(May 1983, U.S.)
On Friday May 27, 1983, my father declared that he insisted me and my younger brother go see RETURN OF THE JEDI immediately after school and before we headed out to the Hamptons for the weekend, his reason being that he didn't want the two of us to bother him about seeing the movie all summer, which is exactly what we did to the poor man three years prior with THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (yes, the man could make sense once in a while!). Like every other fan of the galaxy far, far away, I spent months waiting in anticipation for the saga to conclude the cliffhanger we were left with at the end of EPISODE V. When JEDI finally opened, it played at the recently renovated triplex theater in my hometown of Great Neck, Long Island. The local neighborhood movie theater was packed to the brim with kids and I prepared myself for another spectacular movie in a saga that began six years ago.
What happened over the course of the next two hours astonished me. While there were notable scenes of real intense action and space battles, something just wasn’t right about this new movie. The details are forthcoming, but what I honestly believe happened to me that day in that movie theater in that town was that I learned for the first time in my young life that the familiarity of what was previously such a miraculous element of action and fantasy the first two times did not necessarily guarantee a good movie by the third go-around. The new STAR WARS movie was flawed, and flawed badly, in my opinion, and I discovered that I now possessed a higher and more mature level of criticism toward what I watched on screen than when I was a child. Great films and franchises of the past like STAR WARS, SUPERMAN, PSYCHO, JAWS and even SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER didn’t necessarily mean their follow-ups of the ‘1980s would continue to be great, because as I’d soon learn that fateful summer of 1983, SUPERMAN III, JAWS 3-D, PSYCHO II and STAYING ALIVE were just awful movies. The tide had just turned with RETURN OF THE JEDI, and not necessarily for the better. Movies, by my perception, would now be approached more carefully, more critically and with an altered frame of mind. Not everything I watched would be so good at the time I watched it, as was often the case when I was a kid.
When I was in college, I had a design professor who would always begin her critiques with everything she liked about our project presentations before moving onto what she didn't like about them. Out of respect and fond memory for her, I shall do the same thing for RETURN OF THE JEDI. To begin with, the visual and special effects seem greatly improved and updated since 1977, even during a time when CGI was still many years away. The speeder bike chase through the forests of Endor is pretty awesome looking! The space battle above Endor is, in my opinion, the most spectacular battle in the entire STAR WARS saga. In fact, there are two shots following Lando Calrissian's announcement of, "Fighters coming in", that still take my breath away even after thirty-five years...
There is one final positive point I can raise with this film. Let me take you back to when I first launched this movie blog back in April 2010. One of the earliest points I raised was that I did not embrace movie Special Editions, Final Cuts or Director's Cuts. There were two exceptions, however. The first was James Cameron's THE ABYSS and the great improvements that were made when he re-released his longer cut in 1994. The second is...you guessed it...the 1997 Special Edition of RETURN OF THE JEDI. If for no other reason, the new version does away with that obnoxious "Yub-yub" victory song by the Ewoks during the final celebration following the destruction of the second Death Star, though I also enjoy the way the film concludes by tying in all the planets we've come to know throughout the entire saga (up until EPISODE VI, anyway).
That, I'm afraid, may be the only true samples of credit I can give to Lucas's third and final chapter to the original trilogy. Don't get me wrong - I own the film as part of the Blu-Ray trilogy pack and I still watch it every once in a while. I mean, how can I not? When you've watched EPISODES I through V, you've pretty much committed yourself to the entire package, whether you like it or not. But as I said before, JEDI is greatly flawed, and I was aware of it from the moment I watched it for the first time at the age of sixteen in 1983.
To begin with, there are just too many redundant points from the first two episodes. Let's start with the fact that despite it being "half eaten", as I like to put it, we are experiencing the lack of originality of a second Death Star. Could writers George and Lawrence Kasdan honestly think of nothing better for this new film? Next we have just another mundane, run of the mill lightsaber duel between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader again, and not nearly as intense and exciting as their first one at Cloud City. In fact, despite the fact that JEDI is supposed to take place only mere months after EMPIRE, Vader appears to have gotten pathetically older and weaker. There's also a constant amount of recycling of John Williams's musical themes from the first two, with only the occasional break to feature some softer melodies as themes of the Ewoks and the tender moments between Luke and his newly-discovered twin sister, Princess Leia. And since I mention the Ewoks, let me just say that I consider their entire existence an obnoxious comedy relief element that makes Jar-Jar Binks look well educated and scholarly, and Sesame Street creatures look mature. As for my reaction to Leia's less-than-horrified reaction to Luke telling her that she's his sister, and in effect, Darth Vader is her father, too, well...I can only say that my reaction is very much the same to many others when we say, "Really, Leia? Somehow, you always knew?? Did you know when you decided to lip-lock with your brother in EMPIRE??" And while I love the battle in space above Endor, the battle taking place on the ground suffers greatly because I don't feel there's one believable moment in it! We are meant to believe and accept so many points that I consider implausible, from the fact that despite their thick armor and helmets, the stormtroopes are easily defeated by the Ewoks and their sticks and stones, to the fact that despite all of the laser fire and destruction taking place in the forest, only one Ewok is seemingly killed in the entire battle (seriously???)! Add to that Chewbacca's stupid Tarzan yell as he and fellow Ewoks swing above one of the Empire's walkers, you're left with an entire sequence that just seems to fall flat on its ass!
Let's now get into character development, or the lack there of. See-Threepio has become truly feminine to the point of being gay, with lines like "Goodness, gracious, me!" and screaming, "Come b-a-a-a-ck!" to Artoo-Deetoo like a little girl! Darth Vader has become, excuse my frankness, a real pussy, as he's constantly kissing the Emperor's ass with lines like, "Yes, Master?" and "As you wish". There is no way this is the same dark lord that took pleasure in choking the hell out others in the first two films. What the hell happened to your balls, Darth?? Princess Leia and Han Solo have, in effect, outlived their characters as they seem to do nothing more than prod along in their mission to deactivate the energy shield on Endor (thirty-two years later, they would prove that opinion of their characters wrong in THE FORCE AWAKENS, in which they totally redeemed themselves), leaving the true story of JEDI as that of the Skywalker family only. Finally, and there's no way to say this in a kind manner...RETURN OF THE JEDI has, without a doubt, the worst acting and the worst dialogue I've ever had to sit through. Some of that bad dialogue is actually repeated from EMPIRE, particularly Yoda's repeated warnings to Luke about the Dark Side of the Force while on his death bed.
Finally, and this may be one of the more important points considered by many STAR WARS fans, especially the horny male ones, there's Carrie Fisher and the whole slave girl, metal bikini thing. I can only say from the point of the art of motion picture making, this has to be one of the cheapest things George Lucas ever did, and I'm quite surprised that Fisher agreed to do it. It's almost a shame that after a long career of not only Princess Leia, but notable moments in the '80s that included THE BLUES BROTHERS, HANNAH AND HER SISTER and WHEN HARRY MET SALLY, the late Carrie Fisher may only be best remembered for this...
Again, don't get me wrong! I'm a horny male myself and I'm hardly complaining about Carrie Fisher showing off her tits and ass back in the '80s before she eventually gained a ton of weight in the '90s. But from a more mature perspective, I always felt Carrie's STAR WARS beauty was better captured in this final moment from the first film...
But, hey, that's me...and maybe I'm not alone in my opinion. I hope I'm not.
And so, thus ended what seemed like the end of the mighty STAR WARS saga...for the next sixteen years, anyway.
Favorite line or dialogue (and believe me, this is a hard thing to decide, considering how much I think the dialogue sucks!):
The Emperor: "Your hate has made you powerful. Now fulfill your destiny, and take you're father's place by my side!"
Luke Skywalker (throwing his lightsaber aside): "Never. I'll never turn to the Dark Side. You've failed, your highness. I am a Jedi, like my father before me."
The Emperor: "So be it...Jedi!"
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