JEDI: Following a sad, predictable pattern of 3rd installments...

Rating: 1/10 (16 February 2016)

Before saying anything else- anyone who felt the prequels or recent Force Awakens films were even remotely watchable, please stop reading. You people are just unable to understand why ROTJ was so terrible (just as I am not able to understand astrophysics). In a nutshell, ROTJ has all the usual bad elements in a sequel and none of the good (aside from improved special effects). How anyone can mention this film in the same breath as the first two is beyond me or anyone who has any objectivity about this trilogy. The two biggest problems were the acting and story/script. The acting seems wooden and emotionless, Ford seems like he doesn't want to be there at all, Luke is monotone and boring, Leia looks and sounds worn out. I felt Lando and the Emperor did a good job (they seemed actually part of the movie). The script for everyone was repetitive, unoriginal, no comic relief or wit, and far less intelligent- and if fans can't see this, then as I said, they are simply unable to perceive/observe these details- not everyone can. Story line- poor. Half the film takes place rescuing Han, and while I enjoyed the segment concept, it was hugely overlong, and irrelevant to the main theme. The story and backdrops were also terribly unoriginal and repetitive. We spend half the movie on Tatooine (like the First film) and then half the movie in a very standard earth-like forest like Yavin (first film). The return of the same death star threat also, while not terrible, worsened the banality as did its demise by blowing it up similarly like the first film- yawn. Chronology was also hugely erroneous- In Empires, Lando & Chewie leave to go to Jabba's to rescue Han. Yet, Luke is somehow a virtual Jedi in a matter of days or weeks. I thought it takes years to become a Jedi- and who would have trained Luke since he returns to Yoda to "continue the training" after confronting Vader. This anachronism makes the audience feel like Lucas thinks we are stupid (maybe we are). Now, the biggest flaws of the film are the detail errors (from beginning to end): why did Jabba permit Leia to unfreeze Han when Jabba enjoyed him as a wall decoration? Why did Luke attempt to clumsily attack Jabba with a gun from the holster of a guard? Did he actually think he could single handed defeat all of Jabba's guards? How could Leia strangle Jabba with a chain? He's enormous and she's frail. With all of the forces of the Rebellion, why did they only rely on 4 of them to rescue Han from Jabba- risky, no? Why not send an army or have a larger force waiting outside once Luke and Lando infiltrate? And actually, why didn't Lando unfreeze Han since he was already under cover? Please. Why did they have a door closing panel on the 'inside' of the monster dungeon that Luke threw a rock at? Why would being "digested for 1000 years" be scary when you'd be dead in moments once swallowed? Why were the languages spoken at Jabba's so dumb sounding- "wonga wonga"? Why does C3PO have so much trouble speaking a common Jabba dialect? For an interpreter of 6 million languages, he sounds like he is stumbling for the words all the time he speaks another language. Why are the creatures at Jabba's so juvenile looking? Absolutely stupid and silly compared to the sinister creatures in Star Wars. Speaking of which, the Ewoks really were silly- perhaps if they were not such a huge part of the movie! So, watching little people wearing teddy bear costumes for over an hour speaking in the least convincing dumb-sounding Ewok language was hard to bear, and listening to C3PO storytelling put me to sleep. Seeing Yoda on death's bed in ROTJ yet seeing him spry and jumping around like a teenager in Empires just shows how bad the errors in the timeline are in this film- and he just happens to die exactly when Luke arrives? Then the story line of Luke actually thinking he could 'turn' Vader just by approaching him and asking is completely delusional. What did Luke think was going to happen? Even a jedi would have a bit of trouble escaping alive from the Emperor and Vader on the Death Star. So why risk it as the last living Jedi??? Not plausible. Then let's fast forward to watching a Super Star destroyer (5 miles long) have a single fighter hit it and make it veer into the Death Star? Really? That's like a seagull hitting an aircraft carrier and sinking it. STUPID. Also, if you look at the scale of the Super Star Destroyer and the surface of the Death Star that it impacts on, the Death Star looks like it's a million times the mass of the Super Star Destroyer- not likely. And since when was it so close to the Death Star??? Wasn't it much, much farther away staying out of the conflict? What is most pointless is the fact that Luke could have avoided going to the Death Star and avoided Vader killing the Emperor and just watch as the Death Star gets ultimately blown up, killing but the Emperor. Redundant. Lastly, just because the Emperor is killed off, what about the thousands of Imperial ships and Destroyers, millions of storm troopers, and I'm sure plenty of high powered corrupt Senate officials and other bureaucrats who would obviously take over control? This movie ironically had literally all the movie making resources at its disposal. That may also ironically be exactly why this movie sucked- Lucas had way too much influence in it and not reigned in by smarter producers and co-writers and directors. Lucas may have succumbed to the hype of his own cult status and started to believe his infallibility and just couldn't imagine ROTJ could possibly end up being anything but amazing. He was wrong.