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Badmovies.org Forum  |  Movies  |  Good Movies  |  Return of the Jedi Is Really Sleazy! « previous next »
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Author Topic: Return of the Jedi Is Really Sleazy!  (Read 5973 times)
Kooshmeister
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« on: September 18, 2013, 08:06:00 AM »

When people discuss this film they often talk about the clashing tones of the stuff set on Endor and the stuff involving Luke and Vader on the Death Star. How the Ewoks are so super cuddly and cute they practically belong in a different movie from the far more dramatic and mature scenes of Luke trying to redeem his father and getting tempted by the Emperor.

But surprisingly, apart from the aliens and Leia's slave girl costume, the Jabba sequence gets ignored. Now me, I love it. I can't deny it's influenced me in ways I can't discuss on here without severely disturbing my fellow posters. But Jabba's palace has a tone, and it's not only dark but sleazy. And in fact not just sleazy, but reveling in its sleaziness.

To wit, cuddly Ewoks come later. But first, kids have to sit through Sure, cuddly Ewoks come later. But first, kids have to sit through a bloated slug villain who gets off to feeding half-naked slave girls to monsters, a sexy dance is followed by the slave girl begging for her life and then being fed to a monster and Leia The heroine is enslaved by said bloated bad guy and made to wear a chain and metal dancing girl costume.
« Last Edit: September 18, 2013, 08:21:51 AM by Kooshmeister » Logged
akiratubo
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« Reply #1 on: September 18, 2013, 09:04:37 AM »

The dissonance of tone you bring up is what led some fans to speculate that the Ewok/Endor stuff was actually directed by Lawrence Kasdan.  It goes like this:  Richard Marquand directed Jabba's palace and the scenes on the Death Star.  Lucas took a look and decided that the final (tee-hee) Star Wars movie needed to be "fun" and not so dark, so he fired Marquand and turned the movie over to Lawrence Kasdan to finish.

I don't know how true this is (probably not at all) but the Ewok village/Endor scenes do feel a lot like Silverado and some of Kasdan's more comedic works.
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Kooshmeister
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« Reply #2 on: September 18, 2013, 02:20:23 PM »

If Marquand was fired, Lucas kept him around for the Endor scenes. That's him as one of the Imperial scout walker drivers. He's either the one Chewie tosses off the roof or the guy who gets beaten into submission by the Ewoks.

Having brought them up, consider me in the minority among those who actually enjoy the Ewoks. I think they're cute, and I have no problem with the tone they bring to the film. Nor with the tone of the Jabba scenes, despite considering them sleazy. Rather I think the issue isn't necessarily one of wildly differing tones, but of a bizarre failure to properly integrate them with one another.

The Ewok stuff is mostly in the middle, and, really, as long as each differently toned sequence is by itself it's not a big deal, but the climax intercuts between three different scenes of differing tone and does all of them a disservice as a result. Some better editing, I think, was required. The Phantom Menace had similar problems with its climax, complete with no less than four different simultaneous battles, again, one of which was very lighthearted in nature and didn't quite go with the other three.
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« Reply #3 on: September 18, 2013, 06:40:30 PM »

Another sleazy aspect is how the Saarlac pits looked like vaginas to some moviegoers.  Pretty stupid, but that's sleazy minds at work.
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Kooshmeister
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« Reply #4 on: September 19, 2013, 01:53:36 PM »

Nah, wrong shape. It's clearly an a***ole.
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« Reply #5 on: September 23, 2013, 04:04:23 AM »

I seem to recall Mad Magazine's parody introducing the Earwaks.  And how much more sleazy can you get than Han Solo groping Leia's bosom?

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« Reply #6 on: September 23, 2013, 10:55:32 AM »

I was nearly the perfect ages when I saw each of the original trilogy. 

For the first movie I was young, and everything was amazing.  There was a wise old teacher, a young student, and evil empire, a menacing dark villain, sword fights, and space battles.

Then came the Empire Strikes Back, and with it the idea of personal good and evil and fighting a hopeless battle against impossible odds.  Adding more to that last stand story appreciation, around the same time I first saw "The Alamo" (1960) with John Wayne.  To this day I find stories and movies with the same feeling to be very interesting.

And, as I was starting to show some interest in girls, here comes Return of the Jedi.  Slave Leia, even more space battles, and a young hero who is struggling to become the man he wants to be.  Looking back now, the Ewoks were more comedic than I'd like, but at the time the Battle of Endor was a lot of fun.  When I can just let go of some of my adulthood now, it is still a lot of fun.

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« Reply #7 on: October 01, 2013, 12:45:35 AM »

I was nearly the perfect ages when I saw each of the original trilogy. 

For the first movie I was young, and everything was amazing.  There was a wise old teacher, a young student, and evil empire, a menacing dark villain, sword fights, and space battles.

Then came the Empire Strikes Back, and with it the idea of personal good and evil and fighting a hopeless battle against impossible odds.  Adding more to that last stand story appreciation, around the same time I first saw "The Alamo" (1960) with John Wayne.  To this day I find stories and movies with the same feeling to be very interesting.

And, as I was starting to show some interest in girls, here comes Return of the Jedi.  Slave Leia, even more space battles, and a young hero who is struggling to become the man he wants to be.  Looking back now, the Ewoks were more comedic than I'd like, but at the time the Battle of Endor was a lot of fun.  When I can just let go of some of my adulthood now, it is still a lot of fun.

I know exactly what you mean about the perfect ages to see those movies.  I saw Star Wars in the cinema when very young, and I could not stop talking about it for days and days.  At the time, it was the most incredible thing I had ever seen.  I think I stood up three times for Show and Tell the next day to talk about Star Wars, and had to be told, 'that's enough,' by the teacher.

In the 80's and early 90's, TV stations would sometimes run Star Wars movies back to back, and that would be sufficient cause to gather around with snacks and drinks for the evening.  You'd make a night of it, simply from those movies being screened once again.

And 'letting go of adulthood' can sometimes be as easy as allowing yourself to be as a kid again, watching the magnificent battles with saber and ship, the dusky orange desert and the twitterings of glistening robots.  I don't think any movie has had the same kind of impact as the original Star Wars in terms of sheer sense of wonder and drama.
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zelmo73
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« Reply #8 on: October 09, 2013, 01:17:58 AM »

The dissonance of tone you bring up is what led some fans to speculate that the Ewok/Endor stuff was actually directed by Lawrence Kasdan.  It goes like this:  Richard Marquand directed Jabba's palace and the scenes on the Death Star.  Lucas took a look and decided that the final (tee-hee) Star Wars movie needed to be "fun" and not so dark, so he fired Marquand and turned the movie over to Lawrence Kasdan to finish.

I don't know how true this is (probably not at all) but the Ewok village/Endor scenes do feel a lot like Silverado and some of Kasdan's more comedic works.

You raise a valid point here. Return of the Jedi looked rather "clean" compared to the rundown and trashy galaxy in the original Star Wars. The Empire Strikes Back had a relatively slick look compared to the original as well, but I thought that was simply Lawrence Kasdan's focus on the Empire's higher technology and Imperial tidiness, because they were the ones with absolute power over the galaxy, they had all the money to buy Death Stars and Star Destroyers, the most highly trained army, etc.

It made sense that the Rebellion would have all of the rundown gear, POS ships and weaponry, always on the run look, etc. The Rebellion didn't have that look in the 3rd movie, but I guess you could always say that the Rebellion had more support in the galaxy by the 3rd movie, but then again the movies never really got into the political backgrounds of what was going on. So who knows?
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akiratubo
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« Reply #9 on: October 09, 2013, 10:15:10 PM »

Another sleazy aspect is how the Saarlac pits looked like vaginas to some moviegoers.

 Buggedout

I sure as hell don't want to know what kind of vagina anyone might have seen that would make them think a sarlaac pit even slightly resembled one.
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zelmo73
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« Reply #10 on: October 10, 2013, 01:05:08 AM »

Another sleazy aspect is how the Saarlac pits looked like vaginas to some moviegoers.

 Buggedout

I sure as hell don't want to know what kind of vagina anyone might have seen that would make them think a sarlaac pit even slightly resembled one.

The Special Edition vagina had tentacles. Just sayin'!
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Olivia Bauer
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« Reply #11 on: November 01, 2013, 06:27:43 PM »

Another sleazy aspect is how the Saarlac pits looked like vaginas to some moviegoers.  Pretty stupid, but that's sleazy minds at work.

Am I the only one here who has seen the Red Letter Media videos on the Star Wars prequels?

Anyone? No? Okay.
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« Reply #12 on: January 16, 2014, 04:29:10 PM »


And, as I was starting to show some interest in girls, here comes Return of the Jedi.  Slave Leia, even more space battles, and a young hero who is struggling to become the man he wants to be.  Looking back now, the Ewoks were more comedic than I'd like, but at the time the Battle of Endor was a lot of fun.  When I can just let go of some of my adulthood now, it is still a lot of fun.



And taking that thought one step further...the Ewoks scenes worked quite well for dates.  I don't recall if my girl friend really all the shooting and fighting and good vs evil stuff, but I do recall that she liked the Ewoks.  So, it was a fun date movie for that appeal.
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« Reply #13 on: January 16, 2014, 07:26:39 PM »

Ewoks are delicious and high in fiber!!!
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zelmo73
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« Reply #14 on: January 19, 2014, 05:22:55 PM »

Ewoks are delicious and high in fiber!!!

They taste great with beer and dip!  Cheers
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