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

[Marsden]

The whole movie was lame.

 

[Ithekro]

I enjoyed both concepts.

The Second Death Star's superlaser was suppose to be more accurate so that it could target starships, and faster recharging. Thus if there were more than one populated planet in the system, it could blow up more than one a day. Or blow up a fleet of ships, then pop their planet. The Original version couldn't do that as easily as it has less power to call on. The old version had one huge power core, with the new version had three...two dedicated to the superlaser.

The Ewoks were the alternative to not using Wookiees. Lucas even said that in the old making of special in 1983. The Wookiee had become less of a primitive than he had originally planned in the 70s, so he needed something else. So instead of copying the tall hairy creature, he decided to go for short with fur. It also makes the Empire's loss all that much more painful for the Empire. Losing to Wookiees wouldn't seem all that hard considering how large and strong they are, but losing to a smaller weak looking race would tell the story Lucas was going for. The underdog primitives helping overturn the technologically advanced superpower. An analogy to the Viet Con against the United States, or I suppose the Taliban against the Soviet Union. An analogy that fits with a fantasy setting. What was it, The little rabbit on the side of he road that give the hero the power to take down the villain.

 

[Silvercrest]

Until they all died over the next year due to Death Star fallout.

 

[DWF]

The original Death Star only fired once, we have no idea what it's recharge rate is. If I remember correctly the Death Star was going to fire on Endor just before it was destroyed. And I if remember correctly it only took about four ships. Of course it is rather funny that it took some 20 years to build the first one and only roughly three years to build the second, taht is assuming contructon began after the first one was destroyed.

 

[MacLeod]

And the second Death Star could have taken another decade to fully complete nad fit out. But the longer the construction took the gretaer the chance the Rebel Alliance would find out about it and try and prevent it become operational. The Emperor wanted to fight that battle on it's own terms.

The destruction of Alderraan and subsequent destruction of the Death Star would have been a great recruitment tool for the Rebels.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

The original Death Star only fired once, we have no idea what it's recharge rate is. If I remember correctly the Death Star was going to fire on Endor just before it was destroyed. And I if remember correctly it only took about four ships. Of course it is rather funny that it took some 20 years to build the first one and only roughly three years to build the second, taht is assuming contructon began after the first one was destroyed.

A few minor points, here.

I wouldn't think that full-power discharges from the superlaser were required to take out the capital ships over Endor. The DSII could probably destroy capital ships at a faster rate than it could knock off planets and moons.

The bit about targeting Endor was cut from ROTJ, so not canon, AFAIK. But, if it was going to happen, then at worst the DSII would just need to top off after the most recent capital ship kill. Maybe also some critical components might need to cool off.

And, I wouldn't say that we have literally no idea how fast the DS could recharge its main weapon. We know that it was preparing to destroy Yavin 4, so its recharge period was no longer than however long it was since destroying Alderaan.

 

[Unicron]

The original Death Star only fired once, we have no idea what it's recharge rate is. If I remember correctly the Death Star was going to fire on Endor just before it was destroyed. And I if remember correctly it only took about four ships. Of course it is rather funny that it took some 20 years to build the first one and only roughly three years to build the second, taht is assuming contructon began after the first one was destroyed.

There were some scenes scripted but not used in the final cut of the movie, where the Emperor had ordered the Death Star to be turned on Endor if it looked like the rebel forces were gaining the upper hand even though that would also kill all the Imperials stationed there as well. An earlier version of Jerjerrod would have been a higher rank (a grand moff) and would have had an antagonistic relationship with Vader, basically acting as the Emperor's right hand behind Vader's back. The Emperor in this version would have believed that only he could ultimately corrupt Luke to the dark side and that Vader's failure to capture him in ESB made him unreliable.

 

[Hound of UIster]

Jerjerrod is essentially Tarkin without a spine.

In the cut scenes there is one where he refuses to let Vader see the Emperor and gets the life choked out of him.

In another he chokes when Palpatine tells him to destroy Endor with his troops there.

Hopefully Adywan does a restoration of these scenes when he gets to ROTJ.

 

[Tribble puncher]

I voted for the Ewoks.....However, I don't think that they were terrible, (I loved them as a kid) and that's EXACTLY what Lucas and Co. wanted. I think a lot of us "Fans" seem to forget that Star Wars was always meant to be something children could enjoy, The ewoks were quite successful in the 80's....Spinoff cartoons, Toys that actually sold, I'm pretty sure breakfast cereal was in there somewhere, sadly no Flamethrower though....During the early/mid 80's lovable Alien sidekicks were all the rage....JarJar tried to do the same thing, we all know that ended badly, He was a bust with Kids, and I'm sure Ahmed Best (The guy who played JarJar) is in witness protection now because of all the enraged adult fans...

The Second DeathStar made total sense to me, The DeathStar was never meant to be used more than a couple of times, because the mere existence of it was supposed to scare the crap out of any who wouldn't bend to the emperor's will, and basically eliminate any sort of large scale organized rebellion before it could really start. When they built the first DeathStar, the command staff wasn't even aware of the "exhaust port" exploit until they analyzed what the rebels were doing. so really other than that small flaw in the design, it was sound, and had Luke not made his force assisted shot, The second movie would have probably been called "Star Wars: The Empire Mops Up".
Really that exhaust port wasn't a flaw at all, no one thought to Jedi-Proof it. So the second DeathStar's weakness really wasn't a weakness with the design, like another poster said, it was the emperor's arrogance that did it in. I think building a second DeathStar made total sense in the context of the movies....

 

[Tribble puncher]

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.

THIS

 

[The Old Mixer]

The Jabba sequence worked because, as much as I've come to love TESB in the time since, it was something of a downer to leave the series at for three years. The audience had earned a clear victory for our heroes early in the film. Plus, it gave the film a little more scope and variety...otherwise, most of the film took place on and around Endor.

 

[BigJake]

I think a lot of us "Fans" seem to forget that Star Wars was always meant to be something children could enjoy,

My loathing of the Ewoks dates back to seeing them as a kid, so I come by it honestly.

 

[Captain Worf]

The original Death Star only fired once, we have no idea what it's recharge rate is. If I remember correctly the Death Star was going to fire on Endor just before it was destroyed. And I if remember correctly it only took about four ships. Of course it is rather funny that it took some 20 years to build the first one and only roughly three years to build the second, taht is assuming contructon began after the first one was destroyed.

There were some scenes scripted but not used in the final cut of the movie, where the Emperor had ordered the Death Star to be turned on Endor if it looked like the rebel forces were gaining the upper hand even though that would also kill all the Imperials stationed there as well. An earlier version of Jerjerrod would have been a higher rank (a grand moff) and would have had an antagonistic relationship with Vader, basically acting as the Emperor's right hand behind Vader's back. The Emperor in this version would have believed that only he could ultimately corrupt Luke to the dark side and that Vader's failure to capture him in ESB made him unreliable.

Destroying Endor would destroy the shield generator though, and at that point all it would take would be a handful of fighters to knock out the Death Star.

BTW I wish we'd gotten to see more battles between capital ships in the original trilogy. After playing the X-Wing and Tie Fighter computer games and reading the X-Wing novels during the 90's it seems pretty incredible that we don't even see any rebel capital ships in action until Jedi. I understand that it may have weakened the "the underdog wins" message of the series though. A rogue squadron TV series based on Michael Stackpole's novels would have been cool.

 

[Ithekro]

The Emperor's orders were, in case the shield fell, blow up Endor. It was going to be his spite against Luke should his friends actually achieve anything.

It took time to rotate the Death Star around to target Endor. In fact you can see that it was aimed at Endor as the Falcon rushes away to the fleet the moment before the station explodes.

 

[velour]

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 know this might sound like a contradiction, but the Ewoks were so cute that I found them to be annoying as heck. It was as if Lucas inserted a Saturday kiddie show right into the middle of a scifi movie.

I smiled when one of those Ewoks almost decapitated himself with his own sling. The Ewoks were too cute and cuddly for their own good.

 

[Tribble puncher]

The Jabba sequence worked because, as much as I've come to love TESB in the time since, it was something of a downer to leave the series at for three years. The audience had earned a clear victory for our heroes early in the film. Plus, it gave the film a little more scope and variety...otherwise, most of the film took place on and around Endor.

The previous post had suggested Luke going on a "Badass" commando mission, I like the Idea, you could have had something similar to Raiders of the lost ark where Indy took out the whole Nazi convoy, but have it be Jabbas gang transporting Han to Jabbas palace or something, that would have given the early victory, and established that Luke is becoming a Badass Jedi in the first 15-20 Min of the film.

 

[davejames]

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.

THIS

Well considering what a huge cliffhanger it was at the end of ESB for Han to be captured and imprisoned in carbonite, and all the questions and theories that had been building up in fans' minds in the intervening years, I can understand why Lucas felt he needed to make his rescue in ROTJ a pretty big and involved process.

After all that, to have Luke simply storm into the palace and yank out Han in the first 15 minutes would have felt seriously anticlimactic, I think.

Although that said, I do 40 minutes is about as long as that section really needed to be. 50 was definitely too long.

 

[Stevil2001]

Neither! ROTJ was my favorite Star Wars film when I was a kid,* for almost precisely this combo. The Ewoks were fun and awesome (I still love "Yub Yub!"), and the second Death Star made the stakes feel high.

* Now it's the third; for me Star Wars is a pretty straight decline: SW > ESB > ROTJ > TPM > AOTC > ROTS (Hopefully TFA changes this trend.)

 

[B.J.]

I still have my Ewok Village. The kids play with it now.

 

[scotpens]

I know this might sound like a contradiction, but the Ewoks were so cute that I found them to be annoying as heck. It was as if Lucas inserted a Saturday kiddie show right into the middle of a scifi movie.

^^ This. I hated those furry little bastards. They had "toy licensing" written all over them.