Probably the best at balancing emotion,actual dueling, and fighting for an ideology. The transition of Luke's fighting style is a perfect example. It swaps from cool and calculated to the brute force of using the dark side when taunted by Vader. Great use of that aspect imo.
It's pretty stellar.

I actually agree. But RotJ is the best of the prequels.

I actually agree. But RotJ is the best of the prequels.

If it wasn't for the Ewoks I'd probably agree. They really make the movie drop for me.

Ewoks are fine because kids' film.

Not really
Adult story presented in a manner friendly towards kids

Even then you had shit like sex slaves and mercenaries

I don't really see how. Empire's was better in every way imo. In ROTJ, they cut to another scene as soon as they both take out their lightsabers and most of what it does show is Luke either hiding or trying to avoid fighting until he gets mad and overpowers Vader in like 4 seconds.

>People honestly think Empire wasn't the strongest

It was the weakest by far.

TFA was literally just two idiots whacking each other's sabers together awkwardly.

I guess you're right--TFA is a carbon copy of ANH.

You say you debate this constantly, but I don't think I ever got an answer on how Empire was in any way bad from you.

http://sep7agon.net/the-flood/just-got-back-from-seeing-rogue-one/msg1365105/#msg1365105

It's not as complete or as eloquent as I'd like it to be, but that's all I was willing to type. Kupo was asking me to write up an in-depth analysis of all the movies, basically, and I thought that was a stupid waste of time, so I gave my thoughts in brief.

ROTJ taught me that The Emperor's best troops can be defeated by throwing rocks and sticks at them

Darth Maul battle > the rest.

Such an underutilized character

Quote from: Dietrich Six on December 19, 2016, 03:46:41 PM

Quote from: Aether on December 19, 2016, 03:32:05 PM

Darth Maul battle > the rest.

Such an underutilized character

Have you watched the Clone Wars?

Nuh uh. He turns into a spider doesn't he?

Quote from: Dietrich Six on December 19, 2016, 03:52:07 PM

Quote from: Jono on December 19, 2016, 03:47:48 PM

Quote from: Dietrich Six on December 19, 2016, 03:46:41 PM

Quote from: Aether on December 19, 2016, 03:32:05 PM

Darth Maul battle > the rest.

Such an underutilized character

Have you watched the Clone Wars?

Nuh uh. He turns into a spider doesn't he?

Just the bottom half of his body, then he gets super battle droid legs after that.

That's p badass. He was way too cool to kill off in one film

The space battle of Endor was really cool

What if they give Darth Maul reconstructive facial surgery and he changes his name to Lando Calrissian

I can agree with you on one thing and half on another. Hoth was boring to look at, but the other two planets were completely different. Dagobah was incredibly interesting and so was Bespin/Cloud City. The scenery on both these planets were very well imaginative. The battle of Hoth also was by far not an unimportant event, it was almost a last stand of sorts for the rebellion, afterwards they didn't have a home base, they were drifting in space as a small rag tag fleet. The battle was to show the rebellion on its knees and to get all the major characters into the second part of the movie.

Darth Vader's reveal is what I half-agree on, at the time, most stories didn't really pull the rug out from underneath you like that so it was a pretty sudden "WTF" moment. Of course it loses its shock value when someone watches the film knowing about it already so it loses the emphasis and importance along with it kind of. As for it being an awkward part of the story? I wouldn't say so. The original trilogy works best when the prequels aren't involved and not thinking too much on the back story behind Luke's family tree. Vader being Luke's father gives Uncle Owen's comment in ANH some much needed clarity, same for Ben's comments as well. The only thing that makes it confusing is in RoTJ with Vader not knowing about Leia either, but Luke and Vader's interactions in the climax overshadows this.

Empire also had the best pacing of the original three. ANH dragged on and there was never a real sense of urgency save for one or two moments aboard the Death Star and the trench run. RoTJ goes way too fucking fast with finishing off Jabba, ending Luke's training with Yoda, getting to Endor, and starting the final battles. Empire went at the pace it needed to tell its story. You complained that the battle of Hoth took too long, but several characters had their own events happening outside the major fighting. The balance in the second act between Luke's training and the Falcon escaping the Empire was pretty well done and gave enough time for much needed character development for Luke in his dream sequence against Vader. The third act has just enough slow and fast moments between Luke;s duel with Vader and the rest of the heroes trying to rescue Solo. Everything went at a steady pace which allowed for more fleshed out development.

>People honestly think RoTJ was weaker than ANH

My biggest complaint about RotJ is that it has too much downtime. It doesn't have to be constant action, but I'm not the first to say that George Lucas has issues writing dialogue. It's not noticeable when it's succinct, but when you let him have five minutes of uninterrupted talking between two characters it just comes off as... awkward. ANH doesn't have that problem. Luke was a bit whiney, yeah, but he's a 19 year old who has hey-fever and struggles with suddenly thrown into life-or-death conflict. His dialogue reflected that. In RotJ, he has this weird mix between contemporary speech and shakespeare. I don't complain about it for the prequels, because it's trying to convey that "civilized age" idea from ANH, but it doesn't work for Luke in RotJ.

I've got more than that, but ANH is a stronger film than RotJ.

>People honestly think Empire wasn't the strongest

It's one of the most fun to watch, yeah, but the strongest? Nah. The movie has no foundation and no roof; it is completely reliant on the fact that it's a second movie in a guaranteed trilogy. ANH was intended to be a standalone and RotJ provides a story that manages to tie up ESB's lack of ending and provide a story that's self contained. It's fun, but critically it's one of the worst as a film.

I agree with the lightsaber duel though, the was the best duel in the entire series. Beats the whole new age twirling bullshit in the prequels and TFA was literally just two idiots whacking each other's sabers together awkwardly.

While I wasn't a fan of the type of combat in the prequels (except for the Maul fight), TFA did its fight the right way. Rey is a newbie who has no training, Kylo Ren was wounded, blinded with rage, and also nowhere near the power of Anakin in his duel against Obi-wan (to make a comparison). Its functionally the same as RotJ in how it works well because of its nuance: Luke played keep away until he slipped into the dark side for a moment, which ended the fight seconds later in a flurried rage which delimbed his father and nearly ended up killing him.

Honestly, I think the RotS fight is overrated. It's drawn out, bogged down by gimmicks  (fighting on small robot lava carriers while the base is falling apart), and the music (while memorable) was just outright distracting. It's a powerful moment that the entire movie led up to; let it stand on its own, don't feed in a bunch of artificial tension.