Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (1983) Review

Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (1983) 8/10

Hello and welcome to another movie review and the final installment of the original Star Wars trilogy. Return of the Jedi was first released on May 25, 1983, with the director being Richard Marquand, with a screenplay by George Lucas and Lawrence Kasdan. Upon release, Jedi was incredibly successful and even became the highest grossing movie of 1983. Since its release, Jedi has been entered the US National Library of Congress for preservation, rounding out the trilogy.

Jedi is regarded as the “worst” movie of the original trilogy. It’s not a bad movie at all, but it’s just not as good as the original film and Empire. I’ve always loved this movie simply because of Luke Skywalker and his development from farm boy to Jedi Knight. Seeing this guy flex his confidence against a notorious gangster and even confront both his father and the evil Emperor himself was always a blast for me. As for the rest of the movie, it’s fine but they aren’t notable aspects, at least to me. For this review, I watched the original theatrical release, but I’ll be going over the Special Edition later on. Let’s begin.

Some time has passed since Luke survived his encounter with Darth Vader. Han Solo has been frozen in carbonite and is in Jabba the Hutt’s hands. Luke plans on breaking Han free, but first he needs to set the chess pieces in motion. After the whole Jabba thing, Luke, Han, Chewie, Leia, C-3PO, R2, and Lando must find a way to destroy the newly built second Death Star before it becomes operational. To do this, they’ll have to sneak onto the forest moon of Endor and sabotage the shield generator to allow passage into the Death Star. As fate would have it, The Emperor himself is overseeing the final stages of the Death Star reconstruction, which gives Luke the prime opportunity to confront both of them and rescue his father from the Dark Side.

As a final entry into this amazing trilogy, Return of the Jedi is a solid movie, but I do have a few issues with it. But first, the positives. The best part about this whole movie is Luke. This is clearly a Luke Skywalker movie first and foremost, with everything else (regarding Han and the Rebels) following suit. I really loved everything regarding the first 40 minutes with Jabba. Throughout the past two movies, Jabba has been talked about, but we never had a face to the name until now, and man what an ugly mug lmao. Really fits the wretchedness of the business. Luke slowly placing the chess pieces where they needed to be in order to pull off the rescue was incredibly brilliant, but I wouldn’t have minded a more explosive, more entertaining rescue at the Sarlacc Pit. I’m not saying what we got was bad, but I feel it needed a little extra oomph as it played Jabba as a little reckless. Bro already knew how to deal with Jedi seeing as he knew about their mind tricks, so you’d think he would beef up security during the execution. Regardless, it’s still a fun scene, but I would have preferred to see more of the bounty hunters present (like the ones we saw in Empire). Seeing Bossk and IG-88 in action would have been dope.

The rest of the movie is fine, with again the best parts being Luke’s scenes. Him returning to Yoda to complete his training, only to learn that Vader is in fact his father and that he has a twin sister named Leia. Kind of a random plot development, but I guess it works lol. I also like how when Luke was like “why didn’t you tell me this” and Kenobi was like “I did, from a certain point of view”, Luke called out his bullshit. Ben was trying to teach him something about POVs and expectations, but for something like that, I really do think Kenobi should have flat out said “Vader is your father, and you have a twin sister somewhere.” Maybe not tell Luke this immediately but at some point, he should have said something. And then there’s the stuff on Endor. I honestly didn’t really care for the speeder bike chase nor the Ewoks.

Speaking of Ewoks, I do need to mention something, and I blame Family Guy for pointing this out. In the Family Guy parody of RotJ, there was a joke about how the Stormtrooper armor does absolutely nothing to protect the wearer, showing sticks and stones destroying the Stormtroopers. That is NOT what happened here. The Ewoks were merely poking an elephant with their attacks. They got in some good hits, but the damage they were dealing was hardly any at all. If you actually pay attention to the Stormtroopers, they were getting knocked down, but none of them were down for the count. They got back up and started shooting again. I think I saw somewhere years ago that George Lucas originally wanted Endor to be the Wookie home planet (Kashyyyk) but then decided to change it to Endor because of budget constraints. If this is true, I would have much preferred this over the dumb teddy bears. Although if you think about it, The Emperor probably picked Endor specifically because of its location in the Galaxy (most likely on the Outer Rim) while still being a hospitable place for his men (while also posing a small threat from local wildlife). Overall the Ewoks are okay, but I honestly don’t care for them like I do with many other aliens within the universe, which I’m sure plenty of other people share the same feelings.

The Battle of Endor is split up into three parts: Space Battle, Land Battle, and Luke. The Space Battle with Lando was cool. Seeing an actual space battle in Star Wars was awesome to see (we’ve seen chases and little skirmishes at this point, but nothing like this). Lando used a really cool, but dangerous tactic, but I do wish we got to see some more fancy flying during this part, but I guess that’s more of a Han thing. The Land Battle at the shield generator was alright. Probably the weakest aspect of this battle. This battle was mainly just chaos. I would have preferred seeing some actual military tactics going on, especially from the Imperial side. And we have Luke’s side of things, again the best part of the movie. I LOVE everything regarding Luke and his encounter with The Emperor. The theme of balance between light and dark, Luke’s ability to tap into his aggression, but then bounce back was awesome. The Emperor egging him on to give into his anger and his hate. This entire fight was awesome. And the best part, when Luke had enough compassion to throw his weapon away in front of his mortal enemy and ask for peace. That is the cherry on this delicious cake and easily the highlight of the entire movie. Vader saving Luke and throwing The Emperor down the hole was awesome too, but that moment before was something else. Pure cinema. Overall, from a writing standpoint, RotJ is a decent movie, but could have been fixed up in a few areas to give it the same depth as the previous two films.

As for production, Jedi looks just as good as the previous films. I love the look and designs for Jabba and all of the aliens at his palace. Jabba is so disgusting, but he has such an iconic design. The Ewoks are okay, but I would have preferred something else. The rest of the movie looks great. Again, I love all of The Emperor’s scenes, especially in his throne room. And again, John Williams delivers on a masterful soundtrack, and the cast did a great job with their performances. Best performances go to Mark Hamill (Luke), Harrison Ford (Han), David Prowse/James Earl Jones (Darth Vader), Ian McDiarmid (The Emperor), Anthony Daniels (C-3PO), and the puppeteers for Jabba. Carrie and Billy Dee were fine too, but everyone else was better.

As for the Special Edition version, there were some many changes here. James Earl Jones re-recorded some lines, some changes to post production, blah blah blah. The two biggest changes here are in Jabba’s Palace and at the very end of the film. In Jabba’s Palace, there was a music scene showing a Twi’lek slave dancing to some music. The SE changes this scene to a completely different song with a new alien singing. The poor slave still gets dropped into the Rancor pit, but it’s not entirely the same as before. Personally, I don’t really care about this scene too much. The original is fine, but honestly I like the SE version more. I grew up with that song playing in Battlefront 2 (2005) on the Mos Eisley map, and the scene ultimately doesn’t really matter. This change is fine. The second change is what pisses me (and everyone else) off. At the very end of the movie at the party, we see Force Ghosts of Kenobi and Yoda with Anakin (formerly Vader) appearing right next to them. In the original version, it’s Sebastian Shaw who appears, but in the SE version, we see Hayden Christensen from Episode III, which makes no fucking sense. Why would a younger version of him appear as a Force Ghost? This is just an insult to Sebastian. In the SE, we also see other planets celebrating the Emperor’s death (like we see Naboo from Episode I, Coruscant from Episode III, and even Tatooine. I don’t mind this little addition too. Overall, I would give this version a 7.5/10. Still good, but the OG is better. 

Overall Return of the Jedi is a good movie and a good end to a legendary trilogy. I can agree that this is the weakest of the OT, but it’s still a solid movie from start to finish. I’m definitely going to be watching these movies again in the future and I can’t wait to revisit the trilogy that I grew up with. I’ll be going over the Prequels in the near future, so stay tuned.

Thanks for reading.

        This is Zorgak, signing off.