May The Farce Be With You

Rating: 2/10 (5 July 2016)

Star Wars: A New Hope was a refreshing & adventurous movie with a rather simple story about good verses evil. The Empire Strikes Back was more of the same with more aliens until we arrive at Return Of The Jedi.
By this installment, the story takes a backseat to the action & humor. In fact, the whole movie is played for laughs. The problem is the laughs involve the interaction of increasingly ridiculous aliens with increasingly ridiculous military machines. (Didn't they learn their lesson in the first movie to NOT build military transport vehicles with long legs? No, because they're back again, this time with a model sporting silly rabbit legs.) The special effects are shockingly cheesy involving a lot of blue screen, bad stop action animation on par with the Godzilla of the 30's, and Muppets. The story has dissolved into a soap opera with Vader turning out to be Luke's father & Luke actually believing that Darth Vader has some empathy in him, when Vader is supposed to be the epitome of evil, and the discovery of long lost family ties that are never explained. (Let's just say it's a good thing Luke never lay'd Leia in the first 2 flicks.) Just when you think the rebellion is finished (what with only Luke & the Princess remaining), all of the sudden, at the end, they have a huge fleet of fighters again. Where did they get the recruits? Where did they get the financing? Who the hell is in charge?? And always, there are those stupid white-armored troops running around shooting everything who are so inept, they only manage to wing Princess Leia by the 3rd movie. Their amour couldn't stop a spit ball. By the end of the movie, you'll be wishing the new Death Star will hurry up & blow up OR the Empire will finally beat down the rebellion once & for all & make Leia Darth Vader's sex slave or something. And c'mon: a showdown with the supreme bad guy who can kill a person with psychic energy shooting out of his fingers? That's so B-movie clichÃ©d. The dude's psychic energy turned out not to be very strong when he is killed just be being thrown down an elevator shaft by Mr. Vader himself. A real eye-rolling moment.
At least it's better than the 4th, er, that is, 1st episode (whatever) which is sleep inducing.