LogFAQs > #961228460

FrozenBananas posted...

I dont mean to be rude here but youre really saying Return of the Jedi was a flawless masterpiece? (And influential in any way at all?)

Flawless? No, I never said that. Jedi is where a lot of Lucas's sloppiness catches up to him (the entire scene with Obi-Wan's ghost and Luke in the Dagobah swamp is easily the clumsiest writing in the entire trilogy, as Lucas desperately tries to wallpaper over a bunch of plot-holes he hadn't thought through).

Masterpiece? Yes. The Battle of Endor is fucking phenomenal and is a masterclass in how to do a compelling cinematic climax with several different scenes all interlinking (you had the battle at the shield generator on the forest moon, the fight in space, and Luke's confrontation with the Emperor and Vader all playing out simultaneously and the movie blends them seamlessly).

Influential? Absolutely. This is the first real fleet battle we get to see in Star Wars (kind of hard to believe, but it's true) and that was hugely influential on sci-fi going forward in terms of what a "space battle" was supposed to look like. This is also where we get pay-dirt on the big twist revealed at the end of Empire, with Luke and Vader reaching the zenith of their respective character arcs, and that had reaches far beyond just sci-fi in terms of storytelling habits. ANH is far and away the most influential of the three movies, but Jedi isn't a slouch in that category.

FrozenBananas posted...

whatever, everyone is entitled to their opinions, but you complain about multiple endings in one movie but dont even mention Ewoks orthisfrom Jedi. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PiDRgDmXGi4

I'm assuming we're talking about the cinematic cuts of the Star Wars movies, not whatever dogshit Lucas churned out after 1990. If you want to compare the special editions of the Star Wars movies to LotR, then yeah, LotR takes it easily, but that's not the version of the movies that most people venerate and cite as legendary.

KaijunoKami posted...

The acting in A New Hope is pretty damn cringy at times whereas the acting in LotR never dropped once.

I mean, if we're going the nitpicky route the LotR would occasionally have these little moments where a 10 year old seemed to sneak into the director's chair for a spell, like when someone decided it would be great to have Legolas start shredding on an Urak-hai shield down a flight of stairs right in the middle of the otherwise-serious Battle of Helm's Deep while the imperious "fellowship" fanfare blares loud and at a ridiculous double-speed so they can fit it all in before he jumps off the shield and decapitates an orc in the process. I love that movie, but I swear my eyes almost rolled out of my skull when I saw that.

KaijunoKami posted...

Not to mention all three LotR movies were consistent in style from start to finish while each Star Wars movie had a different look and feel to it.

That's a feature, not a bug.

A PO pointed out, Star Wars "feels" like a trilogy, whereas LotR "feels" like one extended movie chopped up into three parts. I don't hold one of those as inherently superior to the other, they're just different ways of storytelling (and also display, very clearly, the differences between a B-movie series that surprised everyone to become the most successful franchise in human history versus a well-financed, well-planned three-movie-series that was always intended to be a box-office blockbuster).

adjl posted...

Criticizing RotK for having multiple endings, but not ANH?

Where are the multiple ending points in ANH? The only alternate I can think of to ending it where they did would be to cut it after Obi-Wan gives his "The Force will be with you... always" line and Vader's TIE Advanced is seen flying off into the void. If you move past that, there's really no other natural ending point other than where the film actually ends.

By contrast, take a look at RotK. Since they cut out the entire "Scouring of the Shire" subplot (and, honestly, good riddance - I have no idea why Tolkien thought that was a good note to end the books on), we know they're not going to follow the books in terms of writing the ending. So where do you end the movie? Well...

If you want to go dark (and controversial), you could end it with Frodo and Sam lying next to each other on Mount Doom, surrounded by lava, with Frodo's "I'm glad I'm here with you, Sam... at the end of all things" line. Fade to black, roll credits. But you're probably not going to take that one.

The next natural ending point is where Frodo wakes up in Rivendell and the Fellowship all come in one by one to celebrate. You have the scene of them all standing around Frodo's bed, fade to white, roll credits.

...no, nevermind, now we're in Minis Tirith, watching Aragorn's coronation. "My friends! You bow to no one," the new king says, before the entire human court bows before the humble hobbit heroes. Slow zoom on Frodo, the former hobbit-boy from the Shire, now the greatest hero in Middle Earth. Fade out, roll credi-

OK, let's go back to the Shire. All the hobbits return home, the greatest heroes in the land... except no one realizes it. They all head back to the pub, with seemingly nothing changed from when they left. They share a knowing look and a nod, kick back a drink, fade out, roll cre-

Wait, no, we're going to the Grey Havens now. The hobbits bid Frodo a tearful goodbye as he sails with Bilbo, Gandalf, and the elves off to the undying lands. We get a nice shot of the boat sailing off into the horizon, fade to white, roll-

Back to the shire! "I'm home." Door closes. FINALLY, we roll the credits.

That's six possible points where the movie could have stopped (and most of them, acted like it was going to stop), before we suddenly get another screen transition and a new scene. Like, I love RotK, but man does that ending drag...