Star Wars: Return of the Jedi

Well, it was bound to happen. One of these films was not going to hold up. Though the weakest of the trilogy is still better than 99% of the genre entertainment we get thrown at us today, I may have grown past the appeal of The Return of the Jedi. I’m actually shocked at how A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back have grown in my esteem over the past twenty years. But it was probably asking too much to have the magic preserved through the entire trilogy.

As I mentioned before, I was a Return of the Jedi kid. Knowing what I do of childhood sensibilities, it is no wonder. Jedi has the most diverse and exhilarating battle scenes of any of the original films, and the fuzzy-wuzzy Ewoks (as Roger Ebert calls them) with their slapstick attacks on the Empire were perfect avatars for kids who envisioned themselves playing their own part in those battles. Sadly, the fantasy around the Ewoks has diminished and the epic battles, though awesome, look more and more like tent poles with no tent to support.

Yesterday’s viewing of Return of the Jedi stung a bit. I don’t hate the movie. I don’t even dislike the movie. However, when you consider how many moments in this movie I absolutely love, it seemed peculiar to get to the end and find that I didn’t love the film.

As I looked back over what I wrote about A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, I was surprised to find that I mentioned very little, if anything, about the Special Edition’s contributions to the trilogy. I neglected to mention the changes, because most of them didn’t bother me. Aside from the Greedo debacle, A New Hope’s touch-ups are mostly painless. Jabba’s cameo is still completely gratuitous, but at least it isn’t the eyesore it once was. Empire’s additions actually enhanced the film. The rewriting of the conversation between Vader and the Emperor did a wonderful job of tying the prequels to the original trilogy. I especially like that the Emperor refers to Luke as “the son of Anakin Skywalker.” They speak as though Anakin and Vader are two completely different people, a “certain point of view” that Obi-Wan Kenobi justifies in Jedi. But the conversation between Vader and the Emperor is the only narrative change to Empire. The rest of the changes equal touch-ups – cleaning up matte work, enhancing backgrounds; every frame on Bespin is absolutely gorgeous.

I wish Lucas could have executed the changes to Jedi with the delicacy of Empire, but Jedi’s updates are about as subtle as a slap across the face with a rotten salmon. The changes don’t service the story; they distract from it. In the worst of cases, Lucas savages both the pace of the film and some of our favorite characters at the same time. This nonsense starts early and digs in for the entirety of the film.

The beginning of Return of the Jedi is appropriately ominous. Coming out of the dark hold of Empire, the threat remains great. We learn that a new Death Star is well in the works and the conspicuously absent Emperor will finally appear in the flesh to oversee the final stages of its construction. R2-D2 and C-3PO are making the slow slog to Jabba’s palace, where Han Solo remains in carbon captivity. We hear that Lando and Chewbacca have already made the trip, but have not returned.

Jabba’s palace is one of the more wonderful environments in the trilogy. It is dark and dank and slimy, much like the gangster himself. Creatures lounge about the floor, staring out of the corners of their eyes, everyone suspicious of everyone, and everyone deeply fearful of the massive slug on the throne. Down in the catacombs, we’re taken to a droid torture chamber, with branding irons and a torture rack. This palace is saturated with blood, and death, and fear.

But apparently, in this dark environment, they like R&B. The promotion of Sy Snootles and the Max Rebo band from background characters who contribute to the wonderfully sinister ambiance of Jabba’s palace to in-your-face CGI monstrosities is emblematic of Lucas’ romance with enhanced special effects at the expense of atmosphere, pacing, or character. Who can take the threat of Jabba seriously after that completely gratuitous song-and-dance number? If Lucas wanted to stay true to Jabba’s character, he would have dropped that new mouthy furball into the Rancor pit. But it’s clear Lucas enjoys this little ditty. How do we know? Because he gives us extreme close-ups of these amped up lead singers, coming perilously close to Snootles’s glistening ruby red lips and bug eyes while we’re nearly swallowed by that other reject from the Honey Comb commercials. In case we might forget how annoying their presence is and how damaging these characters are to the tone of those opening scenes, Sy proceeds to go bug-eyed and squeal “Uh oh” when Jabba drops his dancer through the trapdoor.

But that isn’t all the damage Lucas does to the first third of the film, no. Despite my irritation with the overt “enhancement” of Max Rebo and Company, it is a brief cutaway that sticks with me the most. As we’re given a tour of the different creatures and conversations going on in the throne room, we cut to Boba Fett, that enigmatic loner who captured viewers’ attention with his aloof presence and silent nods. And what is Boba Fett doing? He’s surrounded by women, Snootles’s mutant back-up singers to be specific. They’re cooing over him as he gives one a gentle nudge to her chin.

WHAT!?!?

This is the character whose introduction to the Star Wars mythos involved Darth Vader, the most evil man in the galaxy, singling him out from a line of bounty hunters and ordering him to reign in his predilection for disintegration when he went after the Millenium Falcon. Boba Fett is a nasty man. He’s not Humphrey Bogart with a jetpack. This cutaway just disgusts me.

Once we leave Jabba’s palace, Lucas goes through most of the movie without contributing more flaws to the film. But he manages to add a whopper in the closing moments of the film. One of the iconic images of the trilogy – the blue apparitions of Obi-Wan, Yoda, and Anakin on Endor – is sapped of all its resonance as Sebastian Shaw, the original Anakin Skywalker, is replaced by Hayden Christensen.

I understand Lucas’s desire to tie his original trilogy back to the prequels, but this effort fails on so many levels it’s heartbreaking. First and foremost, Lucas exposes Christensen’s weakness as a performer placing him next to Alec Guinness. As hard as young Hayden tries, he doesn’t have the presence, the gravitas, needed from this very poignant moment. I don’t know who was giving him directions, but Christensen looks as though he just stepped out of the Jedi wardrobe room for the first time. His cheesy grin is that of a little boy dressing up for Halloween; I half expected him to say “Look Mom!” In the brief moments of screen time Sebastian Shaw had, he completely subtly embodied both the thankfulness of finally being freed from the dark side and his sadness over the atrocities he committed as Vader. Christensen looks like he would have high-fived Luke: “Thanks, dude. ‘preciate it.” I don’t know if this is true, but I have a feeling this was a spur of the moment decision. I don’t think Christensen is a bad actor, even if he was horribly miscast as Anakin. I figure Lucas had Christensen in front of one of his blue screens during Episode III filming, got the tickle for this idea, and told Hayden to just stand there for a moment. That would explain the fact that his eyes roam all over the place, where as Yoda and Obi-Wan are clearly focused on Luke, and why he has that ridiculous smile on his face. The only explanation for how awkward Christensen looks is that Lucas put him on the spot and never really told him what he was doing.

Still, even if the performance had been right Hayden Christensen should never have replaced Sebastian Shaw for one reason: age. Mark Hamill was an old 32 when he filmed Return of the Jedi. Hayden Christensen is still a young 24. Luke looks like he’s staring at his son, not his father. Hayden’s just a kid, and Hamill clearly is not. If Lucas were going to go with this, I don’t understand why he wouldn’t change Obi-Wan, as well. Put Ewan McGregor in as Obi-Wan’s youthful representation. Putting the green Christensen next to the veteran of all veterans, Alec Guinness, is so stupid it makes my head ache. There is a hilarious moment when Yoda and Obi-Wan turn to look at Anakin (now Christensen), and there’s a sense of Guinness looking at Hayden with a chuckle, as if he were singing in his head “One of these things is not like the other?” For those of us who have tried to separate the original trilogy from the prequels as much as possible, in our minds and our hearts, this final moment hurts quite a bit.

All right. Now that I got that all out of the way, I said at the beginning of this article that I don’t hate this movie, and despite that rather lengthy and enthusiastic diatribe, I say again that I don’t hate this movie. In fact, even with all his foibles Lucas hasn’t completely blinded me to the things that I loved about Jedi as a child.

Though I haven’t seen Episode III (it debuted at midnight last night), I am certain that the most emotionally charged and satisfying sequence of the Star Wars trilogy takes place in Return of the Jedi. When Luke hides beneath the steps in the Emperor’s throne room, and Vader stalks him within his mind, reading his fear and threatening to turn Leia, the fury and passion with which Luke goes after Vader is stirring. The long shot of Luke and Vader exchanging blows against the backdrop of an enormous window into space with John Williams’s score channeling Luke’s dark turn with a moaning choral arrangement is awe-inspiring. I cheer the feral aggression with which Luke pounds on the fallen Sith lord. Imagine what Episode II would have felt like had Hayden Christensen had the same ferocity when he dispatched the Tusken Raiders who killed his mother? Christensen’s glowering glare looks drama school next to Hamill Unleashed.

In all, I think the climax of Return of the Jedi is unmatched in terms of rollicking adventure. Ewoks get their fair share of hate from the masses, but I have absolutely no problem with them. In fact, I love the fact that the technological giant is defeated by archaic means like catapults and log rolls. There are a lot of inventive things going on during the battle of Endor, and unlike the battles in the prequels, single indelible moments like the AT-ST walker getting its head smashed between two swinging logs are given the viewers’ complete attention. Sure, it’s impressive how much goes on in the prequel battles, but how many individual moments stand out like those in Jedi?

The space battle in Jedi remains my favorite of the series. There are just enough fighters and frigates and star destroyers to be awe-inspiring, but not so many that it just becomes one big indistinct mess. The race through the Death Star adds a claustrophobic element to A New Hope’s tunnel chase. Not to mention, this is the first time where the Millenium Falcon finds itself at the center of a monumental space conflict. I could break this whole thing down into my favorite moments – like the A-wing going kamikaze through the bridge of the super star destroyer – but then this would just end up being a play-by-play of the entire exchange. Go watch the film and enjoy.

A special note deserves to be made regarding John Williams’s score during the climax of Jedi. Before CD came to the fore, I got a highlight audio tape of Star Wars music. The longest track on the tape was the scoring of the three-way battle at the end of Jedi. I completely wore it out. Each locale – outer space, Endor, the Death Star – had their own unique strains and themes and each one enhanced these scenes to a staggering degree. One could sense the tides of the battles turning through the most subtle cues in Williams’s music. Probably the best work he did for that galaxy far, far away.

I love the action in this film – the Sarlac pit, the battle on Endor, the final Vader/Luke battle. However, the weakness of this film is that there’s very little between those scenes to hold onto. Yoda’s death (“Forever sleep. Earned it I have.”) is remarkably poignant, but it feels like the only scene with real dramatic heft. So much talk of destiny surrounds Luke’s quest to confront Vader that it cuts out any sense of suspense. Unlike in Empire, Luke’s confidence never wavers and so neither does ours. We know he’ll win, and the story never forces us to question that certainty. I guess the conclusion is satisfying, but I think a talented writer could have had a little more fun leading up to it.

So, while the action and adventure is superior to its previous chapters, Jedi could have used a little of the dread that made Empire so compelling.

And now, it is on to the prequels. And to preview those three films, I want to offer this line of dialogue from Return of the Jedi that, for me, illustrates what is so lacking from them. Before Luke goes to confront Vader, Obi-Wan counsels him with this sad piece of advice:

“Bury your feelings deep down, Luke.”

Deep down, indeed.

Final Grade for Return of the Jedi: B