, even Boba Fett adds more drama and excitement than real danger. But then I've always been a Fett fan, so I never greeted his limited screentime with too much in the way of apprehension.

Again, just saying that there's shades of whatnot in the darkness of Shadow Moses, here. Now, if only I could just count watching The Hours as reading the damn thing...

 

I totally agree with you up to this point.

I think a lot of people found the start of Revenge of the Sith to be quite light-hearted because we are seeing it from the Jedi's point of view. The whole setup is a cloak, this isn't the real state of things at all.
I've found the opening of "Revenge" to be much darker since I realised the whole thing was a flip-around of the opening of The Phantom Menace. I think it was quite intentional that the time between these two events (Ep1 intro, Ep3 intro) equals 13 years.

However, this shows that Empire Strikes Back works much better on its own, and the mood does not need to be enhanced by the viewing of other Episodes.

To discuss some of your specific points -

I don't see anything dark about two Jedi Starfighters sweeping through the glory of war over coruscant.

Think about the fact that Obi and Qui-Gon travel as ambassadors at the start of TPM. The Jedi fighters are a sign of the times. The Jedi have aligned themselves with a corrupt (and rich) Republic. Not that they weren't in Ep1, but things were much more subtle back then.
Ep1 - Protocal Droid: "The ambassadors are Jedi Knights, I believe."
Ep3 - Goofy hangar droid: "Those are Jedi fighters alright."


or with the clear as day and *extremely* light victory earned all in a day's work after crash-landing on Coruscant.

This was just the calm before the storm. This moment was meant to be "light", but I don't mind.
"Another happy landing" is meant to be ironic because
a) Everything will soon turn to hell.
b) Obi-Wan is speaking to Anakin and Palpatine - the two "Sith" of the movie.


But besides that, from a certain point of view, any victory for the Republic is just strengthening the future Empire. The whole PT is "dark" if you keep this in mind, even Episode 1.

Don't get me wrong though; stylistically, I still feel Empire Strikes Back is darker.

 

Well said.

It is one of the most fun parts of the OT, yet you can still find it depressing sometimes because you know all Han's tricks, and all their narrow escapes, will be for nothing. It all just leads to Han going into Carbon Freeze.
When I saw this movie in the cinema in 97 (and I hadn't seen Return of the Jedi yet), it was definitely the moodiest experience out of all six movies. Perhaps me being much younger than I was when I saw Ep3 had a lot of influence on this, but without knowing what happens in Return of the Jedi, Empire Strikes Back is definitely darker.

 

Careful, I_Dont_Know, you just posted a large chunk of Wester's opinions as my own up there-- the first paragraph. Don't want anyone to get the wrong ideas, now.

Anyway, you've hit upon something there-- both ESB and ROTS have lighthearted periods which become darker and moodier retroactively. At first the opening act of ROTS, with its action, excitement and crash landing acts of derring-do, is a great adventure sequence, but not too much more. There's some somberness when Anakin executes Dooku, but the rest is deliberate fun. However, when one realizes that the buddy-movie team here will later be fighting to the death and that the poor hostage they're rescuing will turn out to be the engineer of the whole evil plot, then this section of the movie becomes pretty dark.

As for ESB, I've never considered it in that respect, but you're right about how moody it can get here. Suschitzky's lighting carries alot of these feelings, as well as the fact that the most stable position the Falcon gets into is into the belly of a space worm. Again, it's only really retroactively that these scenes become as moody as you see them, but the isolation and pursuit, paired with the emotional vulnerability Han and Leia are showing, does help to make this one of the most genuinely emotive acts of the saga.

Also, interesting connection between the dumb droid lines from TPM and ROTS about Jedi starships.

 

TESB simpy never has a light-hearted period in contrast to all five of the other films. But it's not always as dark as it subdues to later on in the film, so I see your point.

 

Hmmm..i think to me ROTS is darker cause of the overall turn of the galaxy: jedi wipeout, killing of younglins, hero turns to the darkside, padme dies, empire surges.. the darkside is overwhelming at this point.

Empire does have it's dark moments aswell, but to me ROTS is darker in a more obvious and explicit way.

 

Well TESB is dark but I don't feel it is as dark as ROTS. I mean sure ROTS ended with Luke being given to his Aunt and Uncle and he was the "New Hope". But many of the heros got killed off or had to go into hidding. That never really happened in TESB. So I just have to go with ROTS here.

Edit: Besides if it is your first time watching it you are not really going to know that the good guys win in the end.

 

ESB is darker for me. ROTS is given that great feel of darkness, although at the end we know exactly what's going to happen.

Orginally with ESB you didn't know while you were waiting for ROTJ to come out.

 

Well but for us that saw the originals first, of course ESB was dark because we didnt know anything else and we didnt know what would hapen with ROTJ, but with ROTS we knew exactly what was going to hapen beforehand: the end result wasnt the mistery, our curiosity came with HOW exactly we were going to get to the end we already knew; yet to me ROTS had such a powerful effect, i dunno how to describe it.

I also think ESB seems a lot darker because if we all saw it as kids (and i bet most of us did) we were far more impressionable than we r now.. i know when i first saw ANH the sand ppl and the banthas seemed so BIG and scary , but i see it now and it doesnt have the same effect on me whatsoever.

I think to answer this question objectively, we all must try to see it in the perspective of future generations that will watch the saga in cronological order, from Episode I to VI.. i think they will find it very very dark! and i think even more so than ESB.

 

For me, at least, it doesn't matter what order I watch the films in, whether it be 4-6, 1-3 or 1-6 ... it just doesn't matter. Whether I watched the OT first or not, RotS is the darker of the two.

Many Users in this thread have said that ESB is darker because it's gloomy throughout the entire Film, while RotS starts out happy, but ends dark. I disagree. Ask yourself this; what is worse? Having something that is continually dark or having something that was once good, turn into something dark. For me, the answer is watching something good go completely evil, in this case ... Anakin Skywalker. RotS starts out with hope, happiness and pregnancy and ends with evil, hate and anger.

 

Revenge is way darker, for Anakin has a terrible vision of his wife dying, and he winds up causing her death indirectly. There is just so much more tragedy in this one, then there was in Empire

 

Yeah that's true. ESB is darker as a kid. Even on comparison now. I still think ESB has the edge. Not to say ROTS is not a dark fim, because it is.

 

Revenge: The Jedi are wiped out. A war ends in the creation of an Empire after generations of Republic. A hero becomes a villan. Padme dies . And the Sith return.

Empire: The rebels lose their hidden base and Luke loses a hand.

I think Revenge is just a tiny bit darker. Just a little bit...

 

Episode III is definately much darker. Were you driven emotionally more in Episode V than in III? The betrayal, the slaughtering of jedi children, the "I hate you" line, the background of Mustafar, all of the subtle manipulations, doing what jedi shouldn't do, the murdering of the jedi (not only fair dueling, just flat out murdering), Anakin's feelings for Amidala driving him to madness, hate, betrayal, doubt, and immense pain (both phyisically, but especially emotionally), the choking of Amidala, a tremor in the force so large that yoda dropped his staff and fell almost causing his death, the transition from a generally good government system to entirely corrupt, "so this is how liberty dies, with thunderous applause," transition from man to mostly machine, the score is so much more emotional. Episode V is dark, especially when at Cloud City, but compared to III, it did not stir 1/3 as much of the emotions. Thinking with film students' view, it is one of the greatest made movies as to where every aspect of the movie forced you to react in certain way, but morally, and emotionally, this is one of the most disturbing movies I have seen.

So, yeah, that's my addition to this discussion.

Simba