STAR WARS: RETURN OF THE JEDI (1983) MOVIE NEWS & REVIEW

star wars: return of the jedi (1983) movie

Genre              |   Science Fiction

Classification   |   PG

Running time   |   134 minutes

Released         |   25 May 1983 

cast

Mark Hamill ... Luke Skywalker
Harrison Ford ... Han Solo
Carrie Fisher ... Princess Leia
Billy Dee Williams ... Lando Calrissian
Anthony Daniels ... C-3PO
David Prowse ... Darth Vader
James Earl Jones ... Vader's voice
Ian McDiarmid ... The Emperor
Peter Mayhew ... Chewbacca
Kenny Baker ... R2-D2
Frank Oz ... Yoda (voice)
Alec Guinness ... Ben (Obi-Wan) Kenobi
Jeremy Bulloch ... Boba Fett
Denis Lawson ... Rebel Force Wedge (Rogue 3) (as Dennis Lawson)
Michael Pennington ... Moff Jerjerrod
Kenneth Colley ... Admiral Piett
Michael Carter ... Bib Fortuna
Tim Rose ... Admiral Ackbar
Dermot Crowley ... General Madine
Caroline Blakiston ... Mon Mothma
​Warwick Davis ... Wicket

director

Richard Marquand

writer

​Lawrence Kasdan ... (screenplay by) and
George Lucas ... (screenplay by)
 
George Lucas ... (story by)

cinematographer

​Alan Hume ... director of photography
Alec Mills ... (uncredited)

music

John Williams

film editor

​Sean Barton ... (edited by)
T.M. Christopher ... (special version)
Duwayne Dunham ... (edited by)
Marcia Lucas ... (edited by)
George Lucas ... (uncredited)

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box office result

Worldwide             $​​​​​​ ​​475,106,177  

Australia                 $​​​​​ not available

North America       $​​​​​​​​309,306,177 ​

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movie minutiae

According to Ian McDiarmid, George Lucas originally cast him simply as the physical performance of the Emperor (similar to David Prowse as Darth Vader). This became evident to him when a producer told him that if he was able to get his voice close enough to Clive Revill's (who portrayed the Emperor's voice in STAR WARS: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1980)) Lucas would let him use his on-camera vocals in the final cut of the movie. However, McDiarmid felt he could conduct a stronger, more wicked and demonic voice for the Emperor as opposed to Revill's more aristocratic Emperor. Lucas, and even Steven Spielberg, were so impressed with his take that it ended up becoming a signature trait of the character.

​Following the success of Boba Fett (appearing in comics and being a popular supporting character), George Lucas admitted that he had no idea that the character had become so popular. He mentioned that if he had known, he would have given the bounty hunter a more memorable death scene. Lucas even considered adding a shot of Boba Fett escaping the Sarlacc for the 2004 DVD release. Ultimately, he decided against it as he did not want viewers to be distracted from the intended storyline.

​This was originally to be titled REVENGE OF THE JEDI, but producers thought the Jedi wouldn't seek revenge, due to their ethical code. Some posters and theater stand-ups were made early, but then quickly pulled when the title changed names. Also, STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN (1982) was originally to be called STAR TREK II: THE REVENGE OF KHAN, but the title for that movie was changed to avoid confusion with this movie back when REVENGE OF THE JEDI was being considered.

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related movies

STAR WARS:
THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK 
(1980)

STAR WARS: RETURN OF THE JEDI (1983) MOVIE IMAGES

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STAR WARS: RETURN OF THE JEDI (1983) STORY SYNOPSIS

​​Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) battles horrible Jabba the Hut and cruel Darth Vader to save his comrades in the Rebel Alliance and triumph over the Galactic Empire. Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) reaffirm their love and team with Chewbacca, Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams), the Ewoks and the androids C-3PO and R2-D2 to aid in the disruption of the Dark Side and the defeat of the evil emperor.

STAR WARS: RETURN OF THE JEDI (1983) MOVIE REVIEW

Reviewed by Mark Geraghty   |   Review date 18 December 2013

​​Pop Movee Rating

STAR WARS: RETURN OF THE JEDI is the least admired of the original Star Wars films. After the revelations and tumult of THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, RETURN OF THE JEDI hits the re-set button and by the mid-point of the film all of the major character arcs have been resolved. Luke learns that Leia is his sister, Yoda tells him that his training is all-but complete and Han has been rescued from his carbonite imprisonment. Unfortunately, Leia doesn’t fare so well. The strong characterisation of the first two films is abandoned and she is relegated to ‘female object’ status. 

RETURN OF THE JEDI is a very uneven film...

The scenes at Jabba’s Palace and on his Sail Barge are full of over-the-top antics and seemed directed toward a younger audience. The second half of the film is more like EMPIRE, with its focus on Vader and the Emperor, as they seek to lure Luke to the Dark side of the Force. A lot of Jedi’s problems lie in this structural issue and it never feels as it’s a continuous story; more like two one-hour instalments of an ongoing adventure. The narrative genius of EMPIRE comes back to haunt George Lucas and Screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan. They clearly worked hard to tie-up the carry-over story arcs as well as provide a satisfying adventure in its own right, including the ‘big’ ending everyone fan of the series was hoping for, but it never quite pays off in the way it should. 

The film opens with the arrival of Darth Vader to the new, under-construction Death Star. Unlike the first film, here Vader is simply the messenger advising the Death Star’s Commander that the Emperor (Ian McDiarmid) is on his way to personally over-see the final stages of construction. This scene relegates Vader to supporting villain status for the remainder of the film and puts the audience on notice that something big is definitely planned with the Emperor for later in the film. For a character that had so much to do in the first two films, to this day, it remains a disappointment about Vader’s lack of presence in the third film. After the opening scene, the audience doesn’t get to see him again until a third of the way into the film and then, in the few scenes in which he appears, he has to share screen time with the Emperor.

In between the conclusion of EMPIRE and the start of RETURN OF THE JEDI, Luke, C-3PO and R2-D2 have journeyed to Tatooine in an effort to help Lando and Chewbacca rescue Han. The story picks up with the droids on their way to Jabba’s Palace and is a straight forward piece of story-telling.

In 2010, Lucasfilm released a new piece of deleted footage from the film, which preceded the droids arrival at the Palace, showing Vader reaching out to Luke while completing the construction of his new lightsabre. This small scene, when cut into the sequence, actually adds a lot of depth and establishes that Luke’s Jedi powers have developed significantly since the conclusion of EMPIRE.. 

After the droids arrival at Jabba’s Palace, it is established that Luke has gifted both R2 and 3PO to Jabba in exchange for an audience with him. Shortly after, a bounty hunter arrives at Jabba’s Court with an imprisoned Chewbacca. A tense stand-off ensues as the bounty hunter negotiates Chewbacca’s price. Later, the bounty hunter unfreezes Han from his carbon prison and is revealed to be Leia. Her efforts to rescue Han are thwarted, as Jabba has been aware of her plan all along. Luke eventually arrives at Jabba’s Palace, but is afforded no respect. He is imprisoned and forced to battle the giant Rancour beast as Jabba and his minions take pleasure from its chase of Luke. The audience, however, are aware by this stage that Lando is also at Jabba’s Palace, disguised as one of his guards. 

The action switches to Jabba’s Sail Barge which transports the captured heroes to the Sarlacc Pit, where they will be fed to a hideous creature and left to digest for a thousand years!

The climax of the first act ends in a series of acrobatic feats by Luke to rescue Han, Chewie and Leia, with a little help from Lando. Leia puts paid to Jabba by using her slave chains to choke the slothful creature to death. Luke subsequently blasts a hole in Jabba’s barge and the group escape. Luke and R2 head to Dagobah to see Yoda, while the Millennium Falcon plans to rendezvous with the Rebel fleet.

The JEDI Tatooine storyline never quite reaches the epic scope of the first film’s David Lean-like action set against vast desert vistas. George Lucas utilised Tunisia very effectively for STAR WARS, but too much of the Tatooine action of RETURN OF THE JEDI is set-based, so the vastness and isolation Luke feels about his home, with its twin suns, is never quite replicated and creates a marked difference in tone between the first and third films.

The regressive characterisations of Han and Leia are also a problem that the film never quite overcomes...

The spark that existed between them in EMPIRE is gone in JEDI. An explanation for this may be that the real-life relationship between Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher had ceased by the time JEDI was in production; never-the-less, these people are actors and the difference in their chemistry is noticeable. Luke is the only character who receives any forward development in JEDI, portraying a more serene and contemplative manner. There has been some speculation that Mark Hamill was not happy on the production and his acting is more reflective of a person who’s not putting in 100% effort. Either way, his character is different to the whining, petulant farm boy who inhabited the first two films.

The second act of JEDI is not traditional because the events of the third act have been telegraphed in the opening scene with Vader’s arrival at the new Death Star. The key to the second part of the film is how successful it is in positioning the characters to be where they need to be when the Death Star battle starts. This starts with Luke going to Dagobah and the revelation that Leia is his sister. Back in 1983 this was just as big as Vader’s revelation in EMPIRE. Time, however, has diminished the impact that Luke and Leia are twin brother and sister. Unlike the EMPIRE game-changer, there is less ‘shock’, as it’s more contrived in its introduction. Yoda had already alluded to “another” in the previous film and broad assumption always has been that George Lucas had Leia in mind, so her relationship with Luke is a set-up to manipulate the audience in JEDI. Yoda’s death also seemed manipulative and diminished the role the character played in the second film. 

Once the film concludes its Dagobah interlude, the story becomes a straight forward action affair...

Far too briefly, the trio of Luke, Leia and Han come back together and some of the magic of their inter-actions from the first film are recaptured. Soon after arriving on Endor, Luke surrenders himself to Imperial forces leaving Han and Leia to destroy the shield generator that protects the Death Star, while Lando leads the aerial assault. The ground battle on Endor doesn’t have the same epic quality as the ground battle on Hoth from EMPIRE. The Rebel soldiers teamed up with the Ewoks provides a lot of fun but compared to the ship-to-ship battle in the space above and the seriousness of events unfolding between Luke, Vader and the Emperor on the Death Star, the planet-side battle scene is underwhelming. 

The Industrial Light & Magic team went for broke with the ship-to-ship battle scene in JEDI. In the years between STAR WARS and RETURN OF THE JEDI, the core group of ILM technicians made significant advances in the area of visual effects. The space battle benefits greatly from these advances and the scene where the Rebel fleet and the Imperial forces come together in a frenzy of ship-to-ship combat is one of the most exhilarating visual effects shots ever committed to film. In the last thirty years, with the development of computer generated effects, the number of elements in effects shots has been able to increase far beyond what is shown in JEDI, but there remains to this day a special quality to its space battle that makes it truly memorable.

What is also memorable in the third act is the confrontation between Luke, Darth Vader and the Emperor...

The intensity of the first encounter between Luke and Vader in EMPIRE is equalled in JEDI, as Luke no longer fears Vader and believes he can turn him back to the light side of the Force. Even Vader’s threats to try and turn Leia to the dark side end up being a liability for Vader as it drives Luke even harder to come away from the duel victorious. Once Luke defeats Vader, it then becomes the place of the Emperor to try and turn Luke to the dark side. When Luke cannot be turned, Palpatine strikes him repeatedly with his Force lightning. Vader, in a dying act of redemption, rids the galaxy of the Emperor and saves Luke’s life, with the understanding that the Jedi will now continue with his son’s safety assured.

The disappointing part about the final scene between Luke and Vader is the reveal of Anakin. Actor Sebastian Shaw who played this scene as Anakin was seventy-eight years old when he played this part, which made him look far too old to be Anakin. George Lucas went part of the way to addressing this in the 2004 DVD release of all six films by having Shaw’s image digitally altered look more like Hayden Christensen, the actor who played Anakin in the second and third prequel films, when Luke removes Vader’s helmet. Lucas also replaced Shaw with Christensen entirely in the film’s final scene when Anakin, Yoda and Obi-Wan appear as spirits to Luke.

​The intensity of the film’s second half lifts RETURN OF THE JEDI but not enough for it to be considered as ground-breaking as STAR WARS or as game-changing as THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. It’s a competent action adventure film and it does everything it needs to do to bring the trilogy to a logical close. It’s hard not be disappointed though, as the first two were such wonderful films and deserved to have a truly epic finale that not only concluded Luke Skywalker’s path to be a Jedi but also made us believe that his journey was only just beginning...

STAR WARS: RETURN OF THE JEDI (1983) USEFUL LINKS

Return of the Jedi - Wikipedia
​Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983) - IMDb
​Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983) - Rotten Tomatoes​

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