Return of the Jedi - Blunders and Insults to Intelligence

[Scepcop]

Return of the Jedi - Blunders and Insults to Intelligence

Many Star Wars fans feel that the third film in the original trilogy, Return of the Jedi, ruined the Star Wars saga. I feel the same and find it a total disgrace and disappointment, for many reasons which I will outline below.

The film contains so many blunders and attempts to dumb you down, that the intelligent viewer feels like his intelligence is being insulted by the film. What were they thinking when they made it? Or rather, what was Lucas thinking? I can't ever fathom why some consider it their favorite Star Wars film.

Upon casually watching it again recently, I noticed many obvious blunders that do not make the slightest sense. Examples:

- Lucas doesn't know the difference between sand and ice, and apparently thinks we don't either. When Boba Fett fell near the monster pit at the beginning of the film, after being knocked over by a blind Han Solo by accident, he hit a sandy slope and then rolled uncontrollably into the monster pit, as though he were sliding on ice.

I wish I could take Lucas to the Colorado Sand Dunes and show him that sand is a very different surface than ice. When you hit a sand slope, you do not roll down, but immediately stop. In order to continue rolling, you have to make a deliberate effort to roll down it. Anyone who plays on sand dunes knows that. But Lucas assumes we are as dumb as he is.

- Apparently, Lucas thinks it's funny to kill off a highly skilled and efficient bounty hunter like Boba Fett by a silly accident, such as a blind Han Solo knocking his jet pack by accident during a silly cliched battle. Now that might be funny for a Road Runner cartoon, but for Star Wars? I think it'd be far more funny to have a Stormtrooper polishing his blaster with wax and then accidentally setting it off and killing Solo. Or better yet, have it accidentally go off and kill Lucas. Now that would be something the audience would find funny.

- And what was it with that scene where Princess Leia choked Jabba the Hutt to death with a chain? That villain was HUGE! Choking him to death with his own chain would be like trying to drag a truck or tractor with a rope. Are we to believe that Princess Leia was that strong? How dumb do you think we are George Lucas? A kitten playing with a ball of yarn has as much of a chance of choking YOU to death with the yarn, Lucas! If it were that easy to kill Jabba, someone would have done it years ago, before the Prequels even.

- Lucas obviously knows nothing about wars or military history. In Return of the Jedi, the Rebel Alliance did absolutely NOTHING special at all to win the war. In fact, technically they didn't win the war. It just looked like they did cause Lucas' script said so. In the climactic battle scene, the Rebel fleet was clearly outgunned, outnumbered, and outpositioned. They did NOTHING to overturn that. NOTHING at all! Think about it. Just cause they meet some furry creatures on Endor with sticks and stones does not in the slightest way change the outcome of the situation. Maybe in Lucas' imagination it does, but not by any basic logic.

In a battle, when one side has superior firepower and numbers, they can win in a head on battle without any special strategy. But if one is outgunned, outnumbered and outpositioned, like the Rebels were, they have to do something special and extraordinary to win. That's what Alexander the Great and Napoleon did repeatedly. When they were outnumbered and outpositioned, they found a way to win, through brilliant strategies and a well trained army that they inspired confidence into. That's how Alexander the Great beat armies of ten thousand with his own army of two thousand.

But the Rebel Alliance did none of that. They had no extraordinary strategies or charismatic inspiring leaders. Instead, they had funny leaders like Admiral Ackbar, and Luke, Han and Leia, who in this film couldn't even act. None of these characters were capable of pulling off any brilliant strategies or decisive victories. They were just dumb and lucky, like the Road Runner was. Not impressive at all.

- After the Death Star was destroyed again, there was still a whole Imperial fleet that could have easily finished off the rest of the Rebel fleet. So either way, the Rebels lost. The Empire technically and logically won that final battle, and Lucas gives no explanation to the contrary.

But no! Lucas wrote that they just ran away! He would have us believe that the Imperial fleet just ran off, which is a cheap cliche. It's one of those overused sci fi plots where an unstoppable army is simply turned off, deactivated or freed simply by killing the central bad guy or destroying the central computer. That's not how wars are won, that's how cheap cartoons are made.

In real wars, killing off an emperor or dictator may cause an Empire to slowly deteriorate, if its foundation is unsteady, as was in the case of Alexander the Great's Empire. But it doesn't cause an Empire to simply cease and the other side to automatically win. An Empire will usually move to quickly replace its dead leader. Also consider the fact that after Genghis Khan's death, his empire continued for hundreds of years more.

If we are to believe Lucas' version of events, then we should also believe that after the Japanese fleet bombed Pearl Harbor and destroyed most of the US fleet, that the remaining US carriers ran away and vanished forever, and that the US war industry never rebuilt their fleet, and the war ended with the Japanese jumping up and down like the Ewoks did, and that the US never retaliated for Pearl Harbor. Yeah right.

If we are to believe Lucas' version of events, we should also believe that when President Roosevelt passed away before the Japanese surrendered, that suddenly all US naval campaigns in the Pacific Fleet ceased and vanished, and the Japanese jumped up and down in victory as the Ewoks did on Endor. Yeah right.

Why didn't Lucas study basic events of WWII first?

Furthermore, why didn't the Empire disappear forever after the destruction of the first Death Star in the first Star Wars movie? Just cause the Emperor was killed? What a cheap shot. Technically the Empire should return for vengeance, so the war should not be over yet.

In any case, technically the Imperial Galactic Fleet is still there. Lucas never solved that problem. There is no logical or valid reason for the Imperial fleet to suddenly run off or disappear. There is also no reason to believe that the Rebels won that final battle. No evidence is given for it.

Now I have no problem with the Rebel Alliance winning, since they are the "good guys" but why not have them win in a more plausible, brilliant and impressive manner, rather than a dumbed down way that makes no sense?

Have them find a way for instance, to divide the Empire against itself and destroy it from within through corruption. Or slowly destroy its resources. Or gather up the largest army in the galaxy from an alliance of many planets and mount a D-Day like invasion.

Lucas may be a talented artist, but he's obviously horrible at strategy and logic, and I would bet that he couldn't even beat the computer a Chess on level one.

- Also, there was no way Solo and his team could have gotten into the Shield Generator control room like that. When Han tricked Imperial squads inside the Shield Generator to come out, and then surrounded them with Ewoks, that was a total suicide mission. In that position, the Imperial squads had laser guns vs. the Ewoks' sticks and stones, so technically, they could have just gunned them all down right there, including Solo. There's no reason that Solo was able to capture the Shield Generator.

Plus, it would have been more sensible for the Imperial troops to stay and guard the Shield Generator during the crucial and decisive space battle above, rather than going way out into the forest pursuing some Ewoks. No commander would have ordered that, for there is nothing to gain by chasing fleeing enemies when everything hangs on protecting the generator.

- Speaking of the Shield Generator, they are usually inside the ship, not projected from some planet. There is no logical reason to have an external one, which would pose as a weakness that the other side can easily exploit. So it should have been inside the Death Star.

Also, there is no reason why the Rebel fleet couldn't have just launched missiles to destroy the Shield Generator on Endor, rather than sending in a risky low probability ground force strike against it without even a plausible strategy.

Furthermore, there is no logical or strategic reason for Vader or the Emperor to willingly let the Rebel team land on Endor, just cause they assumed that their legion of troops were impenetrable. That is the kind of strategy used by James Bond villians and cartoons, not serious strategists.

- Why would the Emperor build a bottomless pit in the throne room of his Death Star, so that he could be thrown into it? Did Julius Caesar or Napoleon build a bottomless pit in their throne rooms, so that they could be thrown into it by their enemies for dramatic movie effect? So dumb and senseless, like Lucas. Doesn't Lucas realize that not everyone is as dumb as he is?

- After Luke defeated Vader, he faced the Emperor and threw away his light saber, for dramatic effect. But a sensible person would have kept it, just in case the Emperor decided to attack him. As shown in the Prequels, light sabers can be used to deflect the Emperor's lightning bolts. The wise Luke made himself vulnerable for no logical reason, other than for his father to watch him get electrocuted and change his conscience so he could throw the Emperor into the bottomless pit.

In summary, the film was a big disappointment, let down and total disgrace to the Star Wars saga. It leaves you hanging and wondering WTF? I wish Lucas or someone brighter would just remake it with a more sensible plot, outcome and way to end the Empire's reign.

Have them find a way for instance, to divide the Empire against itself and destroy it from within through corruption. Or slowly destroy its resources. Or gather up the largest army in the galaxy from an alliance of many planets and mount a D-Day like invasion.

[Nostradamus]

[ProfWag]

Well, I certainly applaud your enthusiasm. Curious though--Jedi came out like 25 years ago, why the critique now?

[ciscop]

hahahaha
i find it hilarious that YOU call George Lucas Dumb
hahhahaha

[Eteponge]

I thought it was the prequels that most Star Wars fans didn't like, not the third move, most seem to hold the original trilogy as flawless.

[Scepcop]

[Scepcop]

[Scepcop]

Any of you ever notice in those original Star Trek episodes where you can find similar blunders? For example, in the episode "The Enemy Within", they can't beam up the landing party, who is freezing to death on the planet, cause of a transporter malfunction. So they fess over it during the whole episode. But never once did they realize that they could just use the shuttle craft to pick them up.

Blunders like that are common.

And villains usually take unnecessary risks so they can be thwarted, with no logical reason for the risk.

[Nostradamus]

The scientific blunders in these shows are staggering as well.

1. Non-Newtonian movements of people in hand to hand fights
2. Small kickback on hand guns
3. Exploding car wrecks
4. Bullets ignited gas tanks when shot
5. marginal injuries from being thrown through windows
6. lack of shrapnel from outer space explosion
7. visible laser beams
8. silent bullets (silencers do not make the flight of the bullet silent)

[ciscop]

the more i read about it
the more it seems like one of those discussions nerd virgins have while role playing dungeons and dragons

fact 1. star wars is an awesome trilogy (the 1st one)
fact 2. george lucas is smarter than you

[ProfWag]

[NinjaPuppy]

[Nostradamus]

What about the slow moving light shot from the guns in the films? They move slower than bullets. In the Revolutionary War cannons could send a bouncing charge through troops. Back then you could see the approaching ball, i.e. the 'bullet' that kills you. In Star Wars you could see the light coming at you before you get hit.

Don't forget the wildly swaying rocks in the asteroid fields. That action would have damped down long ago.

[NinjaPuppy]