Oh, Lucas. What have you done?
What have you done?
Last time, you showed me what you (or at least, you in cooperation with others, possibly?) could do with The Empire Strikes Back. And the result was a wonderful movie that knocked my socks off and sold me on Star Wars forever.
I trusted you, or at least past you, a bit more than I should have. Fortunately, some warnings kept me from getting my hopes up too much, but goodness.
I’ll be blunt: I don’t think Return of the Jedi is as good as The Empire Strikes Back or A New Hope.
And yet… despite not being as good as its predecessors, Return of the Jedi still strikes a chord in me.
My first mistake was not digging for the original cut of this movie. From reading the long list of changes on Wikipedia, I would have been far more impressed with the original. (I do admit that non-blinking Ewoks would have been much creepier, though.) The “Jedi Rocks” scene was horrible enough that I now understand why overworked game developers decided to add a dance-off to the Star Wars Kinect game.
My second mistake? Thinking that I could take the Ewoks, since I do like cute in the face of evil. As far as I’m concerned, the concept is fine, but the execution was, as it often seems with Lucas, flawed. Something was off about the Ewoks—I didn’t really buy the savage-warrior vibe off of them.
I thought about the Jawas on Tatooine, who seem to be around the same build as the Ewoks. I took them more seriously because their first impression was as a threat. And yes, the first Ewok that Leia meets does threaten her, but as the little Ewok acts more like a slightly intelligent hungry raccoon than a small tribal warrior, I couldn’t take any Ewok seriously afterward. Not even after they tied up our heroes and were about to roast them in C-3PO’s honor.
Now, what if the Ewoks were Wookiees? Then the introduction scene would work, because we already know a Wookiee is a fearsome foe, thanks to Chewbacca. In fact, the exact same tone of the scene would be needed, because it would show that there was some hope of appeasing these furry menaces. I wonder if this was meant to be the Wookiee planet, and the budget couldn’t withstand Wookiees, so we got Endor instead.
The dialogue between Luke and Leia about their mother was… weird. Because I know what happened to Padme. So that was just… ARGH.
Still, I should not give in to anger or to hate, because that way lies the Dark Side of the Force. And to be honest, the Ewoks are just a thorn in the side of the movie rather than an outright travesty like Jar-Jar Binks.
There is so much to like about Return of the Jedi.
The plan to save Han Solo was executed brilliantly, and the movie started off very well—like observing a syzygy of character arcs in motion. Luke Skywalker is so assertive, so self-assured, that he’s almost unrecognizable. I see the core of “I want to get off this rock” Luke there, but around it is this young Jedi Knight. The contrast in character is delicious. Plus, Luke can actually swing the lightsaber, so to speak, managing to use his powers to get into Jabba’s lair, and then killing a rancor.
Leia is more open about her love for Han, and Han is far less self-centered. In A New Hope, Han looked out for number one, while in Return of the Jedi he tells his rescuers to leave him behind more than once. This vast change is wonderful to behold, upholding a long-running theme of optimism with regards to the characters of villains and scoundrels, that some of them can be changed and taken off that path. In other words, the concept of the Light versus the Darkness goes beyond the Force users.
I didn’t think I would like watching Yoda toddle around and die of old age. I didn’t like him in the prequels, and being exposed to muppet!Yoda surprised me more than anything else in Empire Strikes Back. But watching this Yoda, as he prepares for death, as he struggles with how to tell Luke about his father and Vader… he’s more emotional, and so much wiser. I wish this version of Yoda had been in the prequels.
I don’t know what to think about Admiral Ackbar. I’ve been so over-exposed to the “It’s a trap!” meme and the general forced weirdness of prequel aliens that I just can’t take him seriously. Even when he is so serious.
And then there’s the resolution of the reveal from Empire Strikes Back. Every time the movie cut away from this thread, I wanted it to veer back (even though that wouldn’t have done the movie’s pacing much good).
One thing the prequels definitely got right is the manipulative evil that is Palpatine. The classic villain with a smiling cheek, in the prequels McDiarmid’s acting was star levels above everyone else’s. There’s almost perfect character continuity with respect to him: His plans always have wheels within wheels. He manipulated Anakin into a position where Anakin eventually Force-choked Padme despite sacrificing so many people so that she would live. And he attempts to manipulate Luke into a position where Luke will kill his own father despite wanting to bring him back to the Light.
And damn. Palpatine does such a good job of it. It almost works, but Luke is stubborn and has indeed learned enough to resist the wiles of Palpatine—just think if prequel Ben or Yoda had actually listened to Anakin (sometimes) and given him the support he needed. Now, it’s a wiser Ben and a wiser Yoda that teach Luke how to not give in to the Dark Side.
As for Vader—the entire interaction between him, the Emperor, and Luke is excellent. That mask hides everything from us—it’s only through Luke’s insistence that there is a conflict inside that we know there’s still a chance that Vader is sympathetic. And Vader’s decision to throw Palpatine into the core reactor (wait, why is there a chute to the core reactor in Palpatine’s throne… never mind, I probably missed something) is thus the more unexpected.
And while the “NOOOOOOOOOO” is definitely artificial in this case, I do have to say that it’s far more consistent with prequel Anakin. Old habits die hard, no matter how much badassery you’ve gone through.
The final scene between father and son, and Darth Vader’s pyre scene, were touching. The random scene where some Gungan screams “Weesa free!” is, um, less so.
Anthony Pero in the comments to the previous post mentioned that Jedis don’t by default go to “heaven.” Qui-Gon learned how to defeat death, and then Yoda and Ben learned how to defeat death from him. But that, as Anthony says, leaves a hole. Why in the world is Anakin there at the end?
Hmmm.
And why is it young Anakin that appears? We don’t see young Ben or even young(er) Yoda.
ARGH.
Right, don’t give in to hate, etc.
My impression is that if the prequels never existed (or at least, if I never watched them), I would be happier with the ending.
On balance, I liked Return of the Jedi. I quite liked A New Hope. And I loved Empire Strikes Back.
That’s pretty good for the Original Trilogy.
I’m hoping I can still get tickets to the midnight showing of The Force Awakens!
Ava Jarvis née Arachne Jericho is a freelance writer, techie, and geek. By day she writes about high-tech topics, and by night she writes about board games at her blog, the Elemeeple.
Ava, the original had Anakin in his pilot gear. Remember that Ben told Luke that Luke’s fatehr was an excellent pilot.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
I seem to remember that for a long time the official line was that Lucas had wanted Wookies instead of Ewoks but decided on the latter because he worried that people wouldn’t buy Wookies as savage tribal warriors after seeing Chewbacca in the previous movies (and RotJ too) entirely at home doing things like flying the Millennium Falcon and fixing complex machines such as spaceships and droids.
@1 AndrewHB; to the best of my memory, and the photo I find via Google, Sebastian Shaw was in Jedi Robes.
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Sebastian_Shaw
Star Wars OSHA mandates the inclusion of bottomless pits and unfenced walkways as part of its design code.
The unfinished Death Star remains the coolest thing in all six films (followed, probably, by the Executor, Darth Vader’s Super Star Destroyer). And Jedi has the best space battle. Although I kind of wish they hadn’t started doing the optical crossfades to explosions, which started back in Empire.
@3, you are correct. I have the original version (AFAIK) on VHS tape, and Ghost Anakin is portrayed by Sebastian Shaw, unscarred, in Jedi robes.
I wonder if this was meant to be the Wookiee planet, and the budget couldn’t withstand Wookiees, so we got Endor instead.I
I believe this is correct, and more or less what Lucas tells Leonard Maltin in the interview at the start of ROTJ’s last VHS release. But @2/jm1978 may also be correct, that audiences wouldn’t “buy” Wookiees as “savage tribal warriors.” (It also may not have helped that Wookiees and Kashykk featured prominently in the Star Wars Holiday Special of 1978… we might have had to have more of Itchy and Lumpy and their semi-pornographic holoTV…)
I have to respectfully disagree with @4/hoopmanjh – The unfinished Death Star was my first exposure to the sad truth that sequels are often about literally recycling what filmmakers did before. I think “Death Star II” was nothing but a budget-stretching device, because it allowed them to recycle some internal and external footage from Star Wars. It felt like a cheap way out to me in 1983, and it still feels that way to me now. (And, if the poster for The Force Awakens is any indication, we are getting yet another globular super weapon in Episode VII… sigh.)
Ava, thanks so much for sharing your discovery of the original trilogy. Really enjoyed all of your posts!
I have come to like ROTJ more in recent years. Like many, the Ewoks beating the stormtroopers used to drive me nuts. What makes it work is my creating a scene in my imagination where the stormtrooper commander is calling for reinforcements, only to find that Palpatine has said “don’t do anything without my say-so”, and then put up a big “do not disturb” sign while he messes around with Luke. Something similar is said at the start of the space battle, but it isn’t followed up on. Right outside the throne room the whole while are a bunch of admirals and generals begging Palpatine to let them take action, only for the red suited guards to block the way. It makes Luke’s efforts directly affect the battles on the surface and in space, instead of just being this thing that happened while his friends were working.
Any Imperial officers with the chutzpah to use personal initiative were long ago force choked, or failed to intensify forward firepower.
Yeah, it’s pretty cool to see that even someone who activelly hated the prequels and never saw the originals as a result can still be won over by them despite the fact that they’re “old” movies. It sort of validates the stance that many of us older fans have about the prequel trilogy not being very good (or being actually horrible) in comparison to the originals, since there’s also a fair amount of people that claim the opposite is true or that all six movies are equally sucky.
Yes, Ewoks were originally Wookies… when Lucas wrote the original story it included the Wookie planet, but when it turned into 3 movies he opted to make something “new” so he jumbled up the letters in Wookie and cut them in half.
I believe this is confirmed on one of the DVD documentaries.
Also, yes. Sebastian Shaw was the original Anakin ghost… y’know because he was redeemed as an adult. There are even some ghostly Sebastian Shaw action figures and a 12″ figure of the Shaw-Anakin in Jedi robes.
While many of the details (such as luke/leia, Vader being Luke’s father, Obi-wan’s death, Yoda) were not in the very, very first draft of Star Wars, much of it was there. Lucas explains in the Special Edition DVDs bonus features that he realized there was too much there for him to shoot in one movie, so he took a chunk (what became A New Hope) and moved some things up in there.
In his original treatment, the planet was full of Wookies. But he didn’t know if he was going to make any more movies (ever) after Star Wars, and he wanted a Wookie. So that’s how Chewbacca came to be Han’s co-pilot, rather than the Sullustan Nein Nubb, who did eventually go on to co-pilot the Falcon with Lando in Return of the Jedi. He also moved the death of Obi-wan up from the nadir of the original story (so, sometime before the death star invasion) to the nadir of the first part (which became A New Hope) which necessitated the creation of Yoda in Empire.
Since they had invented a whole backstory for Chewie, and Kashyykk (the Wookie home planet) in related media, and since he had a passel of little people actors already, and didn’t have a bunch of really tall people to cast, he decided to just cut them in half and play up the cute factor for the family movie he was creating.
I like the Ewoks. They were my favorite thing about Star Wars when I was a kid. Because I was five when Return of the Jedi came out. Much how kids who watched Phantom Menace when they were 5-7 loves Jar Jar and the Gungans. Sometimes we forget what Star Wars is, rather than what we’ve made it.
What I am trying to figure out is how we go from fairytale ending to the Force Awkens. We leave Jedi with Ewoks dancing, Han Solo and Leia together and a destroyed Death Star that killed the Emperor and Vader. If Rey is the child of Leia and Solo the poor child was again the victom of the Skywalker tradition of kids being abandoned on desert planets. What split up Solo and Leia? Luke just runs away? JJ Abrams what have you done! (This is all tongue and cheek ok Star Wars fans I’ve got a ticket to see the movie and I can’t wait!)
@11:
I can’t answer all of your questions, but some were answered (or at least set up to allow speculation) in several recent books and comics:
Highlight for spoilers
Han and Leia: Han abandons the New Republic mid-mission because a rebellion starts on Kayshykk. He had made a promise to Chewbacca that if an opportunity arose, he would help free the Wookies. He calls in a bunch of debts smugglers owe him and assembles a fleet. This happens within nine months of the end of Return of the Jedi.
Rey: Based on the timeline above, assuming that ended the relationship, that’s 34 years before The Force Awakens. The timeline doesn’t work for Rey to be the child of Han and Leia. So, she’s not their kid abandoned on a desert planet. But Abrams sure wants us to think she is.
So, that’s speculation based on one scene in Aftermath. But some of the revelations in the comics lead me to believe its accurate. They are setting Han up for something else.
@6/MikePoteet — I agree about the unfortunate recycling tendency, and I’m also a bit skeptical about the big new whatever-it-is in Force Awakens, but I still think Death Star II, considered on its own merits, is pretty darned cool.
Wrong account.
I was just laughing when you were talking about the Ewoks being Wookiees…because as others have mentioned, the original idea was for a Wookiee planet.
@6 Mike Poteet: The only recycling that went on with the second Death Star was in terms of script and story ideas. It was anything BUT a budget saving device. The only reused footage I can think of is the Super Laser blast tunnel. There is possibly a 2 second shot or something of stormtroopers running around, but I can’t think of it off the top of my head. The model for the second Death Star was entirely new. In the Making of the Return of the Jedi book, it talks about people at ILM coming in when they could to work little bits and pieces on the model, because it was so complicated and time consuming. They built a huge hanger set for the scene of the Emperor’s arrival, but to match the matte painting back at ILM, the painter ended up painting over most of the set walls anyway, and they could’ve made that set smaller for a quarter of a million dollars cheaper. Not to mention the Emperor’s throne room set, which was obviously totally new. Also the new Death Star model surface for the attack and all the interior tunnels and piping and the huge reactor core.
The only way you could consider the second Death Star “cheaper” is from the ideas in the earlier drafts for Jedi, in which there were TWO Death Stars, and Leia had some separate mission of her own with these big giant space guns, whereas Luke went off to [Coruscant] to face the Emperor in an underground lava room.
So yeah, the second Death Star may not have been much of an original story idea, but it wasn’t cheap in terms of money. There wasn’t much at all they could reuse from the first movie, except that Super Laser tunnel shot.
Keep in mind that Jedi was the most expensive and most complex of all the original films, with multiple ILM shifts working nights and weekends to get this thing done.
I always thought the story was that Lucas was worried that people wouldn’t buy Wookies as cuddly toys, so he cut them in half and made Ewoks because they were better merch?
I love RotJ, but I’ll admit the prequels did their darndest to undermine that love, and I think it fits within Luke, Leia and Han’s character arcs just fine. ANH is earnest and determined, and leans a lot on the elder talents of Alec and Peter, and suits the young cast in their earnest and young years. By the time of Empire they have grown, and they are taking on more responsibility, and starting to be weighed down by the past rather than using it to stand on. RotJ comes around and, as well as lessening the age gap between Leia and Han -something that was always a little troubling to me- thanks to Han’s stay in suspended animation, shows the characters who have learned to cope, who have got a handle on things and a handle on themselves, and are able to take joy in the world around them and to appreciated what they are fighting for. The mood of each movie changes alongside the maturation of the characters. RotJ may be the most kid friendly, but that is just because we associate troubled angst with being grown up and we fail to appreciate that learning to find joy and adventure in the world can be grown up too.
I just hope Jar Jar Abrams doesn’t blow it with TFA.
Yub nub us, every one.
I always say ROTJ is my favorite to watch, as long as you skip everything between Luke saying “We got separated” (something in his sweaty, breathless delivery always felt so real to me) and when Luke returns to the Death Star. In other words, skip all the Ewoks ha-ha funny cute-cute and you’ve got a great action sci-fi with the best character arc in any series. Jedi Luke has always been my favorite, from Jabba to Vader.
And the Ackbar memes have always pissed me off. LEIA SAID IT FIRST!
@16: Are you making a joke about the Ewoks as toys, or are you serious? At the time, no one actually wanted to make any Ewok toys, because the market was oversaturated with teddy bears. Lucas did lobby really hard to get someone to make some, but that’s because he wanted to have one for his daughter.
Honestly, I don’t think you even need to cut out the Ewoks altogether — just lop a couple of minutes of gratuitous Ewok cuteness (including, but possibly not limited to, Ewok hang gliders and self-inflicted bola injuries).
And then maybe at the victory feast the Ewoks are enjoying a lovely roast, and we’ll just gloss over those empty white suits of armor stacked in the background.
Is it safe to assume the Ewoks had a big stormtrooper barbecue after the battle? Okay, just checking. And I’m cool with that. Those guys had it coming. The Empire was just asking for it, building a base on the planet of killer teddy bears. Come on.
I’ve never bought the argument the Rebels were terrorists or something for blowing up the Death Star. It was, after all, a BATTLE STATION! and not an office building. And this was… what, twenty-something years after the Emperor took power? If you’re working on a Death Star, you know what you’re getting yourself into at this point. No sympathy for the hard hats who died. Not from me. They had to have at least seen a picture of the Emperor and Vader. Tell me, Mr. Welder, do these black robed characters look like the kind of guys you want to work for? Have you heard good things?
Even those with the thickest of skulls come to realize they’re fighting for the dark side, as evidenced here…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEle_DLDg9Y
I remember seeing this movie for the first time and being on such a high that I took myself to the theater the next day and sat in the front row to watch it again. Even though I can concede that, artistically, Empire is a better movie (and is certainly what sucked me into the saga)…Return of the Jedi definitely moved me. I remember being on the edge of my seat during the final duel on the Death Star, and when Palpatine was sizzling Luke trying to figure out how he would possibly survive. I had a feeling this movie wasn’t going to pull some cop out ‘then he finds some hidden reserve of strength and beats him’ ending that always strikes me as too convenient when done in movies. I had honestly decided he was going to die and Leia was going to save the day – perhaps I’m a bit too gullible but I was shocked when Darth Vader turned on the Emperor and saved him. So, I have to say, in response to 7: “It makes Luke’s efforts directly affect the battles on the surface and in space, instead of just being this thing that happened while his friends were working.” – it’s not ‘just this thing’, it’s pretty much the whole thing. If any thing, the space battle being fought outside is ‘just this thing’. (I know, I know – not in relation to the entire galaxy, of course – but in terms of the heart of the story).
But yeah, that last scene at the end, with them all happy and dancing and the triumphant version of the end credits music…gets me every time. That feeling of togetherness and goodness and redemption – it was something I really needed at the time.
I haven’t had a chance to comment on the other discussion going on one of the other threads about which version of Anakin should display. I can see both ways I suppose. I think I lean just a bit more towards ‘old’ Anakin, because that is the Anakin that acted – the Anakin who is the sum of all of his experiences. But from a cinematic point of view (assuming you accept the prequels) I think there IS some emotional resonance at seeing Anakin go back to his ‘good’ version as the audience would last remember it. So maybe it’s more of a visual cue than anything. And if you can control how you appear, perhaps Obi-Wan and Yoda are at peace with their old selves, but Anakin is not. Although that might perhaps show he hasn’t quite moved on/let go ;)
@18…maybe I shouldn’t admit this but your description of Luke as sweaty and breathless…well, it made me laugh and smile because…well, yeah ;)
Oh -and I meant to say that after this movie I became mildly obsessed with Palpatine and learning all of his lines/delivery. I was so freaked out when the recast Ian McDiarmid as Palpatine in the prequels (and he remains one of my favorite things about them).
When it comes to asking how things went after the 2nd death star and the Emperor got roasted, I think it helps if you consider this:
There is no way in h*ll that the Emperor was in personal command of every planet, every ship, every outpost, of the Empire. Something like a million and a half planets is impossible to rule alone. He had to have capable subordinates to run things, just like the Emperors of Rome had the first bureaucracy in the western world that managed to keep the Empire afloat long after it should have fallen apart. So just because the Emperor gets roasted doesn’t mean the Empire falls. It means chaos, yes, and bits and pieces splintering off, but the full end takes time. Until then you have cluster/system/planetary governors, admirals, etc who want to rule whats left. At some point someone with enough power, enough charisma, enough plan, enough resources will piece things back together. I think in TFA you’re seeing a faction that has managed to claw itself up from the ashes and continue the fight. They may not even consider themselves the “Empire” at that point, but they oppose the “Rebels” and thats the point.
As for who Rey is, I’m not buying that she’s Han and Leia’s daughter, or Luke’s either. I don’t buy granddaughter as well. I completely buy a more distant relationship, like a niece or something. I think the Force also has a will of its own and is moving events to some extent. Luke may have brought balance to the Force, but like a seesaw the balance is never truly stable.
We will see in about 2 1/2 weeks, won’t we?
@15/crzydroid – Thanks for your comment. I stand corrected.
I’ve never been able to shake my disappointment from 1983 — “What? Another Death Star? Oh, come on!” — after everything about SW and ESB seemed so original and new. ROTJ just struck me as half-hearted — John Williams even scored the last battle’s climactic moments with concert music from Star Wars! — but I wouldn’t want, all these years later, to demean the work of the talented professionals who put the film together. My sense that it’s the “made for TV movie” of the original trilogy is nothing more than that. Thanks for the information.
I’ve never understood the derision this movie gets for stuff like the Ewoks. (It’s not like there was an internet back then for nerds to get all excited over leaked info about Wookiees and then, complain when they got switched out for something “cuter”, right?) But as a kid (I would have been 4-1/2 when this came out–I never saw the originals in the theater until the first round of special editions. I’m guessing I was 6 when I first watched the original trilogy on VHS) my favorite was ROTJ. Even back then, ANH always struck me as a little hokey. As an adult, ESB has become my favorite, but ROTJ still comes in second easy.
I was afraid of how this might turn out, but it was great to read. I’m so sorry, Ava, that you had to see the fiddle-with version of this film first, but glad that you were able to enjoy it on the whole, anyway. As much as people complain–rightfully–about the ‘Han shot first’ thing in A New Hope, Jedi is the film that took the hardest hit from George Lucas’ changes and additions.
As has been noted aplenty, the Ewoks should have been Wookies and there are a few other things that could have been tweaked and refined, but I think that the climax in the throne room is fantastic, and that final shot of everyone is such a great feel-good note to end on (although it deserves the original ‘Yub Nub’ song, one of the most charmingly weird and whimsical things from the classic films).
RotJ remains my favorite of the films, including the OT, to this day, in large part because of the space battle. The infiltration of Jabba’s Palace was a great sequence (though I still dislike how randomly Boba Fett got taken down; maybe it was intended to show that he’s too good to lose in any kind of straight-up fight, so only the luck of a gambler could take him down…), and Yoda’s death was very affecting, but I’m a sucker for starship combat.
The Ewoks not getting instantly rolled over can make sense with a bit of extra thought, though it’s irritating to have to come up with excuses. First, the Imperials had only whatever their base garrison was, plus a legion of stormtroopers, while the Ewoks had a potentially innumerable population to draw from, meaning even a kill/death ratio of 100:1 might not favor the stormtroopers. Second, the Imperials were focused on defending the main facility, not the back door. The rebels (and their Ewok allies) were able to concentrate their efforts on that back door, while the Imperials couldn’t even make use of much of their most potent gear (AT-ATs, for instance), instead having to rely on scout troopers and AT-STs for much of the battle. Third, jungle insurgencies have often proven to be disproportionately deadly, despite having severely limited access to technology, and the Ewoks would have significant advantages in navigating and weaponizing the Forest Moon (as demonstrated by how quickly they were able to set up effective traps). The biggest stumbling block remains the armor that the stormtroopers are wearing, which in addition to being essentially useless against blasters, didn’t seem to do a thing against stone-bladed spears or badly thrown rocks.
As a point of interest, the destruction of the Death Star was likely to have resulted in an extinction-level event on Endor, meaning the only Ewoks left alive after the Rebels pulled out would have been the handful that joined up and any that were in off-world zoos.
I just want to say that Yoda’s death is the most incredible puppetry I’ve ever seen. Last time I watched this movie, I was completely convinced that I was watching a person die. It was very moving.
I also like the ewoks. I accept that they and the wookies have a common ancestor or something. I think they are tough warriors out of necessity, but their natural demeanor is joyful and sweet.
I love the realization that Luke isn’t the last, that he has a sister. It’s a beautiful revelation that plays nicely for both of them.
Except when they’re roasting people alive.
@27/Spacejim – it deserves the original ‘Yub Nub’ song, one of the most charmingly weird and whimsical things from the classic films
I agree. And I want Lapti Nek back. Maybe in the sequel trilogy?
But their natural demeanor is joyful and sweet especially when they’re roasting people alive.
The reason that Anikin is young in the revised editions is that Lucas is trying to force us to acknowledge the prequels. We are not allowed to pretend they don’t exist. He would rather insert a change that makes no sense then let you forget the pain.