“We’ve almost got some of their telecommunications cracked; the front end even runs on a laptop!” The Mac that sunk a thousand ships could have been merely clunky product placement, not a bafflingly stupid tech-on-film moment.

“Senator Amidala is in a coma. Even if she recovers, she will never be the same and may not live long.” But no… George had to have his god-damned funeral scene, even if it demanded Simone Biles levels of mental gymnastics to save Carrie Fisher’s most emotionally resonant moment from ROTJ, as well as one of the more intriguing OT lore dumps.

Bonus points if a scene was scripted or filmed and got cut.

  • shalafi@lemmy.worldEnglish
    58·
    2 months ago

    It was right there all along:

    Grand Moff Tarkin : Are they away?

    Darth Vader : They’ve just made the jump into hyperspace.

    Grand Moff Tarkin : You’re sure the homing beacon is secure aboard their ship? I’m taking an awful risk, Vader. This had better work.

    • FaceDeer@fedia.io
      463·
      2 months ago

      Evidently most of the fandom needs to have it beaten over their heads a bit more blatantly than that.

      Another thing that would have been helpful is if it was made clearer just how monstrous the Ewoks actually are. There wouldn’t be as much shame to the Imperials for losing against them if people had only internalized a bit better that:

      • Ewoks are strong enough that they can haul Redwood-sized logs up into the canopy to build deadfalls, using only crude vine ropes and muscles, and do it quietly enough that the nearby Imperial garrison didn’t notice.
      • They are stealthy enough that an ordinary hunting party can sneak up on an elite Rebel strike force (including a Jedi).
      • That hunting party was hunting a 3-meter-tall boar-wolf, by the way. Ewoks hunt these routinely.
      • Endor is full of predators like that, and despite that the Ewoks let their children wander the forest on their own. Upon being confronted with an armor-clad alien wielding a blaster weapon and riding a flying machine, one of those lone children thought to himself: “guess I’d better kill him.” Leia helped, of course, but the Ewok couldn’t have known she would.
      • One of their literal gods, personified in the form of a physical avatar before them, ordered the Ewoks not to burn some people alive and devour their flesh. The Ewoks hesitated for half a second and then resumed piling the firewood with a jaunty song. Gods are spiffy and all, but don’t get in between Ewoks and their cannibalism.
      • turmacar@lemmy.world
        15·
        2 months ago

        Is it cannibalism? It feels more like a (talking) bear eating a human.

        I do feel like the Stormtooper point got lost on Lucas too by RotJ honestly. In Empire they do pretty good except when they’re, again, explicitly trying to lure the hero into a trap. RotJ has the most weirdness of the originals and probably the most EU ‘redemptions’/revisions. With stuff like “here’s what was really up with the Ewoks”, Boba not dying, etc.

        • VindictiveJudge@lemmy.worldEnglish
          5·
          2 months ago

          Replace some of the stormtroopers in ROTJ with regular army forces and it might have helped the stormtroopers’ reputation.

    • JakenVeina@lemm.eeEnglish
      4·
      2 months ago

      “Not to mention how many troopers we lost under orders to not shoot to hit.”

    • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
      2·
      2 months ago

      Actually that raises another point. It is really unclear in the first film what exactly Vader’s position of authority is. Because he seems kind of subordinate to Tarkin at points. He even tells Vader to leave that officer alone when he’s strangling him, and he obeys the order.