#text: return of the jedi

[isabelpsaroslunnen]

My best friend and I are both Star Wars fans, and we have an ongoing amicable debate about the merits of A New Hope vs Return of the Jedi.

We tend to agree that ANH is the smoother of the two films in terms of executing its vision and general craft. It doesn't have the unevenness of, say, the somewhat bloated Jabba's Palace sequence or the weird pacing and structure of some aspects of the Battle of Endor sequence. ROTJ, on the other hand, is (in our view) the more ambitious film, and when it does manage to fulfill those ambitions, it's better than almost anything in ANH. The characters are more nuanced, their dynamics are more intense and complex, the great scenes are just, by and large, richer and more evocative. When ROTJ is bad, it's worse than ANH, and when it's good, it's better.

The debate for us is not about whether those things are true, but whether the consistent quality of ANH or the more ambitious and (sometimes) powerful quality of ROTJ is "better." At the end of the day, the distinction is not incredibly important and both of us love both films. But it is interesting, to us, to think about the merits of execution vs ambition in storytelling and craft.

I was thinking about this, of course, because I read The Thief and then The Queen of Attolia in rapid succession, and I feel like there is something of that ANH-ROTJ dynamic between them. The Thief is the smoother, more precisely crafted book, IMO, but The Queen of Attolia is doing so much more.

There's so much development of the characters (especially my favorite, Attolia/Irene), so much more intrigue and just substance, so many wild twists and turns along the way, and the last quarter was both gripping and just swept me off my feet. I loved The Thief, but there's nothing in it that I felt as strongly about as I feel about ... I don't know, 2/3 of QoA.

But I also have some gripes with QoA that I don't really with TT—I think the use of secrets, whodunnit-style semi-unreliability, and unexpected revelations, was structured better or at least more smoothly in TT. There were points in QoA where the "aha! actually, the whole time..." revelations started to feel repetitive to me, and certainly points where I would have preferred to see more onstage development, or at least more hints coming earlier, and less shocking twists.

That said, the escalation of intrigue, the deeper characterization, Eugenides's recovery, the glimpses of young(er) Irene along with her development and fantastic maneuvering, and basically everything Helen chooses to be, made it not only worth the price of admission, but feel like the richer and more substantial work of the two. It's not as "clean" as TT, much as ROTJ is not as clean as ANH, but it does realize many of its ambitions in a more powerful way.

#isabel talks #text: the queen of attolia #text: the queen's thief #text: star wars #text: a new hope #text: return of the jedi #isabel recommends #ch: attolia irene #ch: eugenides #ch: eddis helen #artist: megan whalen turner #i was thinking about how very very little in all of sw gives me the intensity of feeling of anakin's pyre in rotj #and i don't think anything in anh does even though i love anh #and qoa was like that! the plotting was not as perfect as tt but. damn. #long post #sff recs #sff chatter

[aromanticduck]

#star wars #star wars memes #star wars text posts #luke skywalker #darth vader #emperor palpatine #return of the jedi #i could fix him meme #organic home grown content #the force is strong with this post #100 tier #1000 tier

[ventresses]

Star Wars: Original Trilogy (2/?)

Star Wars + Text Posts & Headlines

#star wars #a new hope #empire strikes back #return of the jedi #sw original trilogy #original trilogy #star wars original trilogy #luke skywalker #leia organa #obi wan kenobi #darth vader #hanleia #c3po #princess leia #leia x han #star wars text post #ot text post #mine #idk what Golden Corral is and at this point I’m afraid to ask #to clarify I’m not anti-Hanleia and I like Han #but he IS pushy and harassing her in the first half of this movie and it’s way over the line #so I feel license to mock him on behalf of me and every other person who #had had to deal with these kinds of unwanted advancements and pushy behavior from guys #in no small part because of male role models in pop culture doing this kinda shit

[godthinksabel]

The three musketeers (+ Lando!) as text posts part 5

#this one gave me SO MUCH TROUBLE??? #luke skywalker #lando calrissian #leia organa #han solo #star wars #star wars a new hope #star wars anh #sw anh #star wars empire strikes back #star wars esb #sw esb #star wars return of the jedi #star wars rotj #sw rotj #text posts

[dyingroses]

Star Wars + text posts

#star wars #starwarsedit #swedit #satine kryze #alderaan #the clone wars #tcwedit #return of the jedi #leia organa #leia #princess leia #princess leia organa #obi wan kenobi #ahsoka tano #anakin skywalker #post #+ text posts #qui gon jinn #kenobi 2022 #a new hope #the phantom menace #Michelle

[dotcolorful]

Star Wars OT Text Posts - Part 2

See Part 1 Here

#text post meme #text post #luke skywalker #star wars #darth vader #luke and vader #mark hamill #return of the jedi #empire strikes back #a new hope #star wars text post #star wars incorrect quotes #leia organa #han solo #sheev palpatine #palpatine #star wars memes

[tennessoui]

au where obi-wan gets prophetic dreams of anakin’s fall but they’re the kenobi show montage dreams where nothing useful can be gleaned about how to stop it; so obi-wan decides he just needs to leave the order. anakin is only 12, he can be trained by another master. obi-wan didn’t even have a master when he was 12. anakin will be fine. stars, he’ll probably be better.

of course he’s not and of course obi-wan abandoning him pushes him closer to palpatine and he falls much sooner, becoming a baby sith that palpatine mostly farms out to dooku for training because anakin at 16, 17, 18 is a lot

and when he falls, the jedi order is like hm. we’re gonna tell kenobi about this. cause now skywalker is a sith with a sith master, and a grudge the size of coruscant against the guy who left him, so. let’s just give him a heads up to maybe consider going into hiding

but of COURSE when obi-wan hears his precious padawan STILL FELL he goes right to count dooku and asks to be his apprentice, he’d make such a good apprentice, dooku always liked him when he was qui-gon’s padawan, remember? now he could be his apprentice

dooku knows that with skywalker, 19 and well-trained now in the picture, his usefulness to sidious is running out, so he doesn’t have a lot of reasons to say no to kenobi. and kenobi is right. he did always like him when he was qui-gon’s apprentice, so sure he’ll give him a sith name (solence) and a red lightsaber (sick)

but basically this leads to very awkward sith family dinners where darth vader--is trying to kill darth solence with his eyes and sometimes the nearest oyster fork, darth solence is throwing sad kicked puppy expressions across the table at darth vader and sighing into his dessert pudding all the while debating with darth tyranus about how good the dark side could really be, i mean, if one were to really think about it, especially in comparison to the life we all led at the Temple, remember anakin? you loved life at the Temple.

darth sidious stopped accepting the invites five dinners ago.

#kit's silly lil aus #obikin #because obi-wan is of course only there to get anakin to return to the jedi or leave the sith #ok he hasn't really figured out his plan but it's been so hard abandoning the boy #that the moment he heard maybe he needed him he had to go #also this would be an au where. #anakin thinks this is hate sex and obi-wan is like this could not be further from hate sex let me stroke your cheek tenderly until u get it #could only be called something needlessly dramatic on ao3 like #a litany of apologies spelled out in red ink #or song lyric title that's just i'll follow you into the dark #etc etc #also before you ask no i don't save things to my drafts #think about them and then decide to delete instead of post #as soon as i open a text box im posting babyyyy

[i-dont-know-anything-anymore]

Sw- Original + Text Posts

#star wars #star wars text post #leia organa #luke skywalker #han solo #c3p0 #r2d2 #death star #text posts #mine #star wars episode v: the empire strikes back #star wars episode iv: a new hope #star wars episode vi: return of the jedi

[chopper-and-ap5]

#star wars #star wars rebels #clone wars #darth maul #maul #kanan Jarrus #the phantom menace #attack of the clones #revenge of the sith #a new hope #empire strikes back #return of the jedi #text post

[dindjiarin]

The way Han says, "Leia!" after she frees him from the Carbonite is one of the reasons I spend my nights sobbing into my pillow.

#otp #han solo #leia organa #princess leia #hanleia #han x leia #han and leia #hanxleia #star wars #sw #rotj #return of the jedi #episode six #episode 6 #star wars text post #successful text posts lol #shut up me

[lowcountry-gothic]

They should really do a new special edition of Return of the Jedi, still with Hayden as Force ghost Anakin, but have him re-film his scenes today since he's now about the age that he would have been when his character died.

#text #star wars #return of the jedi #hayden christensen #anakin skywalker

[isabelpsaroslunnen]

ladytharen said:

I feel as if ANH is a cleaner cut but it has to do a lot of worldbuilding along the way, but marcia lucas also cut together a coherent film. ROTJ is the movie with emotional heights and payoffs, but leia in jabba's palace is a low-low and parts of the ewok sequences drag on for me, so it definitely could have used marcia's touch. (secondary to all of this: my heart is always in ESB!)

I agree! ANH does do a lot of the lifting for the trilogy (and series) as a whole by setting up the world, establishing characters and stakes, etc, without plodding or cutting off the moments it should linger on. And that's heavily influenced by the fantastic editing. ROTJ isn't as well edited, which is partly what I mean by the smoother quality of ANH.

ROTJ, great as many of its moments are, stumbles on its way up; ANH doesn't climb as high IMO but doesn't generally trip over its own feet, either (total agreement on slave Leia, as you know!). That's basically what the discussion with my friend is about.

And I'm with you on ESB—favorite movie of all time etc :D

#ladytharen #isabel responds #isabel talks #text: star wars #text: a new hope #text: return of the jedi #text: the empire strikes back #artist: marcia lucas #artist: george lucas #et al.

[whorevader]

I had a dream that Luke died from electricity overloading his nervous system (something to do with his bionic arm?? maybe??) before Anakin could kill Sidious in The Return of the Jedi and that Anakin then chose to escape with his body so Leia could give him a proper funeral and so he delivered his body and then went to hide out the same way Obi-Wan did except on an ice planet but Leia went after him and talked him into creating a new community of Jedi with her as his first pupil but only on the condition he gave that she would be the one to decide what the doctrine would look like and I woke up mid-catharsis but okay sure wow

#star wars #anakin skywalker #leia organa #leia skywalker #the return of the jedi #whorevader text #mine

[ventresses]

Star Wars: Original Trilogy (1/?) - Luke and Yoda

Star Wars + Text Posts & Headlines

#ok that last one is just silly but I’ve been looking for an excuse to use it #luke skywalker #yoda #sw yoda #sw luke #the empire strikes back #return of the jedi #empire strikes back #dagobah #original trilogy #sw original trilogy #star wars memes #mine #sw esb #sw ot #star wars text post #OT text post

[aviandistressmachine]

Signed, a disgruntled aroace young adult who's tired of seeing a character she relates to and identifies with being chained up and slobbered over in order to "make things more progressive UwU"; ESPECIALLY when you consider the context that he was born from a line of enslaved/impoverished civilians that were being exploited, extorted, and worked to death on a planet run by elitist criminals.

(and even if Luke isn't canonically aroace-coded I think it's very profound that his arc is centered around him saving the Galaxy through his platonic/familial bones instead of traditionally having a romance/"getting the girl" like other old time male heroes. It shouldn't be ignored.)

#Text Posts #My Post #Ranting #Fandom Culture #The gross side of it at least #Star Wars #The Classic Trilogy #Luke Skywalker #Episode VI: Return of the Jedi #Aromantic #Asexual #Allos stop being weird about Luke/reducing his character to 'Badass/Cute Fashion Icon' challenge #I'm so tirrrrred #I saw one more art piece of him in the bikini and I just snapped this evening #I will not name the culprit but. Gooddduh #This fandom projectile diarrheas all over him at any given chance and leaves the others to pick up the pieces

[dyingroses]

General Princess Leia Organa Solo + text posts and stuff

#princess leia organa #princess leia #leia #leia organa #han x leia #han solo #rey skywalker #carrie fisher #general organa #leia organa solo #the force awakens #the empire strikes back #a new hope #return of the jedi #star wars #starwarsedit #swedit #leiaorganaedit #princessleiaedit #+ text posts #post #dyingrosesedit #dyingroses #mine