Guru Askew

They were able to get Universal's Incredible Hulk disc in their Avengers set and they were also able to get Paramount to sell all the other pre-Disney MCU films to them outright. I'm sure Disney would love to get Fox to sell all their Star Wars interests to them (as well as Warner with their Clone Wars interests) but I doubt it will happen.

Timber

I think there is a shelf life on distribution. How many more releases with Fox be able to capitalize on especially if Disney won't produce an original OT cut? How many more TV deals are in the future. The OT is the golden goose right now but for how much longer?

Obi-Wanma

Distribution rights for episodes I-III, V & IV will revert to Disney in 2020. Rights for the original "Star Wars" (Episode IV) are owned by Fox in perpetuity.

But that doesn't mean that a deal cannot be negotiated to package them together.

Shannon Nutt

There's PLENTY of movie sequels better than EMPIRE...there's just no STAR WARS sequel better...yet.

hanshotfirst1138

It's damn good, probably one of the top five sequels ever, even if most of what it sets up never gets paid off.

We've all been speculating about this in endless circled, but I think Disney have been wise to keep quiet about it. Until they come forward with an official announcement about all of the details, they probably want to make sure they have everything set in stone so as not to fan the flames further.

Guru Askew

Pretty sure Fox would be in a good place legally/litigation-wise if Disney took the right to approval they assumed when they bought LucasFilm and simply used it to make it difficult for Fox to release something.

No point in discussing those scenarios when there's going to be a lot of money in Disney and Fox working together on stuff like that in the next few years.

rocket1312

I don't know if "plenty" is the word I would use. There are a few for sure, but it's definitely my personal favorite sequel. As hanshotfirst mentioned, it's lack of payoff keeps it from being a truly great film in and of itself, but I'd argue that as a franchise installment whose purpose was to further the story to next installment, it is peerless.

Rob V

Yeah, I gotta say, Empire is a pretty good sequel in the grand scheme of all movies --- let alone in the SW family. After 30+ years, I still look forward to watching that flick. The scenes on Hoth and Bespin still hold up, IMO.

Mike86

I feel like I'm one of the few who doesn't hold a low opinion of Return of the Jedi. It isn't perfect and the weakest overall but I think it holds up as well as the first two personally.

Oliver Clothesoff

my biggest issue with ROTJ is that is could have been soooo much better if Lucas/Kurtz had stuck to some of the original plan. Still like it (but no the SE edit abominations).

Solid Snake

It is just really really great drama there.

Mike86

I'll agree that it definitely could have been better and of the original trilogy is overall probably the weakest, but the way some people talk about it its as though they think it belongs on a completely different level compared to the first two or something. I guess I just don't feel like that's the case. Overall I think the film is still really good and if you were giving the other films a perfect five I'd still probably give it like a four and a half.

JTH182

ROTJ does have some of the best scenes of any of the movies though. Luke, Vader, and Palpatine together is Star Wars gold.

taffer

ROTJ is my favorite in the trilogy actually.

The Luke/Vader/Emperor confrontation is my favorite scene in the trilogy.

Everyone shits on the Death Star being a recycled plot, but the Death Star II battle was much more epic with many more spaceships, including big capital ships.

Mike86

Yeah the final confrontation between Luke and Vader with Palpatine watching is awesome for sure. One of the coolest sequences in any film ever if you ask me and as good as the first duel they had in my opinion. I also like the stuff at Jabba's Palace for the most part (not the shit added in for the special editions though) and the speeder bike chase on Endor is also a lot of fun. The Death Star II being as vulnerable as the first one was kind of weak, but it also wasn't finished so that sort of gets a pass from me. I guess overall I think the positives in the film outweigh some of the negatives, which for me really is really only the Ewoks and they don't bother me too much. I guess some people were upset over the fact that Luke and Leia were made siblings too, but that was sort of alluded to already by Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back so I dunno.

Matt

Some of the early Episode II script leaks involved a scene of a "lightsaber fight in the rain," and it was easy to imagine how great that would be on screen, and especially how great it would sound with the raindrops sizzling and popping as they hit the sabers. I guess that eventually turned into the Obi-Wan/Jango fight, which was a little bit of a let down.

Snow duel does sound cool, though. Hope it pans out.

hanshotfirst1138

The Luke-Vader-Emperor stuff is really strong (Aren't there rumors of another directorial hand in that scene?), but the rest of the film is weaker and hints towards the toy sales and overblown set pieces to come in the prequels (the sail barge rescue, though impressive, basically serves to save Han and have him do disappointingly little for the rest of the movie, and though the battle is cool, it basically just recycles the end of the first movie), and drops a lot of the stuff from ESB ("There is another," Luke's training basically gets sidelined with Yoda's death, etc.). It has the cast and the good will of the previous installments and the Luke-Vader stuff is good enough to carry it, but it's a comedown after the last two and the promise of ESB.

Michael Corvin

I've never had a problem with it either. However as I age it does seem I lose patience with Act 2. After Jabba/Tatooine the movie just grinds to a fucking halt until the third act.

stvn1974

I enjoy Return Of The Jedi as much as the first two. All are five star films for me. Jedi Rocks from the Special Edition is not only a crime against cinema but humanity as well.

Mike86

The "there is another" wasn't really dropped though. It just wasn't what people wanted it to be and we ultimately got Luke and Leia as siblings. I guess that never really bothered me so much. I can agree though that Yoda dying off pretty much right after the Jabba's Palace sequence was disappointing. I would have liked to have seen Luke do a bit more training with him, but I think that would have been hard to do in just one film while still trying to have Luke face off with Vader and the Emperor one last time. Either the training should have been expanded on more in The Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi could have really been two films. Though I guess I'm not sure what else would really fill the time but I'm sure something could have been thought up.

Dr. DVD

They actually did do the light saber in the rain scene in the Clone Wars animated series (the one before the final prequel movie) with Anakin vs. Asajj Ventress. I will admit, it was pretty cool.

Josh-da-man

Yeah, that is the biggest flaw of ESB. It sets up a lot of things that just couldn't be paid off in a single movie. Maybe a better writer than GL could have pulled it off, but there were a lot of balls in the air that needed to be juggled.

As a result, we got ROTJ which was this odd, fractured movie. Sort of two short movies mashed together that had to cover Han's rescue and defeat the Empire, not to mention Luke confronting Vader and revealing who "there is another" was. There really needed to be more movies.

mcnabb

Any SW movie trying to equal Empire Strikes Back is a huge task, so I am not going to get THAT hyped for Episode 7 cause I will be in for a big letdown.

As much as love The Original Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back is just a different animal then the other SW movies. In fact, I sort of blame Empire for the expectations we have had with the SW movies that came after that, because it set the bar so high with the first sequel and have never come close to that after.

I can't explain it other then whenever I watch Empire, I marvel at how great the movie is. The acting, the humor, the drama, the pacing, its all there as the movie doesn't slip up once. I don't know how great a director Kershner is, but he was the right guy for this movie because he hits every note for the 2 hours. And of course it doesn't have a true ending, but the melancholy ending with Luke/Leia and the droids staring at out the galaxy while Lando/Chewy pull away in the Falcon wondering if they will ever see Han again (with the great score by John Williams in the backround) is a perfect ending in my book.

Sorry, but I just don't see Episode 7 coming close to that, but that doesn't mean it still can't be a great movie.

Obi-Wanma

That's because it wasn't meant to be paid off in a single movie. At the time of Empire's completion, the saga was still supposed to play out thru Episode IX. Somewhere in between, Lucas got bored and decided it had to be wrapped up in ROTJ.

hanshotfirst1138

I always thought that the "There is another" thing was supposed to set up something else entirely, but they dropped that and did the Luke-Leia pairing instead. I think that Kershner, Kurtz, and Kasdan had plans for some stuff for ESB, and when Lucas started to come back on, he shifted away from the darker stuff and wanted to wrap everything up more neatly.

Like I said, Lucas also got rid of Kershner and Kurtz too, so it's possible that if they did have things planned out, there was a change of direction.

I agree. I also think it was sort of a push-pull between the darkness of ESB (Luke and Vader), vs. the goofy stuff with the Ewoks and Jabba's palace. They kind of rescue Han only to have him do very little for most of the movie. You basically wind up with that really personal stuff, vs. the big gigantic overblown set pieces like the mega-Death Star II battle ultimately leading to an ending which is frankly much too tidy.

No disrespect to Abrams, but he isn't in that league. I know that he loved ESB, as anyone does, but he'd have to be really, really, really good to even be in the same ballpark, and I don't think he could manage it.