Despite all that it did to expand the Star Wars mythos, I think that ROTJ is pretty much universally considered to be the weakest of the original trilogy.
Here is an opportunity for positive constructive criticism. What are the aspects of ROTJ that you believe could have been stronger, and how would you have improved this movie?
I'll start with a couple items:
Make the Ewoks less "cutesy." They literally look like living kids' toys, and they act pretty silly, too. Change the visual design of the species to look more like actual bears than toy teddy bears.
ROTJ is two separate stories glued together. So make the rescue of Han Solo tie directly into the plot to destroy the new Death Star.
Any others?
Kor
100% agreed. It did feel like 2 separate stories, of which one felt completely superflous and drawn out:
Story one: Get Han back and set the stage for some disgusting jokes to be made on "Family Guy" nearly 25 years later, fight the big bad Emperor who overlords the whole show, and end the saga with a happy happy joy joy parade because this ain't
Blake's 7.
The Vader/Luke/Emperor story being a proper sequel and was very engaging.
Unfortunately, we also have story two shoved in: This part revolves around the stunt doubles for the Charmin brand toilet paper bears waddling around the forest looking for more trees to rub up and down on, which are called "Ewoks", and think humans are tasty - just how often do people visit Endor to begin with for the Ewoks to have become masterchefs for this sort of cuisine? Maybe the Empire, since there's a landing pad there and everything, drops off choice criminals for the Ewoks to devour, but they should have "Bam, knock it up a notch" by bringing in this chap:
(Part of a disturbing but great movie, from 1973...)
Granted, SW was always about merchandising, but the Ewoks - apparently based on the
Viet Cong - were
THE most obvious form of merchandising ever given the intended audience (of a typical age range that loved to hug teddy bears), which says a lot considering the 1977 movie was nothing more than a glorious, glorified toy ad with all the trappings of a cheap B-movie underneath. And to think some critics preferred the 1977 original before it was renamed "Chapter IV" by the time they saw 1980's "The Empire Strikes Back", which is exactly what the franchise needed at the time - to give some depth to the characters..
Coupled with yet-another-death-star, which took the Empire (rather less than 3 years) to build up enough of a new one to scamper across the galaxy with... and then comes episode 7, for which it I am thankful for because episode 8 is a breath of fresh air from what I've read so far (Porgs, which appear to be Star Wars' half-baked half-answer to the 2005 Doctor Who series' "Adipose" notwithstanding) and I can't wait to see it since the writers apparently are trying something new with the new characters and that's an instant +1 in my book...
Yes, every movie needs a boss or big bad, but eps 4, 6, and 7 all have death star-style things... but 6's manages to be more ludicrous than 7's - for which Han was being "the audience" in addressing what everyone was thinking at the time, "yet another death star trope?". As much flak as ep 7 deserved for doing yet-another-death-star, there is more innovation to the planet killer base as opposed to another big death star ship that 6 lamely trotted out of the writers' barn. More plausible too despite the starkiller base destroying oodles of planets across the entire galaxy in seconds, so ultimately one positive is canceled by one negative but I digress...
...Why
was yet-another-death-star needed when the Emperor's throne room and funky fresh clad-red guards already made for a neat playset for the kids and some compelling drama for the teens and adults? With Star Wars, any number of dogfight scenes in space was enough to awe and there was enough character development to also keep the story going, the entire Ewok subplot was padding. And if Ewoks were real, one could shave them for pillow stuffings so the geese can keep their own down instead.
So remove yet-another-death-star, get rid of the Charmin bears and keep Mr Whipple Emperor and expand on his screen time, capture sister Leia since Vader finally realized Luke had one (bad choice of words, everyone remembers she tongue-wrestled him rather deeply long before anybody - including the saga's writers - came up with the notion they were siblings, whoops), and do other things than showing what Ewoks like to make for breakfast after they worship clunks of circuits inside a metal suit...
It's safe to say VI is not my most favorite of the franchise. Mostly because it's a rehash that feels too lazily written (at the time) and with way too much padding for all the subplots that, if that wasn't bad enough, also happened to be for the least compelling plot strands... and then there's the Ewoks, which didn't inspire many people or their wallets to - in 1983 - choose an Ewok plastic action figure over the latest plastic Vader figure...
current franchise ratings:
5
4
3
6/7 tie (the Emperor and Kylo Ren both make fantastic villains, the Emperor is pure evil, but Ren is
unpredictable)
1 (Darth Maul was far better than a hundred CGI objects whizzing light sabers and a love story that was as wooden
as Endor...)
2
