The Empire Strikes Back vs. Return of the Jedi

The age-old debate. Branching off from the RotS thread so it doesn't go off-topic.

The way I see it, what really pushes these movies, above all else, are their dramatic elements and the execution thereof, which is why Empire is the best out of all of them. Here you have

• Luke almost freezing to death on Hoth, and Han risking his life to rescue him.
  
• Luke crashing on Dagobah, searching for Yoda, finding him, and learning the true nature of the Light Side--letting go of fear and aggression. And learning that even a tiny old elf muppet can lift an X-Wing out of a bog.
  
• The introduction of Lando Calrissian, one of the most awesome characters in the series, and the prompt souring of his friendship with Han when his dealings with the Empire are revealed.
  
• Han and Leia developing serious affection for one another over the course of the movie, only to have it end in a serious tragic climax. Carbonite, man. "I know." FOOM. This one is probably what seals it for me.
  
• Luke taking on Vader and getting seriously maimed--hand sliced off and all--and then on top of it, he finds out that the second-biggest jerk in the galaxy, the guy that killed his father, is, well, his father. This is the other big one, along with Han getting frozen.
  
• The bleak ending. Nothing special, but it counts.

Compare this to Jedi.

• Luke's anxiety about causing hardship for his friends throughout the film. "I'm endangering the mission. I shouldn't have come."
  
• The death of Yoda and the sibling revelation. "There is another Skywalker." Leia's reaction.
  
• Luke's conversation with ghost-Ben about how he had lied to him about Vader.
  
• The razing of the Rebel fighters. The return of the Death Star. "It's a trap!"
  
• Palpatine and Vader's temptation of Luke, and all the violence that goes with it. Toying with his emotions and all. "If you will not turn to the Dark Side...then perhaps she will."
  
• Vader's redemption. Guy finally set things right.

Seems about even, right? And it is. It really is. In fact, there's only one real element that drags down the quality of Jedi, but it certainly does a job of it. I speak, of course, of Ewoks.

If you look at the Star Wars movies in the sequence in which they were made, it should be obvious that there was a distinct movement on Lucas's part into what I call "cutesy mode." I'm talking about the kiddy-pandering, the goofy droids, the aspects put in the movies specifically with merchandising in mind. The Gungans, the pod racing, the conveyor belt scene in AotC. It was seen in full effect in Episode I, and is largely to blame for why the movie was so terrible. It was wearing off in Episode II, and by Episode III, it was, barring some wacky droid antics, finally, thankfully dead. But it all started in Episode VI--in Jedi--with the Ewoks.

Depending on how much a loser nerd you are, you may know that the whole Endor scenario in Jedi was originally the scene of a Wookiee slave uprising, but, as fuzzy as Wookiees are, they weren't considered marketable enough, so the slaves were replaced with a tribe of cute chirping little teddy bear creatures who demolish the best of the Galactic Empire's engines of destruction with Home Alone-ish traps made of sticks, stones, vines, berries, and love. Ewoks. This is why Empire is better.

*insert Clerks speech here*

I prefer Empire... I just did. For no other reason than that. I love both of them, but Empire is my favorite. Maybe I like drama better than happy endings. Jedi was the first I saw, however, though I was in the womb at the time. xD

I'd say The Empire Strikes Back is better simply because it's a darker, more emotionally impacting film. You don't have to go bashing the Ewoks. :(

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Originally Posted by Kawaii Ryûkishi

Depending on how much a loser nerd you are, you may know that the whole Endor scenario in Jedi was originally the scene of a Wookiee slave uprising, but, as fuzzy as Wookiees are, they weren't considered marketable enough, so the slaves were replaced with a tribe of cute chirping little teddy bear creatures who demolish the best of the Galactic Empire's engines of destruction with Home Alone-ish traps made of sticks, stones, vines, berries, and love. Ewoks. This is why Empire is better.

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Funny how you can know that and still sound un-nerdish. :D

When I was in elementary school, there was this kid who happened to be muslim. Or Hindu. Hell if I know, im ignorant. Anyway, the way she dressed made her look like an Ewok./racism

Empire Strikes Back was easily one of the best sequels ever made. I did however like RotJ better then ESB.

I probably just like RotJ better 'cause I saw it in theater. Out of the womb, mind you. Barely.

Or maybe I like it better because ESB makes me sad. Not 'cause of the drama, 'cause III was dark and dramatic and awesome, but for it's lost potential. The original trilogy has a lot of lost potential with those dramatic scenes, especially now that the entire first trilogy is out and you can see all this emotional backstory; after all that, Vader in the original trilogy, and pretty much all the other drama, seems kinda flat.

The Empire Strikes Back is the better movie. Darker and more believable. The sad truth is that Lucas didn't even direct Empire, which goes to show you that he can't direct people.

Depending on how much a loser nerd you are, you may know that the whole Endor scenario in Jedi was originally the scene of a Wookiee slave uprising, but, as fuzzy as Wookiees are, they weren't considered marketable enough, so the slaves were replaced with a tribe of cute chirping little teddy bear creatures who demolish the best of the Galactic Empire's engines of destruction with Home Alone-ish traps made of sticks, stones, vines, berries, and love. Ewoks. This is why Empire is better

Actually you are a little wrong on that one. True it was originally planned for the Wookies and not the Ewoks to be in the Endor battle. But the reasoning was not because of marketing. It was because originally Lucas had the story of the original trilogy all planned out and the Wookies were one of his favorite characters. But not knowing if the Star Wars movie would be popular enough to get to the part to where the Wookies were supposed to come in Lucas decided to change the Wookie character a bit so he could be put into the first movie.

And once that part of the story did indeed come about Lucas couldn't really use the Wookies anymore because the script called for a primitive civilization to fight alongside the Rebels against the Empire. And since the Wookies were definitely not a primitive civilization anymore he had to come up with a different type of species. Hence the Ewoks were born.

The Wookiees' civilization is primitive, though, compared to the guys on Coruscant and such. And even if Lucas just didn't want to use Wookiees, he didn't have to make the replacements cute little teddy bears. That was obviously a marketing decision.

Yea, he could have used a civilization of forest-dwelling jellyfish.

4 star wars threads in a row. I like the one when Darth Vader takes off his face then they cook him like a crayfish. :)

Return
yeah what can you do about the ewoks. the ladies like 'em tho. hairy.

Reading some of these posts makes me feel old, considering I saw the original Star Wars in the theater when it came out in 1977. Of course, I was only 4 at the time, but I still remember it quite clearly. ;)

If I had to list the series from the best to the "worst" I would say this:
Episode IV: A New Hope
Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
Episode II: Attack of the Clones
Episode I: The Phantom Menace

The original trilogy, though, was hard to put one over the other. All three of them were equally good, so I simply put them in order of their appearance.

He had to make them be something completely different than a Wookie though.

Honestly lets throw this out for discussion. Do you think the Original Trilogy would have been better if they never had Chewbacca as the copilot and kept the Wookies as the primitive race on Endor and had an easy to believe Endor battle (like what was originally planned). Or do you think it was better the way it was to have Chewbacca as the copilot and have the Endor battle be kind of cheesy.

That doesnt mean they had to not have Chewbacca as the co-pilot, nor does it mean the primitive race had to be cute and cuddly.

empire sucks.

I think the original trilogy worked fine with both Chewbacca and the Ewoks. Changing it to something else would not necessarily have made it any better or worse.

I think they should have kept Chewbacca, and still replaced the ewoks with a wookie uprising. That sounds like alot of fun to watch.

Yams makes an excellent point. He gets cuddles!

I liked ESB better. No explainable reason. Just a feeling. Maybe even more than a feeling...

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Originally Posted by theundeadhero

Maybe even more than a feeling...

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Maybe it's a knowing.

The Ewoks weren't that bad. Those Home Alone-ish traps probably killed a few AT-ST's but mostly the Ewoks were getting slaughtered by those. It was Chewbacca taking control of that one AT-ST that turned the battle in the favor of Solo and others. And about the reason why Ewoks were used, I heard from a friend that Lucas had said he wanted to have the nature win out technology in the final battle, so he'd have liked to use Wookies, but he realised that Chewie could use weapons and blasters, so he had to go with a race that was still using spears, bows and things like that. Besides, at least we got a Wookie Uprising in Episode III in Kashyyyk, and Yoda was also involved there. :D

As for which one I think is better.
Story-wise: Episode VI
As a movie: Episode V

Empire is the best Star Wars film imo. It really get's the story going and introduces alot of new characters that are important. You've got Han getting frozen in carbonite and taken by Boba Fett to Jabba The Hutt. Luke finds out Vader is this father. Yoda is introduced and Luke's starts his Jedi Training.

Plus the end of the film dosn't wrap eveything up nicely for you. Your left wondering what happenes next.

I like Return of the Jedi more, for one reason, and that's the Emperor. He's just such a great character in his theatrical evilness. Seeing RotS this weekend I was utterly revelling in his glory. Plus that and the fact that EVERYONE always says ESB is the better movie, and I hate being predictable.

I agree with exactly everything you said in your first post Kishi. Well said.

ROTJ!!


little fuzzy creature/ewoks going kamikaze on them hover speeders but jumping off ayt last min wow

also when they were screwing the empires stuff to shreds and worshipping a nerdy and wussy robot good god



the ESB rocked to

Empire, just because of Hoth.

I agree with many things Kishi said in this thread. The Ewoks were an unfortunate part of RotJ, but they didn't ruin the movie for me. ESB is better because of its overall dark story, fantastic score, and memorable scenes (the battle of Hoth, the asteroid chase, Yoda and the Force, Boba Fett, the carbon freeze scene, "I am your father!", and many others). There are many good scenes in RotJ too (the battle near Sarlacc's pit, Vader/Luke/Emperor scenes, the huge battle of Endor both on ground and in space, Luke talking to Obi-Wan, the death of the Emperor etc.), but the Ewoks just seem a bit too cute for a Star Wars movie, IMHO.

I do understand Lucas's claim that he couldn't use Wookiees in the Endor battle due to the technology reasons (as in Wookiees not being as primitive anymore as originally planned, so they were replaced with Ewoks), but it's true that Ewoks were made marketing in mind as well (Lucas could've used some other race there, although he stated that he wanted little people to aid the rebels defeat the Empire). Of course I like the setting of primitive people distracting the highly technological Empire long enough for the rebels get inside the bunker and blow the shield generator up (because yes, Ewoks couldn't have won the battle; their only purpose was to distract the Empire and give rebels a better chance of succeeding in the mission, and that plan was successful). The fact that Ewoks exist doesn't ruin the movie, but it makes ESB better if one compares these two movies. RotJ still has its share of fantastic battle scenes, not to mention the wonderful score accompanying the movie (just listen to that beautiful cue when Luke finally beats Vader after Vader's statement about turning Leia to the Dark Side), so RotJ is still a very good SW movie, although it has Ewoks and those horrible CGI singers during one the scenes taking place in Jabba's palace (the latter were added to the 1997 SE and this recent trilogy DVD edition).

But it's true that all the three Original Trilogy movies are very good with those memorable scenes and fantastic score by John Williams. I like ESB because of the reasons I mentioned earlier, and part of the reason I think it's still the best SW movie (even after I saw Revenge of the Sith, which as as dark as ESB) is because of the famous scenes between Luke and Vader, and of course the tragic carbon freeze scene ("I love you." "I know.").

one has to remember that george lucas DID NOT direct episodes 5 and 6. (many people make the mistake).

in my opinion lucas is a first class producer and a second class director.

He didnt direct them, but he still had creative control.

And yes, Lucas is a horrid director.

Around the time Episode II came out, he made a comment that the instances of overacting by folks like Christensen were intentional as an homage to low-tech stage performances. Apparently he never figured out that the reason stage actors often yell their lines is because it's necessary to make sure everyone can hear them. Not really an issue in a film.

That man has an excuse for everything.

Homage this!

I always like Jedi better, but then Empire started growing on me. Empire is the 'better' movie, but I still have to give it to Jedi because it has the happy ending. Vader's redemption, Jabba the Hutt, all that jazz. The Ewoks did not detract from my enjoyment.

Definitely 1-2 regardless.

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Originally Posted by Kawaii Ryûkishi

Carbonite, man. "I know." FOOM. This one is probably what seals it for me.

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I sure hope that that wasn't an intended pun. :p

I used to like them both the same, but after seeing the remakes, I like ESB a lot better. The new musical sequence in Jabba's palace just killed that movie for me.

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Originally Posted by Del Murder

I always like Jedi better, but then Empire started growing on me. Empire is the 'better' movie, but I still have to give it to Jedi because it has the happy ending. Vader's redemption, Jabba the Hutt, all that jazz. The Ewoks did not detract from my enjoyment.

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If I am not mistaken, there were 2 people that worked with Lucas closely on IV and V and talked him away from cutsy things like ewonks. They were not there for VI and beyond which is why crap like ewonks and Jar Jar showed up in the movies.

George Lucas...YOU SUCK!

How could you say george lucas sucks if your a fan of star wars? Which brings up the question...do you like star wars?

I don't think Lucas sucks. I personally don't have a problem with the Ewoks or Jar Jar. Why can't there be "cutsy" things along with the serious things.

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Originally Posted by Yamaneko

The Empire Strikes Back is the better movie. Darker and more believable. The sad truth is that Lucas didn't even direct Empire, which goes to show you that he can't direct people.

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When discussing this debate with my Aunt Joan she informed me that I have to like ESB better because the cave monster in the extended scene was built and played by my Uncle Howie. So I guess I change my vote.

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Originally Posted by ShlupQuack

When discussing this debate with my Aunt Joan she informed me that I have to like ESB better because the cave monster in the extended scene was built and played by my Uncle Howie. So I guess I change my vote.

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Yay Uncle Howie!

Haha, yeah. She said George Lucas asked him to make the costume, and he just 'happened' to make it so it fit him perfectly, so when Lucas asked who would wear it he was like "Well it does fit me perfectly... *cough*"

I prefer Empire Strikes Back. Obvious reason. Ewoks should die.

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Originally Posted by dking

How could you say george lucas sucks if your a fan of star wars? Which brings up the question...do you like star wars?

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Because he sucks at directing, sucks at writing and sucks at casting good people for roles. He has a great idea and a great story that he wants to tell but he sucks at telling it and getting across what he wants to get across in a meaningful way. Episode IV was directed okay as well as episode III. He failed big time on episode I and II though. He just is not the best when it comes to that stuff and isn't very good over all.

Just because you do an okay job a few times doesn't mean you don't suck.

I thinkl that ESB and RotJ are by far the best star wars movies, but there is a tie between them.
ESB is a more serious movie and is pretty emotional
RotJ has the best story and the best war sequence (the space one).


Anyway, i like the ewoks, and they are comical characters just like Chewie.