Revisiting Star Wars - Episode VI: Return of the Jedi

Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (1983): Dir. Richard Marquand. Written by: Lawrence Kasdan and George Lucas. Story by: George Lucas. Starring: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee Williams and Ian McDiarmid. Rated PG (Stormtrooper on Ewok violence and a revealing gold bikini). Running time: 134 minutes.

2 ½ stars (out of four)

When we last left our heroes, things weren’t looking too good. Luke abandoned his Jedi training to fight his (spoiler alert) father, Darth Vader, and lost his right hand in the process. Han Solo was frozen in carbonite and taken by a bounty hunter, his fate now in the hands of the gangster Jabba the Hutt, to whom Han owes a considerable debt. The Rebel Alliance suffered a serious blow in their war against the Empire when their secret base on Hoth was invaded and obliterated. Good must prevail though and the battle comes to a conclusion in Return of the Jedi, the whiz-bang final chapter of George Lucas’s Star Wars saga.

The film opens on Tatooine, the homeworld of Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), where Jabba’s lair rests between the sand dunes. Jabba, as it turns out, is a massive, ill-tempered slug and his horrifying, bloated body is one of Mr. Lucas’s finest creations. He remains planted on a raised platform while musicians and dancers perform for him. The fact that he never moves is a sure sign of the influence he holds over the unsavory characters who hang around his palace. The rescue of Han Solo (Harrison Ford), which involves an elaborate bit of deception and more than one lucky break, takes up the first half hour. Its a thrilling sequence and the highlight of the film.

But there are bigger foes to face (if not in actual size) than Jabba and in Return of the Jedi we finally meet the dreaded Emperor (Ian McDiarmid). In the film’s opening scene, Darth Vader (the body of David Prowse, the voice of James Earl Jones and – at long last – the face of Sebastian Shaw) tells the commander of a second Death Star, “The Emperor is not as forgiving as I am.” The irony of this comment is surely not lost the commander, having no doubt heard about the half-dozen officers who were strangled to death by Vader in the last film.

The remainder of the movie follows Luke, Han, Leia (Carrie Fisher) and the rest of the Alliance as they plot to destroy the new Death Star before it becomes fully operational. In order to do so, they must first take out a power supply located on a nearby “forest moon” called Endor. There they find an unlikely ally in an indigenous species of waddling teddy bears so cuddly that everyone in the movie smiles at the sight of them.

Return of the Jedi, written by Lawrence Kasdan and Mr. Lucas and directed by Richard Marquand, has no shortage of creative creatures or locales but its tone is confused. George Lucas seems to want the film to be a light-hearted adventure, perhaps more in the vein of A New Hope. Return of the Jedi, however, does not have the simple, classical structure that is essential to that film's plucky innocence. Instead Jedi chases multiple narrative threads much as The Empire Strikes Back does but it’s difficult to take Jedi as seriously as Empire because it so often undermines its own drama.

In its final act, when the tension should be at its height, the movie oddly juggles two vastly different moods. The antics of the Ewoks, even in battle, are broad comic relief, an odd counterpoint to the gloom of Luke’s confrontation with the Emperor. The film needs to choose – it can’t have it both ways – and Mr. Marquand clumsily moves from one to the other without finding an appropriate middle ground.

He also lets the movie slouch during key scenes, bringing Jedi’s energy and momentum to a halt. In Luke’s revealing conversation with Leia under the stars – where he discusses some important familial connections crucial to the mythology of the series – Mr. Marquand does little to liven the bland performances of Mr. Hamill and Ms. Fisher and what should be a startling revelation becomes a snoozer of a scene.

Plenty of stuff happens in Return of the Jedi and yet there isn’t much of a story. Once the action gets going, there aren’t any surprises. Everything plays out as you would expect and, in a way, that sounds like a satisfying movie. But simply following one narrow path toward the inevitable Jedi victory with nary a twist or turn thrown in to surprise audiences makes for underwhelming entertainment. If the first Star Wars set the blueprint for the present-day Hollywood blockbuster and The Empire Strikes Back elevated the genre with smart storytelling and artful style, Return of the Jedi is one of the first “event movies” to opt for the easy route: Give audiences what they want, don’t take many risks and success will be guaranteed.

That may sound like faint praise (it is) but I mean it when I say the film is a success. That it is still pretty good fun is a testament to the strength of its best moments. The speeder chase on Endor is as lively and exciting as anything in the series and the segment at Jabba’s palace could stand on its own as a mini-episode. I am also fond of the performances of Harrison Ford and Ian McDiarmid, both of whom know how to handle this material. Return of the Jedi stands on the shoulders of its predecessors and delivers more of the same. I wish it had tried to do more but, as a friend of mine once told me, there is no “try.” Only this.

- Steve Avigliano, 4/5/12