Star Wars Episode VI: Return of The Jedi

If I knew the Ewoks were going to be  a prelude of things to come for the Star Wars series, I would have stopped at Jedi. After Empire Strike Back, I was ready for the grand conclusion. I was ready for a serious trip into the mind of an emerging Jedi, and his new knowledge of who his father was/is to take us to a finale with action, improved acting, new SPFX, and a deep story line. We got the SPFX andd thats about it. Instead everything seemed to go backwards. Even at 14 years old I was like “whats up with the F’n Ewoks?” I don’t know how or why they had to be in the story, but I soon came to realize as I got older that it was all about marketing and toys. The movie got campier, the one liners were worse, CP3o was bordering on Jar Jar binks status, the Ewoks were ridiculous, Mark Hamil’s acting for some reason took a nose dive into complete stiocity. Harrison Ford seemed like he’d had enough and couldn’t wait to finish the movie. The Emperor wasn’t really that scary, and Darth Vader ehhh. He ends up being an old fat bald guy in a suit. Yoda again was great, and his death was actually sad, Han emerging from Carbonite was a good scene, The battle with Luke and the Monster was pretty good, Leia was hot, the movie definitely had its moments, but never really took off. The ending with Ewoks singing and C3po telling the story really just capped off a movie that may have well been made by National Lampoon. The sadder part of it all would be decades later when it gets worse with the next trilogy.

Star Wars Episode V The Empire Strikes Back

Lucas Hits his stride in what is by far the best of the 6 movies. With a more brooding feel to the movie, that characters are more serious, the dialogue more intense, and the love story between Han Solo and Princess Leia intensifies. C3PO isn’t as campy and his one liners aren’t as annoying. Luke’s character really takes off here, but in all honesty it’s Yoda who steals the show. Lukes experiences with Yoda on Dagobah are spectacular The addition of Lando really helped add to the back story, and one of my favorite scenes in the movie is when Lando brings Han and Leia to the meeting room and Han sees Vader for the first time and immediately blasts him, to no avail. But it just shows the intensity, and if you think about it Han had no interaction with Darth before or after that, but his immediate reaction was to try to take him out. A couple of things that weren’t so great about the movie was how whiny Luke was (but he was worse in the first movie) and the death of Obi Wan; not very creative., This is the one Star Wars movie I can watch again and again.