Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (1983)
dir. Richard Marquand
Rated: PG
image: ©1983 20th Century Fox
My biggest complaint with the plot of 2015’s The Force Awakens, the J.J. Abrams helmed return of the Star Wars franchise to theaters after 2005’s Revenge of the Sith, was that it borrowed too heavily from the original trilogy. The fascistic First Order, itself a mirror of the Galactic Empire from episodes IV-VI, has a weapon of unimaginable power called Starkiller Base. It’s essentially a Death Star on steroids. The action climax of the film involves the band of resistance fighters devising a way to destroy Starkiller Base. To my mind, Abrams and his screenwriting partners for Force Awakens, Michael Arndt and the cowriter of both Empire and Return of the Jedi, Lawrence Kasdan, wanted to tap into the familiarity of the first trilogy. The result was a little too familiar for my taste.
As any fan can tell you, this borrowing from previous installments is almost as old as the Star Wars franchise itself. Return of the Jedi, the final chapter in the trilogy that transformed sci-fi movies forever, is itself a rehash of the plot of A New Hope. That, as well as a few other less-than-inspired elements of the picture, make Jedi the weakest of the first triptych of films.
Released in May of 1983, Jedi was the culmination of the previous six years of Star Wars fever. I was about to turn three years old, so, again, I had no cultural awareness at the time outside of the contents of my own diaper. I would like to pretend, however, that I took my brother – who was about to turn 18 months – to the movie while explaining everything he missed in the first two episodes.
The element most worthy of praise within Jedi is the film’s practical creature effects. Compared to the weightless intangibility often present within the glut of cinematic CGI effects of the last two decades or so, there is a tactility to everything on screen here. In my piece for New Hope, I complained about the dreadful look of the wholly CGI created Jabba the Hutt for a new scene in the 1997 Special Edition version. That iteration of Jabba, besides looking like a cheap collection of pixels, doesn’t function with any amount of believability.
In Jedi, Jabba is another beast entirely. Yes, it’s true that this “slimy piece of worm-ridden filth,” as Han calls him, is a foam rubber puppet. The humans who interact with the crime lord in the introductory sequence are, though, really interacting with it, instead of staring at a tennis ball on a stick standing in for what digital artists would add later.
When Carrie Fisher’s Princess Leia chokes Jabba to death using the very chain with which she’s being kept prisoner – the execution was inspired by the garroting of Luca Brasi in The Godfather – we see the chain dig into Jabba’s neck. We recoil each time that slimy tongue – designed, as was the rest of the creature, by Phil Tippett – makes an appearance. Tippet’s handiwork on Jabba yielded a one-ton puppet that cost half-a-million dollars. You can feel that massive undertaking each time you see the final result on screen.
Leia continues her downward spiral at the hands of the screenwriters in Jedi. Here she is reduced to fetish object in the “Slave Leia” outfit during her imprisonment by Jabba. The character does rally late in the film when she joins Han in his effort to deactivate the shield generator protecting the under-construction second Death Star. Fisher once told of George Lucas ordering that her breasts be taped down during the filming of New Hope, so as to reduce any untoward jiggle. At some point between 1977 and 1983, Lucas got the memo that sex sells, putting Leia in the skimpiest costume of the franchise for the benefit of his male audience’s gaze.
The promise of Luke Skywalker and the fulfilment of his hero’s journey comes to fruition in Return of the Jedi. Here we finally get to see Luke as the Jedi master that Obi-Wan envisioned. During the film’s 132-minute runtime – the longest of the original trilogy – we see Luke return to Dagobah to complete his training with Yoda. Like the stop-motion rancor from the opening sequence in Jabba’s palace and the fishy creature design of Admiral Ackbar in the film’s final act, the puppet Yoda adds to that tactile feeling that permeates the entire film. The way that Yoda’s ears shake as the Jedi instructor slowly transitions to become one with the force makes the diminutive creature seem all the more real.
Probably my favorite element of Jedi is Ian McDiarmid in the role of a lifetime as Emperor Palpatine. As you can see to even more unhinged effect twenty years later in Revenge of the Sith, absolutely no one can chew scenery like McDiarmid as Palpatine. The actor’s line reading of the classic, “Oh, I'm afraid the deflector shield will be quite operational when your friends arrive,” with a hint of a smirk, is both chilling and campily delicious.
Then there are the Ewoks. It’s true that from the very first Star Wars entry, Lucas’s franchise was meant to be family friendly. But where C-3PO and R2D2 have the sophisticated charm of an Abbott and Costello routine, enjoyable for kids and adults alike, Lucas swings into blatant childishness with the pint-sized versions of, yes, Wookiees. (Ewok is, you’ll note, a scrambled version of Wookie.) Maybe it’s the two Ewok adventure TV movies broadcast in 1984 and ‘85 – those films are the earliest memories I have of being aware of this thing called Star Wars – that cemented the furry little creatures in my mind as kid’s stuff.
There’s also the fact that this subplot, in which our heroes become the captives of the Ewoks for a short time, feels superfluous and silly. Why, for example, when it’s clear that neither Leia nor 3PO – whom the Ewoks mistake for a god – want Han, Luke, or Chewy roasted alive as a celebratory meal, do the Ewoks continue with the preparation?
I’ll admit the situation is a nice bit of levity and provides the biggest laugh-line of the movie when 3PO responds with “I never knew I had it in me,” to Luke levitating the droid to prove to the Ewoks that their god has real power. The audience at the Texas Theater roared with laughter at the moment, and experiencing it with a roomful of fans was a highlight of the experience. The overall effect of the larger sequence is, however, diversionary, even if it establishes the Ewoks as helpful allies.
The climactic space battle to destroy Death Star 2.0 might be transcribed directly from A New Hope, but Lucas and cowriter Lawrence Kasdan do add an exciting new element that is one of my favorites from this original cycle of Star Wars movies. Instead of merely skimming the surface of the Death Star and firing a missile into an unprotected exhaust port, this time out, the rebel team – headed up by Lando Calrissian in the Millennium Falcon with the help of the incomparable Nien Nunb as copilot – must fly into the very core of the station. The destruction of the Death Star’s main reactor and the ensuing rush for the Falcon and supporting X-Wing fighters to escape the station before it explodes is pulse-pounding action at its best.
The most prominent change Lucas made for the 1997 Special Edition of Jedi is the final celebration of the defeat of the Galactic Empire once and for all (at least until an iteration of the evil empire was resurrected for Abrams’s Force Awakens three+ decades later). This is a net positive for Lucas’s vision, as the added shots of planets around the empire celebrating the demise of Emperor Palpatine gives the finale a grander scope missing in the original. I still love the goofy little song, which is missing in the Special Edition version, that the Ewoks sing in the film’s final minutes. That might seem counterintuitive, since I spent a few paragraphs above disparaging the Ewoks. I don’t know what to tell you; nostalgia is a hell of a drug.
The new, bigger final sequence is of a piece with the catharsis achieved during the emotional final scene between Luke and Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker. As the second set of films – released between 1999 and 2005 – explores to wildly varying degrees of success, the Skywalker saga is, at its heart, about the prodigal son fulfilling the promise squandered by his father.
Despite its flaws, Return of the Jedi offers a satisfying conclusion to the trilogy. It closes out the beginning stage of a franchise that I am now certain I will never live to see concluded. For better or worse, the Disney corporation will be pumping out Star Wars content long after I’m dead.
Why it got 3.5 stars:
- It’s not exactly a hot take to be of the opinion that Jedi is the weakest film of the original trilogy. Some miscalculations on the kiddie stuff (Ewoks) and a plot point rehash of New Hope are what make that appraisal accurate. It’s still an action packed adventure and a hell of a good time at the movies.
Things I forgot to mention in my review, because, well, I'm the Forgetful Film Critic:
- Has there ever been a more perfectly delivered line reading than, “You rebel scum.”? (You’ll note that I didn’t end that quote with an exclamation point, because the actor who delivers it does so in a matter-of-fact, bloodless way. His condescension is all the emphasis we need.
- If reincarnation is real (it isn’t), I hope I come back as a Salacious Crumb (yes, I know that’s his name, not his species (which is…checks internet…Kowakian monkey-lizard). I said it that way for the lulz.
Close encounters with people in movie theaters:
- This was a packed screening in the new upstairs theater at the Texas. The crowd was enthralled. Except, that is, for the two guys quietly trying out MST3K one-liners on each other and the guy with his young kid directly behind me, who had to read all text to his son and engage in a running explanation of the plot. Since I’ve seen Jedi approximately 78 times, it was easy to tune out these…gentlemen.