My Personal Best Films: Return of the Jedi (1983)

Return of the Jedi ««««

PG, 133m. 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.

1984 Academy Award
Nominations

Best Art Direction
Set Decoration

Best Sound

Best Effects
Sound Effects Editing

Best Original
Music Score -
John Williams

Special Achievement
Award For Visual 
Effects - Winner

Midway through “Return of the Jedi” is a special scene that captures the reactions of the heroes. They are looks of awe, horror and wonder. The same way I felt watching “Star Wars” (1977) and “The Empire Strikes Back” (1980) when first released four decades ago.

The scene 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 ’77 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 second installment, the dreadful memory seems to send a chill up the Corellian smuggler’s 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 again. The second installment made it especially clear 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. Fans knew when the third and final chapter at the time came out in ‘83, a personal struggle would take place between father (Vader) and son (Luke Skywalker) and only one would emerge victorious.

Originally titled "Revenge of the Jedi" a year before its release (creator George Lucas changed the title to "Return" because Jedi Knights don't exact revenge) ”Return of the Jedi”  now goes by the proper title “Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi" and resolves all the things viewers had wondered about for three years since “The Empire Strikes Back” debuted in 1980. I won’t argue in the four decades since its release having seen it several times that what was missing from the third and final installment is much of the awe and wonder I felt watching the first two.

What I got was what 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 & Magic went out with a bang so to speak back then. “Return of the Jedi” was 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 seemed 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.

When I  saw the film forty years ago I took note how audiences reacted to the Ewoks who not only got the most laughs (an Ewok smoking a pipe) but also the most “awwww aren’t they cute moments” (a baby Ewok in a basket). If a young kid shed a tear when one of the teddy bears died in battle I doubt the kid would be man or woman enough to admit it. 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. There’s even a blooper moment where an Ewok clearly tells another in plain English “That guy’s nice” instead of speaking the alien’s proper dialect of gibberish.

The script by Lucas and Lawrence Kasdan, who also co-wrote the screenplay for “The Empire Strikes Back”, however, never seemed to flow smoothly as a film. Nothing came 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 suggested he had either lived on a planet with no sun or had never been outside his royal castle in a long time. The lightsaber duel was mixed with two other chaotic battles; one between rebel and Empire forces 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 was plotted like an event or the opening of another chapter. I came to the conclusion “Return of the Jedi” had at least five though no title cards were seen. The film opened with Vader arriving on the Empire’s half completed new Death Star announcing the Emperor will soon be joining them. So ended chapter one.

Chapter two took 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 crime lord 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 took about thirty minutes to wrap up.

Chapter three had the Emperor arriving on the new Death Star. In chapter four, the scene switched to Dagobah where Luke learned 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 planned their final assault that lasted over an hour.

Yet despite my complaints, Jedi’s positives outweighed the negatives. There was a lot I remembered fondly. Han, Luke, Leia, the droids and even Darth Vader had at least one or two emotional moments where they revealed 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.

When panelists at the Star Wars Celebration in London announced in early April 2023 the film would return to theaters for one week in honor of the installment’s 40th anniversary I felt like Anakin Skywalker battling “The Dark Side of the Force” in episodes I-III (1999-2005). I had the “Dark Side” on one shoulder telling me how great it would be to see the film on the big screen again given the last time I did see “Return of the Jedi” in the theater was in 1997 in honor of the original Star Wars’ 20th anniversary when all three films were re-released as “Special Editions.” Lucas and the visual effects gurus at his company Industrial Light & Magic added new shots to the three films and adjusted others.

In the case of “Star Wars” and “The Empire Strikes Back” the additions were a combination of hits and misses. Some scenes worked. Others didn’t. Ironically the three minutes of additional shots in “Return of the Jedi” made the film better. My rating for Jedi’s special edition went from the three stars I gave the original ’83 version in a review I wrote back in the late 1980s to three and a half stars in 1997.

In the Jedi special edition the second Death Star went out in a blaze of glory with a fiery ring expanding out. The female lead alien music leader of Jabba the Hutt’s band moved more freely and didn’t look as if it was being moved around on invisible string thanks to the computer-generated technology we got now. Bounty hunter Boba Fett flirted with a couple female alien dancers, albeit with his helmet still on. Banthas (alien versions of elephants) were seen grazing on the sands of Tatooine like cows as Jabba’s immense sail barge floated by. Instead of the Sarlacc Pit looking like only a pink vagina with teeth the heroes were about to be thrown into the sand creature now had some sort of giant snake protruding from its mouth.

Whereas the original ’83 version ended with the Ewoks and the heroes celebrating the Empire’s downfall on the Endor forest moon all to the tune of the tribe’s furball “yuck-yuck” song courtesy of Oscar winning composer John Williams’ musical score, the special edition went out on a more dramatic note. As x-wing fighters set off fireworks above the night skies of Endor, planetary celebrations took place on less than a half dozen planets throughout the galaxy. The special edition actually ended on an almost triumphant conclusion versus the ’83 version.

So why am I not choosing to see “Return of the Jedi” on the big screen again on its 40th anniversary release at the end of April? Despite the fact I still have sixty bucks of AMC gift cards to use? (I haven't seen a movie on the big screen since June 2022 and it wasn't because I wanted to). The answer is simple. The “Good Side of the Force”, if there is such a term in Star Wars lore, would be whispering in my ear on the other side telling me “this won’t be the original ’83 version you will be seeing. It will be the ’97 special edition that has aired countless times on the TNT network and Disney plus.”

When Haslab – Hasbro Pulse – a toy company that produces Star Wars toys announced as part of Jedi’s 40th anniversary they would release a three-pack of six-inch figures promoting the versions of Jedi ghosts Ben Kenobi, Yoda and Anakin Skywalker recreating the end scene of the third installment, a user commented on social media how they would prefer they released the ghost version of Anakin as played by actor Sebastian Shaw in the original ’83 edition. They didn't want the Anakin version played by Hayden Christensen whose spirit appeared near the end of episode VI after the release of episodes I-III.

To put it simply, the ’97 special edition is not the version I want to revisit despite the improvements. The ’83 version, for all its flaws is what I prefer to embrace. There has not been a time in the four decades since Jedi's release where feelings of beloved emotional nostalgia didn't creep up inside me. I still recall how audiences cheered when Leia released Han Solo from his carbonite prison. I remember how my sister who is four years younger than me covered her eyes when Luke removes Vader's helmet as she didn't want to see how he really looked under that black mask. Then there's the crowds who waited outside the theaters where Star Wars, Empire and Jedi in '77, '80 and '83 were shown where the long lines went around the blocks and parking lots.

When Carrie Fisher died in 2016 I wrote in a tribute blog how Ross Geller, the fictional character David Schwimmer played on "Friends" (1994-2004) was not the only one whose childhood fantasy was seeing Princess Leia in that skimpy gold bikini outfit collared to Jabba the Hutt. I too, like so many other young boys who began to realize their hormones were starting to kick into overdrive when it came to our interest in girls saw the female character's feisty rebellious heroine from that "galaxy far, far away" as an 80's sci-fi sex symbol.

I was about to start eighth grade when “Return of the Jedi” came out in '83. I was going into second grade when I saw “Star Wars” in August ’77. Jedi’s release not only marked an end, albeit temporarily, to the Star Wars film and toy franchise, but also marked a slow end of my interest in Star Wars overall. Within a year I would be graduating from grade school and would start high school in fall of ‘84 and my interests were about to change. In short, I was on my way into adulthood.

At the time of its release, VHS and Betamax videocassette recorders and laserdisc players were still in their infancy. Blockbuster Video would not become a household name and take over the movie rental industry until the late '80s. The early 1980s belonged to the independent mom and pop video stores. Blockbuster filmmakers like Lucas and Steven Spielberg were still reluctant to release their box office hits like the Star Wars trilogy and "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (1981) on videocassette and laserdisc and only relegating them to the big screens.

When a friend of mine told me he had a pirated copy of "Return of the Jedi" I asked my eighth grade teacher, Mrs. Joyce Allen, who owned two VHS recorders at the time (you were considered rich if you owned two) if she could dub me a copy. The pirated street copy was so bad in picture and sound quality that attempting to record a copy would have been over two hours time wasted. 

I didn't get my hands on a "legal" VHS copy until February 1986 during my sophomore year in high school when Lucas made the film available for both rent and purchase. Those who wanted to spend/and or had $100 bucks to blow that is. That hundred bucks I paid was one of the few times in my life where I felt my work money was well spent as opposed to the hundred bucks I needlessly spent on the high school junior/senior ring I bought the following year only because everyone in my class was getting one. Ironically, I still have that high school ring but every VHS copy I had of the original trilogy released through 2000 are history.

Should the day come where I want to view episodes four, five and six again in the coming years it won’t be the ’97 special editions available on Disney plus and on disc. The original ’77, ’80 and ’83 theatrical versions – all three of which I own that were released on DVD in 2006 but were the laserdisc transfers and are now only available from second-hand sellers on Ebay will be the ones I'll be watching on my 4K player.

The Star Wars franchise today resembles “a spent force” which Merriam-Webster defines “as someone who no longer has the power or influence he or she once had.”

Disney seems intent on making sure every penny of that $4 billion they paid George Lucas in 2012 for Lucasfilm is spent on churning out multiple Disney plus television series and big screen movies in the coming years without barely taking a break to figure out a new way to reinvent itself. I don’t call Disney not releasing a big screen Star Wars film since 2019 a break.

The surprise hits from that "galaxy far, far away" so far have been few and far between (“Rogue One – A Star Wars Story” (2016), “Solo – A Star Wars Story” (2018), “Andor” (2022) while the misses are many (Star Wars Episodes 7-9, “Obi-Wan Kenobi” (2022), “The Book of Boba Fett” (2021) and “The Mandalorian” - 2019) depending on who you talk to. Sure every future made-for-streaming show and big screen movie will all have George Lucas’ name on the credits but they won’t feel like a “George Lucas” creation (dialogue you can write but don't picture yourself saying on camera and choreographed lightsaber battles behind blue screen). I predict the filmmakers and television producers will be playing the notes but not the music.

Mickey Mouse’s running of the franchise today now resembles an unstoppable “Empire” in itself. It wasn’t that way when I saw “Return of the Jedi” in May 1983 back when the installment was called “Return of the Jedi” and not “Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi”.

The way the original trilogy was marketed from 1977 to 1983 felt like what Obi-Wan Kenobi spoke about in “Star Wars” how the Jedi Knights were once the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic. The movies didn't feel like "a spent force."

Here on Earth, those were the golden days as Obi-Wan said happened, “Before the dark times…before the Empire.”

©4/12/23