MovieChat Forums > Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983) Discussion > I don't understand the hate for this mov...

I don't understand the hate for this movie

posted 7 years ago by ethannorthup
49 replies | jump to latest

It's my favorite out of the entire franchise. It continues the plot of empire in a way that makes sense, and wraps up the story quite nicely. A lot of people complain about the ewoks and jabba's Muppet henchmen, but I fail to see how any of those things are weirder than tusken raiders, wookies, and talking fish people.

This movie has a lower rating than Attack of the Clones, which i take as a personal insult. To say that that monstrosity of a star wars film, so laughably awful that it's like a parody of the series, is better than ROTJ is absolutely disgusting

[–] Jibbler66 7 years ago

Everything was great except the Eworks with the Storm Troopers battle went wayyyy to long and boring after a while. I would cut out most of it.

[–] TMC-4 (19449) 7 years ago

https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWars/comments/6659u9/why_do_people_hate_on_return_of_the_jedi/dgfp917/

Some parts were longer than they needed to be, people got annoyed with the Ewoks, and many felt that the ending was too happy.

https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWars/comments/6659u9/why_do_people_hate_on_return_of_the_jedi/dgfr7et/

People have a problem for multiple reasons: Yes you finally see Jabba, but his palace scene is basically trying to successfully play off the cantina scene in A New Hope. However it's a pale imitation that is shifts wildly in tone from fun (the Jedi rocks song from the newest edition) to dark (the rancor fight) to wtf (the rancor handler crying, seriously how am I supposed to feel about this man's pet getting killed?) Slave girl Leia is problematic because the entire plan to save Han is kinda dumb. C3po and R2D2 warn Jabba through Luke's message that he will come for Han, then a "bounty Hunter" shows up with Chewbacca, no one bats an eye. Then the bounty hunter revealed to be Leia and Jabba knew the whole time?!? Of course he did, its obvious. The slave girl Leia costume, while stimulating in a way that made an entire generation of boys hit puberty early, reduces Leia to a sex object for a whole act of the film. Also they kill Boba Fett in the most insulting way. Fett is set up to be this dangerous mofo(mind you he literally never does anything) then dies by an accident. The film also does a disservice to Han Solo, he loses his main characteristic as the rogue who is conflicted and turns straight to a capital G good guy. He loses what made him interesting. The conflict of it's not his fight, or the begrudging hero. Then your point about Anakin's redemption. If you took the original trilogy by itself, then yes, Darth Vadar's killing of the Emperor is a redemptive act. However with the addition of the prequel trilogy, Anakin is beyond redemption. There are things that can not be redeemed. Anakin's killing of the younglings is the final straw. Killing an dictator, that he put in power in the first place, is not even close to redeeming a man who murders a room full of children.

Also... Ewoks are dumb.

[–] Xenopharb (617) 7 years ago

TMC-4, I agree on all counts.

Return of the Jedi was the worst of the original trilogy by far, and Lucas took the worst of its elements and built upon its failures to give us The Phantom Menace. He had no clue that many Star Wars fans disliked the Jabba Palace scenes and actually hated the Ewoks. Because Lucas could not see what he had done right and wrong, he gave us the "Special Editions" and Jar Jar Binks.

I saw each of the "Special Editions" once in the theater; what follows is how many times I saw each of the originals in theaters prior to that:

Star Wars (A New Hope) 31
The Empire Strikes Back 9
Return of the Jedi 1

The fact that I could get in free to many of the Star Wars showings distorts the numbers, but even if cut in half, this shows what regard I had for each film at the time of release.

[–] Hans-Wilhelm (1320) 7 years ago

I loved the movie, I don't think your premise that most people dislike it is false. Some doesn't mean most when it comes to the naysayers.

[–] Volley (3374) 7 years ago

Indeed. Everyone I talk to outside the Internet loves the film, and is basically what people think of when they talk about Star Wars. Get on the Internet, and it gets bashed. So annoying. ROTJ defined a generation of Star Wars games, books, comics all the way up to the Phantom Menace and beyond.