Star Wars Risk

Nobody would be stupid enough to take a well established, cash-generating space adventure property and go back in time to invalidate all of its previous materials. Simply ludicrous.

You guys all talked me into Planeswalkers Heroscape, so I'm approaching this warily.

S.

It wasn't until I got on the Internet that I ever heard anyone badmouthing ROTJ. Yeah, some folks (mostly macho, "I demand nonstop Jedi decapitation" boys) didn't like the Ewoks and some thought the amount of hardware on screen was a crass sales pitch for toys, but I never in my life heard anyone say ROTJ "sucks" or is the "worst" of anything until...I dunno, the mid 90s? I grew up loving the movie just as much as the other two, and so did my friends. In some ways, it was the one some of my peers liked the best because it was the one that came out when my generation was like 7-8-9 years old instead of 2 or 5. I think it's some kind of weird internet retro dogpile/teardown thing. "That's the shitty one- see, Ewoks! SUXXXXXX!"

I think I probably watch ROTJ more than ANH, to be honest. At least there is no debate about ESB.

^Agreed on ROTJ>ANH for me

I've always liked RotJ. I can live with ewoks, the speeder bike chase was badass, and huge space battle intercut with the fight in the throne room was great. Dude, SUPER STAR DESTROYER CRASHING INTO THE DEATH STAR!

The thing that pisses me off most about criticism of ROTJ is the people who say "But they were supposed to be wookies. That would have been cool and made so much more sense". No, it would have made much less sense. There is no way I would try to hide my secret base on a planet full of 8 foot death machines. The whole point of the Ewok storyline is that everyone underestimates them because they look cute. Plus pretty much every time there has been a war where one side was outgunned but understood and lived in the terrain, the underdogs won (the Scottish highlands were never taken, Vietnam war, numerous invasions of Afghanistan).

Sagrilarus wrote: Nobody would be stupid enough to take a well established, cash-generating space adventure property and go back in time to invalidate all of its previous materials. Simply ludicrous.

You guys all talked me into Planeswalkers Heroscape, so I'm approaching this warily.

S.

Don't put me in that camp...I'm not buying into that fake Louie Heroscape crap.

I got some more details on the difference between Black and Normal and theyre the same game, but the Black version has a slightly better board, the Death Star, a real Falcon vs a token and a Star Destroyer, basically.

FWIW, i liked all the SW movies but Episode 4 was the slowest paced. I liked the prequels too. of all the SW stuff ever put on film, the worst things are Jar Jar and the "revised edition" A New Hope where they added in that club scene with the bar singers. That was fucking lame.

I guess this has become a "judge ROTJ" thread, LOL, so I'll jump in. I'm firmly in the ESB > ANH > ROTJ >> disco version of the Star Wars theme >> Prequels >>> Christmas Special camp. I really liked Return of the Jedi, and really only two things bring me down about it: 1) there is some serious phoning-in from Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher, and 2) I understand and am receptive to the idea behind the ewoks storyline but it is just so poorly executed that it takes me out of the movie. The Empire's "finest legion" is taken out in hand-to-teddy bear combat, which is awesome when the ewoks are crushing AT-STs with their traps (which they have no real reason to know how to make, now that I think about it) but lame when we watch ewoks clumsily and slowly swinging sticks at stormtroopers who have to act like they're being overwhelmed.

Overall though, ROTJ is so damn cool because of the Tatooine sequences, Luke vs. the Sith, and just generally the culmination of Luke's journey. The space battle is incredible too (if a bit unnecessary from a storytelling standpoint). And hell, just confirming that Darth Vader is Luke's father is huge! That sure was a long three year wait after the Empire Strikes Back cliffhanger.

As for Star Wars Risk, I love the IP but I will definitely let all y'all guinea pigs try it first.

SuperflyTNT wrote: FWIW, i liked all the SW movies but Episode 4 was the slowest paced. I liked the prequels too. of all the SW stuff ever put on film, the worst things are Jar Jar and the "revised edition" A New Hope where they added in that club scene with the bar singers. That was fucking lame.

I actually agree with you, Pete, though it's ROTJ with the club singers. Yeesh, that is bad. And AotC is extremely hard to sit through. Far and away the worst SW movie.

Last time I watched the "saga" and not just the OT, I did the "Machete" order (4, 5, 2, 3, 6). Watching 3 and 6 back to back was so effective from a storytelling aspect, I almost felt it was intended to be that way all along. The reveal that Luke and Leia are brother and sister coming up when Padme gives birth to them is so much more effective. And watching Luke pretty much go down the same path you just watched father go down really helps bring out the parallels in their arcs that people typically just ignore because it involves "prequel" shit. The "Machete" order makes both ROTS and ROTJ better movies.

I actually love ROTS, no shame about it.

I thought it was on Tattooine when they were finding Han, my mistake

0:30-0:38 is so horrible, I almost wish I had just an infinite loop of it for times when I'm feeling full of myself and I need snap myself out of it.

The Ewoks sucked. Luke and Leia being brother and sister was fucking stupid. Most of the movie is good though. Leia in the bikini is iconic even decades later. Luke fights the Rancor. Boba Fett uses his fucking jet pack! Then gets slowly digested... The speeder bike chase through the redwoods. ITS A TRAP! The final battle. Luke and Vader defeating the Emperor. Vader's ghost at the end. Lots of good stuff in there. Its still only the 3rd best SW movie though.

I was in high school when it came out and loved Return of the Jedi, but had a friend that was whining about it from day one. "The Ewoks suck" was the summary of his complaint.

I'll admit they were the weakest of the triple montage. Emperor and Luke was magnificent, space battle was damn good. Ewoks were ok. But the whole Prodigal Son ending was really a great cap on the final Star Wars movie. It let Vader off the hook for all his sins, but The Force is quite Protestant after all. A well crafted film and a great story.

S.

I don't have a problem with the ewoks or RotJ either. Though ANH is the only SW film I think is 'great' the OT is fine.

Not being the biggest SW fan, my opinion may not matter much, but is Disney taking the franchise in the direction y'all want to see? I mean, I understand there's going to be a Han Solo Origin film, a Boba Fett Origin film, and that Rogue One film is about how the Death Star plans were stolen. Is this material that really needs to be covered in film? Do we need all these gaps filled in? How about leaving something to our imagination? Seems to me whenever these sort of backstories are filled in, they're hardly as good as we imagine.

Why not just make new characters and stories? After all, the SW brand itself should be enough to sell new films. This is playing it way to safe, IMO. Doesn't excite me at all.

I was 9 when Star Wars came out and it was fucking amazing.

Even as a kid, though, Empire kind of disappointed me and Jedi just didn't do a whole lot for me. Although Empire had a lot in the right place, it bugged me as a kid that it essentially had no beginning and no end, and not a whole lot happens in between. And Jedi just felt like going through the motions and goofiness.

As I grew older I realized how much I didn't care about the supposed story of Darth Vader. I didn't see how him being Luke's father (a) worked or (b) changed anything. It's probably just my own weird family shit, but that just never resonated with me. Once I figured that out I realized how much the family thing just wrecks the entire story for me. The prequels never really stood a chance because they were telling a story I didn't buy from the beginning, and everything since then has just decided that more family=better story.

I've said this before but I've lost interest in anything that isn't the original movie. I recently listened to "The Story of Star Wars", a record that came out in '78 that told the story through edited dialogue and narration and marveled how, even chopped to bits to fit into 45 minutes or so, it's just a great, fun time. It didn't need all the histrionic baggage that followed.

As far as I'm concerned, the best order to watch the movies in is: 1) Star Wars, 2) wasn't that great?