After the cliffhanger ending of the middle installment THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1980), STAR WARS fans who were there from the beginning (like me) had no idea what to expect from the third episode of the trilogy. Even the title was kept a secret by creator George Lucas until close to its release. As it would turn out, RETURN OF THE JEDI (1983) would be a split personality of a finale. The first 45 minutes of JEDI were as strange and mysterious as audiences could have expected (including providing us teenage fanboys with the indelible image of a scantily clad Princess Leia in loin cloth and golden brassiere). The second half of JEDI reverted back to a more mainstream story and images STAR WARS fans were accustomed to and revealed a side of Lucas fans weren't expecting: adorable, little furry creatures from the forest moon of Endor called Ewoks that could be turned into all kinds of toy merchandising.
RETURN OF THE JEDI provided fans with plenty of old and new characters to be excited about: the return of the gluttonous gangster Jabba the Hut; more screen time for everyone's favorite Mandalorian bounty hunter Boba Fett; a new monster that Luke Skywalker encounters in Jabba's palace called Rancor; a new creepy majordomo for Jabba the Hut named Bib Fortuna; and the afore mentioned (ahem) sexy Princess Leia barely dressed as Jabba's slave girl. But those same enthusiastic fans were disappointed in Lucas's choice of freedom fighters to assist our heroes in defeating the Galactic Empire on Endor. Ewoks. A mix between dwarves and bears, the Ewoks were too cute and cuddly for die hard STAR WARS fans (I did not have a problem with them). Lucas's affinity for cute characters would raise its ugly head again with the character of Jar Jar Binks in STAR WARS: EPISODE 1 - THE PHANTOM MENACE (1999).
As with THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, Lucas again turned the day to day directorial reins for RETURN OF THE JEDI over to another fairly unknown director as he had previously with Irvin Kershner in THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK: Welsh director Richard Marquand who was just coming off a successful adaption of Ken Follett's World War II thriller novel EYE OF THE NEEDLE (1981) with Donald Sutherland and Kate Nelligan. Lucas still oversaw the entire production daily to ensure Marquand was achieving his vision. And RETURN OF THE JEDI'S screenplay was written by Lucas along with THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK co-screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan. The third film in this incredible trilogy was still Lucas's baby.
RETURN OF THE JEDI opens one year later after THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK as Darth Vader (David Prowse; voiced by James Earl Jones) visits a newer, better, partially built second version of the armored space station the Death Star. Vader warns the current Admiral that the Emperor (Ian McDiarmid) will be arriving soon and expects the station to be completed. We jump to Tatooine where R2DS (Kenny Bake) and C3PO (Anthony Daniels) arrive at Jabba the Hut's palace with a message from Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill). Jabba's majordomo Bib Fortuna (Michael Carter) brings the droids to Jabba. Luke's holographic message is to strike a bargain with Jabba for Han Solo's (Harrison Ford) release. Han decorates Jabba's den frozen in carbonite. Disguised as a bounty hunter, Leia (Carrie Fischer) brings in a handcuffed Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew). Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams) also lurks in the palace. At night, Leia and Chewbacca thaw out the temporarily blind Han only to be caught by Jabba and his court of alien creatures.
A hooded Luke shows up at the palace. He finds Leia chained to Jabba as a slave girl. Han and Chewbacca stuck in a cell. Luke attempts to make a deal with Jabba only to be lured to a trap door where he tumbles to a pit and dispatches of Jabba's pet creature Rancor. Jabba and his crew take the prisoners on his Sail Barge into the desert where he plans to throw them into the Sarlaac Pit where a tentacled creature with sharp teeth awaits. With the assistance of R2D2, Luke reobtains his green light saber. He along with Han, Leia, and Lando dispatch of Jabba, Boba Fett, and the other scum, blowing up the barge. Luke and R2D2 head to Dagobah to visit Yoda (Frank Oz). Han, Leia, Chewbacca, and Lando reconnect with the Rebel Alliance.
The Emperor arrives on the new Death Star to meet with Vader. He tells Vader to be patient about finding Skywalker. Luke will come to Vader. Luke connects with Yoda on Dagobah. Yoda confirms that Vader is Luke's father. The 900 year old Yoda passes away peacefully. Luke is visited by the Force Ghost of Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness). Obi reveals to Luke that Leia is Luke's twin sister. Obi tells Luke to become a true Jedi, he will have to confront Vader. The Rebel Alliance make Lando a general. Admiral Ackbar (Tim Rose) sends Han, Leia, and the rest (including Luke who has returned from Dagobah) on a mission to the forest moon Endor to knock out an energy shield that protects the new Death Star. With the shield disabled, the rebels squadron of X-Wing fighters can destroy it. Using a stolen Imperial shuttle and pass code, Luke, Han, and the others pass through the Death Star's checkpoints to Endor. The Emperor and Vader sense Luke is on that shuttle.
On Endor, the group encounter storm troopers. Luke and Leia chase after a pair of fleeing storm troopers on speeder bikes before they can warn the Empire. Leia is knocked off her speeder bike. She's found by Wicket (Warwick Davis), a furry inhabitant of Endor called Ewoks. When Luke and Han are captured by more storm troopers, they're rescued by a tribe of Ewoks who take them back as prisoners to their wooded encampment where they find Leia. The Ewoks believe the golden droid C3PO is a god. Luke makes C3PO levitate, scaring the Ewoks who accept the visitors as friendly. Luke reveals to Leia that they are brother and sister. Vader arrives on Endor where Luke surrenders to him. While Vader takes Luke back to the Death Star and turns him over to the Emperor, Lando and his squadron prepare to attack the Death Star. Will Han, Leia, and the Ewoks be able to knock out the energy shield so Lando and the Rebel Alliance can blow up the new Death Star? And will Luke be able to turn his father Darth Vader away from the dark side or will the Emperor destroy Luke and extinguish the Jedi Knights for good?
I remember when Time Magazine had STAR WARS as its cover story in 1977, film critic Richard Corliss stated that Lucas's fantasy film referenced everything from Flash Gordon to Robin Hood to the Wizard of Oz. In RETURN OF THE JEDI, Lucas and Kasdan definitely pay homage to some of those stories. The band of Ewoks can be compared to Robin Hood's Merry Men in Michael Curtiz's 1938 THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD (with Han Solo as Robin Hood and Princess Leia as Maid Marian. The Ewoks assault on the deflector shield and the storm troopers protecting it is reminiscent of Robin's Merry Men attacking the Sheriff of Nottingham and King John's soldiers when they ride through the Sherwood Forest. The Ewoks also remind me of the Seven Dwarves from SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARVES (1937). The Ewoks are short in stature and each one has a slightly different personality similar to the Dwarves. When Wicket comes across Leia on the forest floor, it's like the Dwarves finding Snow White asleep in their cottage.
Luke and Leia hopping on speeder bikes to pursue a pair of fleeing stormtroopers harkens to William Wyler's BEN HUR (1959) and its famous chariot race. When Luke and a stormtrooper are side by side, clashing their speeder bikes against each other, trying to knock the other one off, it's a space version of Charlton Heston and Stephen Boyd dueling it out with their chariots in BEN HUR. And Luke's removal of Darth Vader's helmet to see for the first time his father's human face can be linked to Dorothy pulling the back the curtain in Victor Fleming's THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939) to reveal the all and powerful Oz is just a normal human being.
I never fully appreciated the father/son storyline between Luke and Darth Vader when I originally watched RETURN OF THE JEDI. Vader was cool but kind of a stock matinee villain in the vein of the bad guy in a western complete with black suit and helmet. There wasn't much depth to Vader's personality in the first two STAR WARS films except for his heavy breathing (and James Earl Jones's fantastic voice). With RETURN OF THE JEDI, we finally see a human side to the machine like Vader as he grapples with the Emperor's wishes to either turn Luke to the Dark Side or destroy the young Jedi. Luke also struggles with trying to connect with a father he never knew and bring him back to the good side of the Force (Lucas will explore Vader's aka Annakin Skywalker's back story in his prequel trilogy beginning with THE PHANTOM MENACE). This father/son subplot is the strongest, most dramatic part of the STAR WARS series. Ultimately, Vader stands up to the Emperor, sacrificing his life to save his son Luke's, tossing the Emperor to his death down a shaft on the Death Star. Luke's taking off Vader's helmet to reveal our first look at his father Annakin's face is one of the most poignant scenes in the series.
Beginning with STAR WARS and then THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, Lucas and his creative team made tremendous strides in each film with its visual effects. RETURN OF THE JEDI boasts the most impressive and visually stunning space landscapes of the trilogy including dozens of X-Wing fighters zipping and darting around the Empire's Star Destroyers during a dog fight, more spaceships in a single shot than we had ever seen before. The matte paintings of Jabba's fortress set against the Tatooine desert or the multiple moons of Endor are breathtaking. My favorite image is the partially built second Death Star, floating malevolently in space, like a decaying haunted house or partial skull.
For RETURN OF THE JEDI, Lucas brought back a favorite villain, spotlighted another that had become a fan favorite after THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, and introduced some new creatures. The gangster Jabba the Hut was talked about but never seen in the original STAR WARS before technology brought him to visual life in Lucas's STAR WARS SPECIAL EDITION version. A large space slug like Sydney Greenstreet, Jabba is despicable whether decorating his den with a frozen Han Solo or forcing Leia to be chained to him as his personal slave. Leia will get her revenge on Jabba on the Space Barge. A minor, barely seen character in THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, bounty hunter Boba Fett (Jeremy Bulloch) with his unique suit and jet pack has a little more screen time in RETURN OF THE JEDI as one of Jabba's hired guns. Boba's father Jango Fett will be prominent in the STAR WARS prequel series such as STAR WARS: EPISODE II - THE ATTACK OF THE CLONES (2002).
My two personal favorites in RETURN OF THE JEDI are two new characters. Bib Fortuna is Jabba's Iago like majordomo and key advisor. You can't miss him with his orange eyes and large green tentacle sprouting from his head and around his throat. The Rancor is Jabba's pet predator, hidden in the bowels of his palace awaiting Jabba's next unsuspecting victim to step onto Jabba's trap door. Bones litter the Rancor's lair. The Rancor's screen time is short lived as it comes up against one foe it cannot devour. Luke Skywalker.
If THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK showcased Han Solo and Leia, RETURN OF THE JEDI is Mark Hamill's chance to shine again as Luke Skywalker, the young farm kid we met back in STAR WARS (1977) who dreamt of flying X-Wing fighters for the Rebels. What a journey it's been. In RETURN OF THE JEDI, Luke starts off calm and mysterious as he infiltrates Jabba's palace, channeling his mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi. He witnesses the passing of another teacher in Yoda on Dagobah. Luke's determination to connect with the father he never knew in Darth Vader and bring him back to the good side of the force is touching. Vader will save his son from the Emperor and their final farewell with Luke lifting Vader's helmet off to see his father's face for the first time is powerful. Hamill rises to the challenge with a mature performance in the final film of the trilogy.
Some final RETURN OF THE JEDI trivia tidbits. For most of the production, the title of the third film was going to be REVENGE OF THE JEDI. But weeks before the film was going to be released, Lucas went back to his original title RETURN OF THE JEDI. I think he made the right choice. Harrison Ford had only signed up for the first two films and had become a major movie star after Steven Spielberg's RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981). His character Han Solo was frozen in carbonite in THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK with the thought he might not want to return for the third film. Ford did sign up for RETURN OF THE JEDI. He's got some of the film's best quips but it's not Ford's strongest appearance in the trilogy as everyone's favorite mercenary Han Solo. Jabba's Palace is Lucas's attempt to top the Cantina scene from STAR WARS with even more strange and bizarre aliens including Bib Fortuna, the Rancor, and palace guards that look like walking warthogs. RETURN OF THE JEDI even throws in a dance sequence at the palace that turns deadly for one of the dancers. The tone of that sequence never quite works for me.
Making just one film is a tricky thing. Making three films like the STAR WARS series that has lasted the test of time and seared itself into Pop Culture seems impossible but George Lucas and his creative team pulled it off. RETURN OF THE JEDI was a satisfying conclusion to Lucas's trilogy that turned out to be the middle section of a nine part story. Lucas would discover that capturing lightning in the bottle not twice but three times was not so easy. Although his prequels (THE PHANTOM MENACE, ATTACK OF THE CLONES, and REVENGE OF THE SITH) tracing the rise and transformation of Luke's father Annakin Skywalker from Jedi protege to the evil Darth Vader had their moments and introduced the STAR WARS universe to a generation of new fans (like my son), it wasn't the original. More recently, the final three films in the series (THE FORCE AWAKENS, THE LAST JEDI, and THE RISE OF SKYWALKER) faced even tougher scrutiny and did not satisfy many die hard fans (like my son or I). The STAR WARS universe is still going strong in the cinema and on streaming television. But they will never top the original STAR WARS, THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, or RETURN OF THE JEDI experience.
