StarDestroyer.Net BBS

While I like ROTJ this is easily one of the weakest segments of the movie; it's overly complicated and it eats up a large section of the film. At the same time Han DOES need to get rescued and there are some cool action sequences.

This is my personal fix

Luke, Leia, Chewbacca and the Droids go to the palace and offer to pay off Han’s debt plus a massive amount of interest. Jabba……initially agrees and seems to go along with it only to double cross them. Turns out the Empire contacted him first and offered him an even GREATER amount to have Luke killed. Jabba, however, is a pervert and a sadist and so throws Luke, Lando (having figured out that Lando is an inside man) Chewbacca and Han into the arena to die while keeping Leia as a slave (and the droids as servants).

We get the arena sequence: Luke, Lando Han, Chewie and a lot of other poor bastards that have pissed Jabba off are given mock weapons to go up against the Rancor (which is MUCH bigger here than in canon). Luke gives Jabba a final chance to surrender but he refuses. The Rancor is unleashed but Luke uses his force abilities to instead tame the beast and render it docile, which INFURIATES Jabba to the point he orders Boba Fett and most of his goons into the arena to take care of business. At this point R2 shoots Luke his lightsaber and Luke fully cuts loose, killing Boba Fett in the process.
Leia seizes her opportunity and starts strangling Jabba to death, while Bib Fortuna (who hates Jabba due to his belittling behavior) calmly stands by and lets it happen. At this point the fighting stops as Bib takes control, and Bib (having realized that he's outmatched and wanting to enjoy his new position) lets Luke his friends and the surviving prisoners go.

Off the top of my head, something where in the quest to get the plans to the new Death Star, the spy team that got said plans also happened to work with/for Jabba.

Spy team arranges the handover in some dodgy area, using authentic data to lure the main characters. Turns out that it's Jabba's stronghold, and he has Han's frozen body as a showpiece and hostage. If the Rebels start trouble, Han dies. A fight ensues, Rebels win, Jabba dies.

Like a James Bond opener, it's quick and light on exposition.

Have Jabba's throne more forward when Luke arrives (covering the trap door)
Have a firefight break out between Luke (using a guard staff), and Jabba's goons. Luke incapacitates but doesn't kill any of them.
(And it also looks like Luke doesn't have a lightsaber)
The throne moves back, and finally Boba Fett knocks Luke backwards onto the trapdoor.

Luke down in the Rancor pit, still with the guardstaff. He fights the rancor a bit, until the staff breaks. Then he makes the run for it and crushes it with the door.

When Luke is escorted out, there are Imperial Stormtroopers there. In the throne room, a hologram of the Emperor appears, cackling at Luke over the trap. Possibly he mocks Leia as well.

Sarlac Pit occurs as is. Except Luke catches the lightsaber while flipping. Most of Jabba's thugs are on the skiffs. Luke lands, saber out, deflects their blaster bolts. Boba still gets tossed by accident via Han.

Inside the Sail Barge, Leia grabs a blaster from one of the Stormtroopers (there are four), kills them. When Jabba pulls back on the chain to try to control her, she shots the chain (breaking it), then strangles him with it when he cackles that standard Imperial blasters arn't strong enough to hurt a Hutt. Leia finds her bounty hunter outfit on the barge, including the thermal detonators.

Luke and Leia still do the swing off, but Leia also tosses the Thermal Detonators onto the barge.

... I don't see the issue with the Jabba sequence tbh? I mean take out the SE musical number maybe. I like Gandalf's idea to connect it to the main DS2 plot somehow because RotJ does feel like two distinct sub movies.

But a related question if you simplify the jabba sequence to a bond opener or whatever. What do you do with the extra run time you've freed up?

I dunno, maybe throw in a Mara Jade cameo?

Crazedwraith wrote: ↑2021-07-21 09:11am ... I don't see the issue with the Jabba sequence tbh? I mean take out the SE musical number maybe. I like Gandalf's idea to connect it to the main DS2 plot somehow because RotJ does feel like two distinct sub movies.

But a related question if you simplify the jabba sequence to a bond opener or whatever. What do you do with the extra run time you've freed up?

Again, off the top of my head, maybe use that to flesh out Endor a bit so it isn't just a clumsy Vietnam thing.

Not just the battle stuff, but the Empire being it's horrible self in dealing with the Ewoks, maybe an Imperial settlement, but I can't think of a lot of changes to make that don't massively alter the film.

Crazedwraith wrote: ↑2021-07-21 09:11am ... I don't see the issue with the Jabba sequence tbh? I mean take out the SE musical number maybe. I like Gandalf's idea to connect it to the main DS2 plot somehow because RotJ does feel like two distinct sub movies.

But a related question if you simplify the jabba sequence to a bond opener or whatever. What do you do with the extra run time you've freed up?

It's overly convoluted and relies on coincidence. And it takes up a large amount of time.

I'd personally have Obi Wan give a better reason than "a point of view." That was just stupid.

Darth Yan wrote: ↑2021-07-23 04:44am
I'd personally have Obi Wan give a better reason than "a point of view." That was just stupid.

Bullshit. It's obvious that Obi-wan was talking about his point of view because he was traumatized by everything that went down with Anakin.

Darth Yan wrote: ↑2021-07-23 04:44am

Crazedwraith wrote: ↑2021-07-21 09:11am ... I don't see the issue with the Jabba sequence tbh? I mean take out the SE musical number maybe. I like Gandalf's idea to connect it to the main DS2 plot somehow because RotJ does feel like two distinct sub movies.

But a related question if you simplify the jabba sequence to a bond opener or whatever. What do you do with the extra run time you've freed up?

It's overly convoluted and relies on coincidence. And it takes up a large amount of time.

I'd personally have Obi Wan give a better reason than "a point of view." That was just stupid.

Just repeating your initial comments doesn't explain what's so bad about it. And what coincidence does it rely on?

And changing Obi-Wan's dialogue about point of view doesn't require the scene taking up drastically more run time.

LINK

The plan to rescue Han makes no sense whatsoever. Boba Fett doesn't recognize Lando when they're maybe ten feet apart because Lando is wearing a hat.

When they introduced Lando for TESB, they made a big deal about what an important character he was going to be. In ROTJ he was Wedge +1. I thought it would have been cool to have him make amends by not only rescuing Han, but by convincing outlaws, smugglers, gangsters, etc to join the Rebellion, since the Empire was now muscling in on crooks as well as decent folk. Since we're trying to keep the movie at a little over two hours, we can combine Han's rescue with Lando's pitch to the outlaws in one scene: Lando explains what the Empire did to Bespin, what they'll do others who buck the system, and that the only option left is armed resistance. Jabba balks, tries to kill them (or threatens to hand them all over to the Empire) and is promptly killed by his own henchmen. The Rebellion has now recruited a fleet of privateers.

I wanted some kind of real reconciliation between Han and Lando, and I got thirty minutes of shitty muppets.

Strangely enough, Lando's privateers turn up in one of the Disney movies.