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Which was lamer: a second death star or the ewoks?

Which aspect of RoTJ hurts the film more?

  • The second death star, it's inexcusable that they couldn't come up with something more interesting t

    Votes: 10 22.2%
  • The ewoks, the idea that they'd be able to defeat a battle-hardened imperial force is ridiculous.

    Votes: 35 77.8%

  • Total voters
    45

Captain Worf

Lieutenant
Red Shirt
The ewoks are undoubtedly the most criticized aspect of RoTJ, but I think the use of a second death star might be even more shameful. Like recreating Spock's death scene, it is lazy at best, and placing the emperor there makes the grand defeat of the empire seem kind of easy. If they were going to use another super weapon, might the film have been better with something like the suncrusher?
 
Well why build one super weapon when you can build two at twice the price. ;)

And lets face it aside from one small flaw the first Death Star would likely have stopped the Rebellion in it's tracks. Why would worlds revolt against the Empire if they could simply be blown up. The second Death Star would likely have elimianted that design flaw.

Besides the Emperor was over confident in his plan to destroy he allowed the location of the Second Death Star to Leak, he allowed the knowledge he was going to be there to leak (Of course he could have gone elsewherr) to the Rebel Alliance, which Luke highlighted as his weakness. As for use of another super weapon not sure it could have worked thematically (at least as the film was written). Basically the Emperor want to gloat over defeating the Rebel Alliance, he could then use that as Properganda "I lead our forces in crushing the Rebels"
 
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Ewoks. The idea of the Empire doubling-down on a failed strategy is depressingly realistic. The Ewoks OTOH are the proto-Jar Jar, designed to sell toys rather than a story, and their part in the Battle of Endor makes not a lick of sense.
 
Well why build one super weapon when you can build two at twice the price. ;)

And lets face it aside from one small flaw the first Death Star would likely have stopped the Rebellion in it's tracks. Why would worlds revolt against the Empire if they could simply be blown up. The second Death Star would likely have elimianted that design flaw.

Besides the Emperor was over confident in his plan to destroy he allowed the location of the Second Death Star to Leak, he allowed the knowledge he was going to be there to leak (Of course he could have gone elsewherr) to the Rebel Alliance, which Luke highlighted as his weakness. As for use of another super weapon not sure it could have worked thematically (at least as the film was written). Basically the Emperor want to gloat over defeating the Rebel Alliance, he could then use that as Properganda "I lead our forces in crushing the Rebels"


Ninja'd! Was logging in to write that very same quote! ;)

As cute as the Ewoks were, it was not the time for "cute", and their little limbs could not possibly have operated those SpeedBikes, anyway. Fearless or not, wrong mammals wrong place wrong time. I do understand Captain Worf's point above about "lazy", but in this case, MacLeod (and I) are correct, a second Death Star is not surprising for The Empire; their consciousness and scale are of such a magnitude thst they would think "...hulking and brutish and massive..." rather than "...nimble and mobile and stealthy..."

<Cue "scuba mask" breathing>
 
I liked the ewoks, they fit when with the whole notion that the Emperor set himself up for defeat through his own arrogance. He could have built the Death Star II around some uninhabited rock, but he chose the world that looked like California and had a population of teddy bears. He didn't see them as a threat and they helped take down his supposed best stormtroopers using primitive weapons and likely ate their flesh during the celebration.
 
Som peetch alay!

I find the Ewoks to be the lame aspect of the movie.

I get the impression that the Emperor wanted more than just two Death Stars. Not a fleet like the number of star destroyers (of which, I thought there 25,000), but a few Death Stars, so that immediate destruction could be projected anywhere in a relatively short time. Each Death Star could be escorted by a Super Star Destroyer and her support fleet.

Side note: I seem to remember in the manga for Star Wars IV: A New Hope, there was a panel that indicated the Death Star was being escorted by a large fleet of ISD's.
 
Neither, they were both fine.

Lamest thing was in the "improved" version, when it was implied that destroying one death star somehow instantly ended the Empire's rule of the entire galaxy.
 
I say that the biggest problem with RotJ is that it spends way too long recovering Han on Tatooine - almost 50 minutes, IIRC. And instead of doing the logical thing - send in Luke alone on a badass commando mission - we get some incomprehensible gradual infiltration scheme which ultimately does pretty much nothing for the overall story beyond stall for time. I'd rather Jabba's palace not actually be on Tatooine at all, so we could see a new planet rather than revisit ANH's primary one, but either way, Han should have been defrosted and safely recovered a quarter-hour in, tops.
 
I can see the logic behind building a second Death Star. Sure, the costs are enormous, but it helps to have a back-up I guess.

But Ewoks..... Ewoks man. Just say it out loud.... Eeeeewoks. It sounds stupid to begin with..... ;)
 
I say that the biggest problem with RotJ is that it spends way too long recovering Han on Tatooine - almost 50 minutes, IIRC. And instead of doing the logical thing - send in Luke alone on a badass commando mission - we get some incomprehensible gradual infiltration scheme which ultimately does pretty much nothing for the overall story beyond stall for time. I'd rather Jabba's palace not actually be on Tatooine at all, so we could see a new planet rather than revisit ANH's primary one, but either way, Han should have been defrosted and safely recovered a quarter-hour in, tops.

Agreed. ROTJ spends forever on crap that doesn't much matter. The Han rescue, most everything with the Ewoks (especially our heroes hanging out in the Ewok village), the speeder bike chase, etc. There's maybe an hour's worth of actual story in the entire thing. In retrospect, all the flaws that would later come to dominate and define the prequel trilogy first showed up in Jedi – which, although it's not a bad movie per se, does ruin by association what appreciation I had for it.
 
Ewoks. Any galactic power capable of building one Death Star ought to be able to build two or more, and militaries always prepare for the last battle, so the Empire actually building a second Death Star with improvements over the first (tighter defenses and a faster rate of fire) makes sense.

Ewoks are ferocious aboriginal teddy bears. There's nothing about that that makes sense.
 
The Second Death Star had a different enough look and feel from the original that I've never had a problem with it's use at all.

And the Ewoks I don't really mind either. For me the bigger problem with ROTJ has always been the overly simplistic story (which lacked even a hint of the depth and complexity of ESB), and the poor way Han and Leia were both written compared to the first two movies.
 
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