Last movie watched...

[Theblazeuk]

For me TFA is right in the absolute middle.

Saying it's either worse than any of the prequels or better than any of the original films is equally absurd as far as I'm concerned.

I stand by the radiator on this one.

Tartakovsky's Clone Wars is the only good sustenance available to satisfy any Prequel hunger you might have

SO GOOD.

[Hawkmumbler]

Tartakovsky's Clone Wars is entirely justified by that one scene where Mace Windu force punches a droid to death.

[Keef Monkey]

Well, the unthinkable actually happened. After revisiting Revenge of The Sith and really, really enjoying to a surprising degree, we watched A New Hope a couple of nights later. Loved it as always (it's quite a special experience watching something that is that ingrained in your consciousness from all those childhood viewings), but everyone present agreed that they'd enjoyed RoTS more and I agreed.

Not saying it's objectively better or anything, but certainly on those particular viewings I got more of a kick out of it. At any rate, Empire is up next and will obviously blow them both out the water.

[ThryllSeekyr]

Saw a bit of this the other day and was sorry I didn't get to watch all of it.

The Dead-Lands.

I often wonder if there are people who still live like this in New Zealand and not anxious to find out. So, I have no idea when it's set exactly, but I assume it's in the past before white-man landed there.

[Mardroid]

Return of the Jedi.

This used to be my favourite of the original trilogy. I think that might be The Empire Strikes Back now (or they could be equally valued) but this is still great. [spoiler]The stuff at the beginning with Han's rescue is great (although their plan seems a bit overly complicated) and I love the whole redemption stuff with Vader, which a lot of people seem to dislike for some reason.

I also think that speeder bike chase through the forest of Endor is up there with the pod-race sequence in The Phantom Menace. It's so thrilling.

Part of me wishes that this had been set on Kasshyyk (the Wookiee home world, although I probably would have been called somethinn else back then as I believe they got this name from the Expanded Universe) rather than Endor. I understand why they don't, as this is about the (literal) little guy facing up to the bullying imperials, and a bunch of physially powerful wookiees who are generally at home with advanced technology wouldn't have had the same impact. But it would have provided a nice link with Chewbacca.

But, I think the Ewok stuff worked pretty well. I understand that many fans criticise the fact that these primitive people were able to defeat the advanced imperial troops. They feel that it requires too much of a suspecion of disbelief, I guess. I don't really have a problem with it as a whole though. They know the terrain. They use traps involving great big logs and boulder catupults.

There is plenty of precedent for such successful rebellions in the real world, such as Vietnam, the US War of independence and the earlier excursion of Boudicca's army against the Romans. (I am referring to when the Iceni and Cautevelauni ambushed the marching Roman Legion in the forest and relied on hit and run tactics. Not the silliness that happened later in the pitched battle when 40,000 Britions got slaughtered by a minority of Romans.)

The only thing I found rather silly concerning the battle was that bit at the start when a bunch of ewoks kill troopers (actually I think it was biker scouts) with arrows. It's been established that stormtrooper armour isn't much protection against a direct hit from blaster fire, but surely it would cope with arrows? But the majority of the damage seemed to be done with traps and surprise. Yeah, I'll buy that.

I just think most fans can't quite get round the fact little teddy bears were involved.

Interesting thing I noticed concerning the battle: the Emperials mainly utilise the Star Destroyers to act as a blockade to prevent the rebel ships escaping. They purposefully leave the Death Star andTie Fighters and Interceptors to deal out the main damage on the Rebel fleet.

By the end of the battle, the Death Star and Super Stardestroyer are destroyed along with plenty of ties.

I don't know how many other Stardestroyers are destroyed, but you don't much destroyed on screen. The majority of the fleet have still been out there.

So taking that into account, and the other emperial ships in other star systems (even if the majority of the fleet were in the Endor system, there must have been ships left behind, for control and defence purposes, surely?) it makes sense that they would regroup to fight elsewhere. Hence the wrecked craft that we see on Rey's home planet in The Force Awakens, and the First Order. Or whatever they're called.[/spoiler]

[CrazyFoxMachine]

Who, uh, who hasn't seen ROTJ that would also be bothered by spoilers of it at this point?

[TordelBack]

On the subject of Ewoks (soon ALL THREADS will be SW threads), I was interested to note on a recent rewatch that contrary to popular belief the Ewoks' hand weapons prove largely ineffective against stormtroopers - only the bolas has much success, which makes sense.  Their role in the battle is to draw the Imperials away from the bunker to allow Han & Co a chance to get back in, and they suffer heavy casualties in the process of deliberate (?) rout. Only when the pursuing Imperials are scattered and eventually led into a series of prepared traps deeper in the forest do they start to do significant damage. These are vicious stone-age man-eaters, that just look like teddy bears - your eyes can deceive you, don't trust them.

[radiator]

It's ludicrous to me that it's become so fashionable to bash RotJ in recent years.

I got into a (good-natured) argument with a friend the other night after she claimed the The Force Awakens is objectively 'better' than the original films and her argument seemed to basically be that the originals are 'a bit dated' and some of the performances are a bit stilted and corny.

My counterargument (which she couldn't really dispute) was that even RotJ, despite being by far the lesser of the original films, is still bursting with iconic visuals and scenes that have endured for decades whereas TFA is largely a rehash of what came before, and she had to ultimately concede that even her beloved BB-8 is really just R2-D2 in new clothes.

[ThryllSeekyr]

The original three still beat all other film regardless of their upgrades.

The last film only beats the prequels.

[von Boom]

The last film only beats the prequels.

Faint praise indeed.

[JamesC]

I always liked ROTJ best but I don't think the Ewok bashing is a new thing. While kids my age never had a problem with them, it was already common for people to slag them off long before the special editions were released (ROTJ is the film that suffers worst from the special editions too).

I still say ROTJ is the best of the lot. Best intro sequence, best aliens, best space battle, best light-saber duel and the goodies win at the end.On top of that you have Ewoks (which I like), AT-STs and speeder bikes.

[TordelBack]

Best intro sequence

Ah here! A construction project progress review meeting; or the capture and storming of  Rebel blockade runner?  Nolo contendere.

[JamesC]

Best intro sequence

Ah here! A construction project progress review meeting; or the capture and storming of  Rebel blockade runner?  Nolo contendere.

Ha ha, conceded. My bad,  I should've said best first act.
I meant the Jabba's Palace/Sarlaac sequence.
The attack on Hoth comes a close second but for me,  ROTJ just tops it.

[Hawkmumbler]

They're both very different beasts, really, so it's obviously going to be highly devisive. I love the good swashbuckeling esque visuals on Jabba's floating palace, and the Rancir sequence is excellent. But for my money, ESB has the best opening act. The battle of Hoth is hands down one of the greatest prolongued action sequences ever commited to film, and AT-AT walkers are synonymous with what I love Star Wars for. Big, bulky battle machines.

[Goaty]

As watch some films on Netflix last few nights.

The Family - that was interesting and brutal! Some moments left me chuckles. Robert De Niro was good in it and surprised it was directed by Luc Besson, long way since Leon?

The Loft - Interesting film to watch, very Hitchcock style.