Return of the Jedi «««
PG, 134m. 1983
Cast & Credits: Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker), Harrison Ford (Han Solo), Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia Organa), Billy Dee Williams (Lando Calrissian), Anthony Daniels (C-3P0), Kenny Baker (R2-D2), Alec Guinness (Ben Obi-Wan Kenobi), Frank Oz (Voice of Yoda), Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca), David Prowse (Lord Darth Vader), James Earl Jones (Voice of Darth Vader), Ian McDiarmid (Emperor Palpatine), Sebastian Shaw (Anakin Skywalker). Screenplay by Lawrence Kasdan and George Lucas. Directed by Richard Marquand.
PG, 134m. 1983
Cast & Credits: Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker), Harrison Ford (Han Solo), Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia Organa), Billy Dee Williams (Lando Calrissian), Anthony Daniels (C-3P0), Kenny Baker (R2-D2), Alec Guinness (Ben Obi-Wan Kenobi), Frank Oz (Voice of Yoda), Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca), David Prowse (Lord Darth Vader), James Earl Jones (Voice of Darth Vader), Ian McDiarmid (Emperor Palpatine), Sebastian Shaw (Anakin Skywalker). Screenplay by Lawrence Kasdan and George Lucas. Directed by Richard Marquand.
Midway through Return of the Jedi is a special scene that captures the reactions of the characters. They are looks of horror, awe and wonder. The same way I, and hundreds of fans felt watching Star Wars (1977) and The Empire Strikes Back (1980).
It happens when the garrulous “golden-rod” droid, C-3P0 (Anthony Daniels), tells a group of cuddly but fierce little teddy bears called Ewoks about his adventures in the past two installments.
The Ewoks have the talking droid’s complete attention as he evokes robotic sounds of shoot outs with the Empire’s Stormtroopers, the battles with the first Death Star in Star Wars, the Imperial Walkers and the beauty of Cloud City in The Empire Strikes Back, to finally, the deep raspy mechanical breathing of Darth Vader that at one point frightens all the furballs, even the baby ones.
The Ewoks aren’t the only ones amazed by the droid’s dramatic storytelling. The movie’s heroes and heroine whom audiences first met in the original also seem entranced. They are Luke Skywalker, moisture farmer now turned Jedi Knight played by an older Mark Hamill, Han Solo, the cocky, know-it-all, sarcastic rogue pilot portrayed by Harrison Ford, and Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher), former senator of her now destroyed home planet, Alderaan, turned leader of the Rebel Alliance.
When Han hears C-3P0 retelling the story of him being lowered into the carbon freezing chamber in The Empire Strikes Back, the dreadful memory seems to send a chill up his spine. Even his Wookie co-pilot, the tall, hairy Chewbacca, grunts a mournful sigh.
The combination of drama, action adventure and humor in Star Wars and the dark ominous undertones of The Empire Strikes Back are what made fans and perhaps even non-fans want to see those films over and over again. The second installment made it especially clear that the series was not destined to be just another outer space battle between good and evil where the villain wants to take over the galaxy. The plot thickened considerably. We knew that when the third and obviously final chapter came out, a personal struggle would take place between father (Vader) and son (Luke Skywalker) and only one would emerge victorious.
Return of the Jedi resolves all the things viewers had wondered about for three years since The Empire Strikes Back debuted in 1980. What’s missing though from the final installment is much of the awe and wonder I felt watching the first two.
What we get is what creator George Lucas had likely planned on doing since the first one premiered in 1977; making the Star Wars trilogy into a major toy marketing franchise. Lucas and the special effects wizards at Industrial Light and Magic have gone out with a bang so to speak. Return of the Jedi is a wonderful, visual toy for the eyes with three times more aliens than we ever saw in the Mos Eisley cantina in the original and technologically advanced special effects and ships that pale in comparison to the $10 million dollar budget Lucas had to contend with in ‘77.
Whereas the first two movies were geared for people of all ages, the third installment seems to have been made strictly for kids. Aliens are given human characteristics that come in the form of bodily functions. Desert creatures belch after eating something that just crawled past them. The Ewoks are likely to get the most laughs. Some of the furballs, who are practically the same size as the midgets from The Wizard of Oz (1939), often hit themselves in the face with their own slingshots during battle.
The script by Lucas and Lawrence Kasdan, who also co-wrote the screenplay for The Empire Strikes Back, however, never seems to flow smoothly as a film. Nothing comes together until the climax when Luke and Vader duel it out again, this time in front of the Dark Lord’s Emperor (Ian McDiarmid). The old decrepit leader’s pale white face suggests he has either lived on a planet with no sun or has never been outside his royal castle in a long time. The lightsaber duel is mixed with two other chaotic battles; one between rebel and Empire ships in space and one on Endor as rebel and Ewok forces battle the Empire’s troops.
With the exception of the climax, almost every scene before it is plotted like an event or the opening of another chapter. I came to the conclusion Jedi had at least five though no title cards were seen. The film opens with Vader arriving on the Empire’s half completed new Death Star announcing that the Emperor will soon be joining them. So ends chapter one.
Chapter two takes place on Tatooine, Luke’s home planet, where the heroes rescue Han from his carbonite prison and battle one of the picture’s most interesting creations called Jabba the Hutt; a jolly bloated behemoth slug with a large slobbering tongue and wagging tail who throws living creatures in his mouth as if he were chowing down on popcorn. All of this slowly takes about thirty minutes to wrap up.
Chapter three has the Emperor arriving on the new Death Star. In chapter four, we move to Dagobah where Luke learns the real truth about his family legacy from Yoda (Frank Oz) and the ghost of Ben Kenobi (Alec Guinness). Finally in chapter five, the rebels plan their final assault that lasts over an hour.
That’s not to say the movie isn’t fun. There is a lot I am going to remember fondly. Han, Luke, Leia, the droids and even Darth Vader have at least one or two emotional moments where they reveal their feelings for one another and I was moved by the deaths of Yoda and Vader. I liked how panicked Imperial officers, pilots, and stormtroopers evacuated their posts as the Death Star was coming apart; not one of them noticing or caring that a mortally wounded Dark Lord was being dragged to a shuttle. I loved the Empire’s speeder bikes, which patrolled the forests of Endor that could be the 21st century’s answer to police motorcycles.
I laughed at Han’s combination of self-assuredness and sarcasm and Lando Calrissian’s (Billy Dee Williams) promise that he’ll take good care of Han’s beloved ship, the Millennium Falcon, when he battles the Empire. I also enjoyed seeing how a few of the aliens were fleshed out as characters as well.
The film is a good but not triumphant conclusion.
As I look back at the first two movies, I got the impression this “galaxy far, far away” was a universe in turmoil. When the Empire falls, I would have figured there would be celebrations on several planets. When Return of the Jedi concludes only one celebration takes place and that’s on the planet Endor. I wasn’t surprised to see Luke, Han, Leia, Chewie and the droids celebrating their triumph with their fellow comrades.
What I didn’t expect was to see them partying with a bunch of cuddly, cute teddy bears. The words the Ewoks sing, which I can only make out as “yuck-yuck”, are played to the tune of composer John Williams’ musical score.
This popular sci-fi trilogy was full of surprises. That was one surprise I could have done without.
©7/01/87
It happens when the garrulous “golden-rod” droid, C-3P0 (Anthony Daniels), tells a group of cuddly but fierce little teddy bears called Ewoks about his adventures in the past two installments.
The Ewoks have the talking droid’s complete attention as he evokes robotic sounds of shoot outs with the Empire’s Stormtroopers, the battles with the first Death Star in Star Wars, the Imperial Walkers and the beauty of Cloud City in The Empire Strikes Back, to finally, the deep raspy mechanical breathing of Darth Vader that at one point frightens all the furballs, even the baby ones.
The Ewoks aren’t the only ones amazed by the droid’s dramatic storytelling. The movie’s heroes and heroine whom audiences first met in the original also seem entranced. They are Luke Skywalker, moisture farmer now turned Jedi Knight played by an older Mark Hamill, Han Solo, the cocky, know-it-all, sarcastic rogue pilot portrayed by Harrison Ford, and Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher), former senator of her now destroyed home planet, Alderaan, turned leader of the Rebel Alliance.
When Han hears C-3P0 retelling the story of him being lowered into the carbon freezing chamber in The Empire Strikes Back, the dreadful memory seems to send a chill up his spine. Even his Wookie co-pilot, the tall, hairy Chewbacca, grunts a mournful sigh.
The combination of drama, action adventure and humor in Star Wars and the dark ominous undertones of The Empire Strikes Back are what made fans and perhaps even non-fans want to see those films over and over again. The second installment made it especially clear that the series was not destined to be just another outer space battle between good and evil where the villain wants to take over the galaxy. The plot thickened considerably. We knew that when the third and obviously final chapter came out, a personal struggle would take place between father (Vader) and son (Luke Skywalker) and only one would emerge victorious.
Return of the Jedi resolves all the things viewers had wondered about for three years since The Empire Strikes Back debuted in 1980. What’s missing though from the final installment is much of the awe and wonder I felt watching the first two.
What we get is what creator George Lucas had likely planned on doing since the first one premiered in 1977; making the Star Wars trilogy into a major toy marketing franchise. Lucas and the special effects wizards at Industrial Light and Magic have gone out with a bang so to speak. Return of the Jedi is a wonderful, visual toy for the eyes with three times more aliens than we ever saw in the Mos Eisley cantina in the original and technologically advanced special effects and ships that pale in comparison to the $10 million dollar budget Lucas had to contend with in ‘77.
Whereas the first two movies were geared for people of all ages, the third installment seems to have been made strictly for kids. Aliens are given human characteristics that come in the form of bodily functions. Desert creatures belch after eating something that just crawled past them. The Ewoks are likely to get the most laughs. Some of the furballs, who are practically the same size as the midgets from The Wizard of Oz (1939), often hit themselves in the face with their own slingshots during battle.
The script by Lucas and Lawrence Kasdan, who also co-wrote the screenplay for The Empire Strikes Back, however, never seems to flow smoothly as a film. Nothing comes together until the climax when Luke and Vader duel it out again, this time in front of the Dark Lord’s Emperor (Ian McDiarmid). The old decrepit leader’s pale white face suggests he has either lived on a planet with no sun or has never been outside his royal castle in a long time. The lightsaber duel is mixed with two other chaotic battles; one between rebel and Empire ships in space and one on Endor as rebel and Ewok forces battle the Empire’s troops.
With the exception of the climax, almost every scene before it is plotted like an event or the opening of another chapter. I came to the conclusion Jedi had at least five though no title cards were seen. The film opens with Vader arriving on the Empire’s half completed new Death Star announcing that the Emperor will soon be joining them. So ends chapter one.
Chapter two takes place on Tatooine, Luke’s home planet, where the heroes rescue Han from his carbonite prison and battle one of the picture’s most interesting creations called Jabba the Hutt; a jolly bloated behemoth slug with a large slobbering tongue and wagging tail who throws living creatures in his mouth as if he were chowing down on popcorn. All of this slowly takes about thirty minutes to wrap up.
Chapter three has the Emperor arriving on the new Death Star. In chapter four, we move to Dagobah where Luke learns the real truth about his family legacy from Yoda (Frank Oz) and the ghost of Ben Kenobi (Alec Guinness). Finally in chapter five, the rebels plan their final assault that lasts over an hour.
That’s not to say the movie isn’t fun. There is a lot I am going to remember fondly. Han, Luke, Leia, the droids and even Darth Vader have at least one or two emotional moments where they reveal their feelings for one another and I was moved by the deaths of Yoda and Vader. I liked how panicked Imperial officers, pilots, and stormtroopers evacuated their posts as the Death Star was coming apart; not one of them noticing or caring that a mortally wounded Dark Lord was being dragged to a shuttle. I loved the Empire’s speeder bikes, which patrolled the forests of Endor that could be the 21st century’s answer to police motorcycles.
I laughed at Han’s combination of self-assuredness and sarcasm and Lando Calrissian’s (Billy Dee Williams) promise that he’ll take good care of Han’s beloved ship, the Millennium Falcon, when he battles the Empire. I also enjoyed seeing how a few of the aliens were fleshed out as characters as well.
The film is a good but not triumphant conclusion.
As I look back at the first two movies, I got the impression this “galaxy far, far away” was a universe in turmoil. When the Empire falls, I would have figured there would be celebrations on several planets. When Return of the Jedi concludes only one celebration takes place and that’s on the planet Endor. I wasn’t surprised to see Luke, Han, Leia, Chewie and the droids celebrating their triumph with their fellow comrades.
What I didn’t expect was to see them partying with a bunch of cuddly, cute teddy bears. The words the Ewoks sing, which I can only make out as “yuck-yuck”, are played to the tune of composer John Williams’ musical score.
This popular sci-fi trilogy was full of surprises. That was one surprise I could have done without.
©7/01/87
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