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I was surprised to find that the remastering in the latter two original Star Wars movies didn’t bother me nearly as much as “A New Hope.” There might be a few reasons for this; for one, these two movies clearly had a much bigger budget than the first one, so the visual effects are noticeably better, meaning the changes don’t feel as dramatic when it comes to explosion effects. Also, “The Empire Strikes Back” has barely any changes. Still, “Return of the Jedi” does have a lot of changes, more significant than any of the other movies, so it should’ve bothered me far more than “A New Hope.” I think that by this point, though, I’d gotten used to expecting changes, so it didn’t annoy me as much.

There are some changes that do bother me, though. The abominable snowman-esque wampa at the beginning of “The Empire Strikes Back” is effective, but I was surprised to find upon researching the changes that the monster originally isn’t shown. That’s so much more effective for building suspense! Why did George Lucas need to add in multiple full shots of the monster eating? Also, there’s the infamous “Jedi Rocks” scene from “Return of the Jedi,” which is honestly ridiculous. Jabba the Hutt’s music works fine with those few shots of the people dancing, but that one alien just approaching the camera and singing directly to it is so inappropriate for the scene, so weirdly over-the-top. In the same vein as showing the wampa, I dislike how the remastered edition fully shows the sarlacc’s mouth and tentacles as it pulls people to their death. It’s so much more disturbing as a carnivorous hole in the ground.

There’s also the annoying added dialogue of Darth Vader saying, “No…NO!!!” as he suddenly attacks the Emperor and throws him to his death. Why is that necessary? It’s very hokey, and his change of heart would be so much more badass and affecting if he hadn’t said anything, just silently made the choice to switch to the light side. I don’t mind the added shots of Naboo and Coruscant and all those other planets celebrating the defeat of the Empire at the end, but I’m not a huge fan of the new music; I like that Ewok music. As for the infamous replacing of Sebastian Shaw with Hayden Christensen, I don’t mind it much. It’s silly and unnecessary, but it doesn’t actively annoy me like it annoys some people.

As for the actual movies, they’re both very enjoyable and fast-paced. “The Empire Strikes Back” is known as the best one, and I can understand why. It’s a big step up in effects. It introduces many of the iconic characters, like Lando Calrissian and, of course, Yoda (I was surprised by how much I liked Yoda; he might be a wise old man, but he’s not extremely peaceful like Dumbledore. He’s pretty harsh with Luke, actually, and is initially reluctant to train him. I also didn’t mind the ugly puppet as much as I thought I would). There are lots of iconic lines, like when Leia tells Han she loves him and he says, “I know.” If I had one complaint, it’d be that Luke and Han really don’t get much time to know each other in these movies; their plots are separate almost the entire movie, and it might’ve been interesting to see more of their dynamic, since they’re kind of the two main characters. Still, the way their stories eventually weave together is smart and effective as Luke finally arrives in Cloud City to save Han and Leia.

Some of the moments in these movies are just naturally not going to hit as hard because I know how everything happens. Watching Luke find out Darth Vader was his father, I was conscious of Mark Hamill’s slightly silly scream instead of really feeling his pain and shock. It all happens more abruptly than you expect upon rewatch, like how Vader suddenly just says “I am your father,” not some dramatic, “LUKE…I AM YOUR FATHER.” Similarly, though I like the climactic fight in “Return of the Jedi” a lot, the final moment between Luke and Vader as Vader finally takes off his mask didn’t really profoundly affect me emotionally. I can’t tell you exactly why, because on paper, it’s really emotional and powerful. Maybe, again, it’s just because I know what happens, and so much of the story has entered pop culture that it’s hard to really feel as a story on its own.

There’s still so much to like in these movies, though. I really like the icy planet of Hoth in “The Empire Strikes Back” and the forest climate of “Return of the Jedi.” I really like the opening of “Return of the Jedi,” when Luke saves Han and Leia from Jabba (especially the fact that Leia is the one who kills Jabba!!!). I love how Leia and Han’s romance progresses, especially with her line to Han in the last movie when he tells her he loves her and she shoots back, “I know.” I like how Chewbacca, R2-D2, and C-3PO are used in both movies. I love how Luke, so whiny and inexperienced in the first movie, progressively becomes more and more badass. When he’s force-grabbing his lightsaber at the beginning of “The Empire Strikes Back,” or flying around and taking down those AT-AT Walkers, he’s a certifiable badass. Maybe it’s a bit premature since he hasn’t even trained with Yoda yet, but it doesn’t matter. Star Wars is very much the kind of franchise where you can wave away logic (the Force in general is pretty undefined) in favor of, well, cool shit.

“Return of the Jedi” is known as by far the worst of the original trilogy. At first, I didn’t really get this. The heist-like rescue scenes at Jabba’s palace might be completely unrelated to the main plot of the movie—if you think about it, Jabba isn’t related to Vader and the Empire at all—but they’re so fun that they don’t just feel like dealing with business before the real plot kicks into gear. And the forest moon of Endor is pretty cool; seeing all that green vegetation is refreshing after the all-white and all-brown worlds we’ve been used to. And that first Endor battle scene, with Luke and Leia flying through the forest and watching stormtroopers crash into trees, is so dynamic and fun.

In terms of flaws, one of the small problems is that the Emperor isn’t a super satisfying villain. Darth Vader is so effective because he has an emotional tie to Luke. He’s a tragic figure, a Jedi turned to the dark side. The Emperor, on the other hand, is a pure figure of evil, completely dark, the puppet master controlling Vader. He’s cool, and Ian McDiarmid as the Emperor is great, always spouting stuff about the dark side and encouraging Luke to join. It’s an interesting conflict, even though it’s clear Luke is never really in danger of joining his father. On his own, the Emperor is cool, but the fact that he suddenly becomes the main villain kind of telegraphs that Vader is going to have a change of heart. This isn’t a huge problem, but it takes away a little bit from a wholly surprising and fascinating ending. At least Vader still dies, so it’s not overly happy or anything.

The only real problem, though, is an obvious one: the Ewoks. When the Ewoks first showed up in that scene with Leia and helped her out, I thought they were cute and inoffensive. I wondered why people hated them; it’s not like they were the major driving force of the story, right? It’s not like their narrative would threaten to overtake the main characters’, would it? Then they became an increasingly large part of the narrative. There’s the needless digression of them capturing the main characters. I like that it’s a moment of lightness, and it’s clever that Luke would force-levitate C-3PO to make him seem like the god the Ewoks fear, but it all goes on with too long. And they become even more important later on. Look, I don’t really mind the plausibility of them defeating the stormtroopers. I can accept Lucas’s half-baked Vietnam metaphor, with the technologically inferior natives beating the superior invaders. I can buy that the Ewoks would have some ingenious tricks to take the Empire by surprise.

It’s not an issue of plausibility; it’s an issue of what’s good for the story. The Ewoks are basically the ultimate case of deus ex machina. Part of what’s so engaging and appealing of the Luke-Han-Leia trio (with Chewie, C-3PO, R2-D2, and Lando helping out) is that you feel like it’s just them against a massive Empire. Even with some remaining Rebel pilots, how could they hope to destroy multiple Death Stars and end the tyrannical Empire? But the Ewoks—these random aliens who, like the Emperor, don’t really play a role until the third movie—are basically the ones who save the day. Han and Leia barely do anything at the end, and they’re some of the best characters!

The final battle sequence is a bit strange—while really serious character conflict is happening with Luke, Vader, and the Emperor, the battles outside are light, fun, and almost comedic. Some of the ways the Ewoks defeat stormtroopers are practically slapstick. I like that the battle is fun, but the Ewoks’ dominance makes it feel even more silly and inconsequential, as opposed to the sky battles with Lando.

As an individual film, “Return of the Jedi” may have a lot of flaws that bring its quality to a lower level than “A New Hope” or “The Empire Strikes Back.” But as the conclusion of a legendary film series that permeates pop culture, it’s satisfying. It’s easy to forget that these films have very real issues when their influence is so prevalent, but all of those issues have contributed to the full legend of Star Wars that exists today, Ewoks and all.

When everyone talks about “127 Hours,” the conversation inevitably turns to the famously gruesome way Aron Ralston (James Franco) escapes from the rock that traps his arm: he amputates his own arm with a pocketknife. It’s understandable that that’s what dominates the conversation about the movie, but that’s ignoring so much else that’s great about the movie.

For viewers who already know how Aron escapes, like I did, there’s a degree to which much of the movie feels like it’s biding its time, putting off the inevitable moment when Aron will cut off his own arm. I knew it was coming, and there were a couple moments, especially in the beginning, where I was very aware of how the happy moments—Aron swimming and laughing and having fun with Kristi (Kate Mara) and Megan (Amber Tamblyn), listening to songs like “Never Hear Surf Music Again”—were obviously there to contrast with the sudden catastrophe that follows. At the time, those happy moments felt a little cheap.

Once I got a feeling for the rhythm of the movie, though, I got really into it. It has that intoxicating, engaging feeling that survival movies can have—you feel the hunger, the thirst, the desperation of the main character. Late in the movie, as Aron lapses into hallucination and remembers people from his past—his mother and father sitting on the couch, his sister playing piano, his coworker, his ex-girlfriend Rana lightly stroking his chest or lying in bed staring at him—all you want is for Aron to make it out alive and make it back to everyone he loves. You feel isolated with him. And I was struck by how well writer-director Danny Boyle wove the encounter with Kristi and Megan back into the narrative. At one point, Aron forgets about his family, forgets about Rana and his friends, and just replays the videos of him swimming with Kristi and Megan. He misses them. He misses these two women, who he barely knows, because they represent, even more immediately than his loved ones, the life he’s missing out on. Aron imagines himself at the party they invited him to, observing people lounging around with red solo cups and grabbing beers, and he wants nothing more than this picture of normalcy. It’s one of the strongest dream sequences/hallucinations of the movie.

Let’s talk about those sequences a little more, though. One movie that’s really interesting to compare “127 Hours” to is “All is Lost,” a movie I adore, in which there’s no dialogue aside from a few muttered swears from Robert Redford’s character. From what I remember, the movie doesn’t feature any flashbacks or hallucinations. There are no gimmicks to deepen our knowledge of the character, like adding a superfluous tragic backstory (I’m looking at you, “Gravity”) or soliloquizing (again, looking at you, “Gravity”). “All is Lost” taught me a lot about movies; it showed me that you can identify with a character just by watching them, without hearing a word they say, without knowing a thing about their past. It showed me that cheap visual tricks are unnecessary. Simply watching Redford’s character (listed only as “Our Man” in the credits) try to survive, with an understated direction free of embellishment, is enough.

“127 Hours” takes a much different approach. Boyle does fill the movie with directorial embellishments. In the first scene, the camera trucks through cabinets as Aron grabs supplies for his hike. Unnecessary Dutch angles populate the early goings of the story. I’m of two minds when it comes to this; on the one hand, some of these stylistic tricks are undeniably cool, like the shot from the inside of Aron’s water bottle as he drains it. Still, even though I know Boyle is a super experienced director, there’s something vaguely amateurish about seeing a director completely overload a film with style, like the random 180 degree shot and showy long takes in “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl.” Again, I’m not sure where I stand on this, because the stylistic stuff is genuinely cool to see. I just worry that the only reason I like it is because I’m a beginning film student, enamored with cool stuff like that, even when it doesn’t serve a purpose.

Anyways, for the purposes of the discussion, let’s ignore the ‘arbitrary’ stylistic choices and focus on the ones that are supposed to serve an explicit purpose. While JC Chandor decided to take one route with “All is Lost”—a bare-bones, understated narrative—Danny Boyle goes in the opposite direction, including all the things Chandor left out: soliloquys to the camera, hallucinations revealing interior desires and fears, and glimpses of the protagonist’s past.

For the most part, this really works well for Boyle’s intentions. Aron’s dialogue really allows us to get to know a lot about him. We see him as a charismatic and flirty guy helping Kristi and Megan out at the beginning, and we later see his sense of humor become dark as he pretends he’s on a gameshow, speaking as several different characters to the camera. Boyle actually uses a laugh track in this scene to show us Aron’s imagining of the show, a neat trick. Also, the way the camera jumps around a lot, exploring practically every angle of Aron’s precarious position, keeps the whole thing feeling fresh. I never got bored of the setting itself. And, as I mentioned above, some of those hallucinations and dreams depict Aron’s desperation beautifully. I love the montage of people drinking, stylishly depicting Aron’s thirst.

Still, a part of me can’t help but wish I could see a version of this movie in Chandor’s style. When Aron breaks his radius and ulna bones, there are explosions of sound like thunder to depict how horribly painful it is. And when he finally cuts his arm off, it happens in a stylish montage of escalating splashes of blood and gore, with the camera jumping around to show it from every angle. All this stuff is really effective at putting us in Aron’s headspace; he’s practically delirious at this point, and this all feels nightmarish and horrifying. That said, couldn’t the breaking of bones have been just as effective if we heard them as they actually sound: maybe a slight snapping, like a twig? Isn’t the expression on James Franco’s face enough (and I’ll say that Franco was pretty amazing in this; I would’ve given him the Oscar over Colin Firth)? And couldn’t Aron cutting his own arm off have been even more disturbing if we just saw it exactly as it happened, with him stubbornly cutting until the blood began spurting and he slowly descended into a bloody mess?

The hallucinations, too, become a little much at points. I liked seeing Aron remembering Rana, but the hallucination of the thunderstorm, which frees Aron and allows him to escape and drive to Rana’s home, goes on too long, is too obviously a hallucination, and would feel like a bait-and-switch if it wasn’t so obvious. There’s a slight lag in the movie between the first time Aron tries to cut into his arm—only resulting in a couple vaguely red lines and no real cuts—and the time when he actually commits to it. Entering the dreamscape is certainly effective at showing Aron’s state of mind, but there’s only so much surreal imagery you can take before you become a little impatient.

This all sounds pretty negative, but let me say that most of this didn’t really bother me; it was a vague concern at worst, and it just got me thinking about the benefits and detriments of copious stylishness, especially in contrast to “All is Lost.” Ultimately, these tricks mostly accomplished what they set out to do. While Chandor’s understated direction is ideal to depict the simple tale of an anonymous man’s isolation at sea, Boyle’s dynamic direction is smart to place us directly in Aron’s head and show us what he’s thinking and feeling.

I think my favorite sequence, though, is the ending one. After a disturbing montage of arm-cutting, everything abruptly ends and suddenly Aron is standing at a distance from the rock, with his arm and body free. Franco’s expression here, his disbelief, is just perfect. Then he stumbles through the boulders and, eventually, steps into the sunlight, letting out a laugh of ecstasy. The sight of him slurping up water from a dirty pond is wonderful, and I didn’t even care that it looked super filthy. And then there’s the final scene, as Aron, on the verge of collapse, spots a family walking through a screen of yellow fog. He calls out to them, muted at first, then loud. They approach. He gulps down water. Another group comes. He gulps down more water. And then that helicopter lands, and he staggers to safety. It’s more simple, more cathartic, more beautiful than a hallucinatory montage could ever be.