Return of the Jedi (1983)

At the end of the Star Wars trilogy, it’s virtually impossible to top The Empire Strikes Back, which truly is a perfect movie.  But fortunately Return of the Jedi isn’t a fumble – think Godfather III without Sofia Coppola.  It’s a fitting conclusion to the Original Trilogy, though a few beats feel repeated from Star Wars.

The Empire has begun constructing a second Death Star, but before the Rebels can launch their attack Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) and Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) must rescue their carbonite-frozen friend Han Solo (Harrison Ford) from the slimy clutches of the vile gangster Jabba the Hutt.  After that memorable first act, Luke must contend with the revelations about his father while all his Jedi training tells him he must face Darth Vader (voiced by James Earl Jones) one last time while his friends launch an assault on the Death Star’s shield generator on the forest moon of Endor.

I have a very vivid memory of the first time I watched Return of the Jedi – I was eating bubble gum ice cream (we had gone to Baskin Robbins between the Jabba and Endor scenes), and the lush greenery of the Endor sequence impressed me, since I had only seen Empire Strikes Back on a black and white television.  Now, I’m not that old, but I have a harder time looking objectively at Return of the Jedi than at the prequels, partially because of this childhood remembrance; I don’t have a problem, for example, with the cuddly teddy bear Ewoks (though I think that using Wookiees might have been more interesting), and the first act in Jabba’s palace is really more of an extended precredits sequence in the James Bond tradition.

But it all adds up to something really quite entertaining, even if it steps on the toes of Star Wars a bit with a retread of the Death Star trench run climax.  After the sturm und drang of Empire Strikes Back, Jedi feels refreshing without the whiplash of an abrupt course correction.  The Jabba sequence, more prologue than plot, really only serves to get Han Solo back into the story, but director Richard Marquand keeps it interesting by populating the scene with fascinating visuals and a fantastically confident performance by Hamill.

Hamill’s turn as Luke Skywalker, now a full-fledged Jedi Knight, makes me very excited for the as yet unnamed Episode VII, because by the time Jedi rolls around the core group of performers are obviously very comfortable in their roles; if Star Wars felt a little bumpy for the fresh-faced nature of the cast, the big three are their characters in this installment.  The Han/Leia relationship comes to fruition here, and Ford & Fisher play it very well, very naturally, with a nice reprise of the “I love you”/“I know” exchange. 

The stakes are upped by the appearance, finally, of Emperor Palpatine, portrayed with fine villainy by Ian McDiarmid.  For a role that’s mostly sedentary, McDiarmid exudes menace with every snarled vowel and malicious glint in his eye.  Furthermore, the Force-lightning trick works better here than in Attack of the Clones, because it’s the only weapon the decrepit Palpatine has beyond his words; it’s a fantastic surprise that the wizened old geezer can actually do real damage.  This new villain perhaps mitigates the overly adorable nature of the Ewoks, who manage to dismantle an Imperial garrison with sticks and stones; with Palpatine commanding the fleet from the air, the Empire continues to feel like a true threat.

But in spite of the compounded darkness in the film, Return of the Jedi is probably the most feel-good of the franchise.  Star Wars tastes good going down too, but the original film carries more of a sense of astonishment at innovation than comfort at the company of old friends.  Return of the Jedi feels like the band getting back together, with all the laughs and nostalgia that a fine epilogue should have.  For a series that begins as ill-advisedly as The Phantom Menace did, Return of the Jedi brings us back to where we ought to be – a definitive science-fiction epic for the ages.

Return of the Jedi is rated PG for “sci-fi action violence.”  More of the same from the last outings, really – lightsaber duels, a mechanized hand is severed, explosions and blaster fire, and one skimpy metal bikini.

Thanks for joining us today for “Star Wars Day”!  We’ll be back tomorrow with a review of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and then again on Wednesday for the Double-Oh-Seventh of the month!

Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)

The road to Episode IV has been paved with disappointment, bogged down as it is by bizarre narrative flights, bad writing, and even worse acting.  By the time we reach Revenge of the Sith, the final prequel, it’s difficult to tell why the film feels like a success – has it truly accomplished what the prequels set out to do, or are we just weary and relieved to see Darth Vader on screen?

As the Clone Wars conclude, Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) pursues the villainous cyborg General Grievous while Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) comes under the wing of Chancellor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid).  But Palpatine’s intentions are less than noble, and his promise that he can save the life of Anakin’s pregnant wife Padmé (Natalie Portman) leads the young Jedi inexorably toward his dark destiny.

There’s a point in the film, the moment when Anakin Skywalker becomes Darth Vader, when it almost feels like this is the prequel we’ve been waiting for – the film totally dispenses with all the cartoon chicanery and gives us, in fairly rapid succession, (spoilers?) the fall of the Jedi order and a climactic lightsaber duel between Vader and Obi-Wan on a volcanic planet, which explains the necessity of the suit.  I’m certain that a large degree of the third act’s success is the John Williams score, which carries us through the emotional trauma of the scene and bludgeons us with “The Imperial March” as the Empire rises.  The action is really quite impressive, as the Vader/Obi-Wan duel is juxtaposed with Yoda’s fight against Palpatine.

Unfortunately, there’s a pervading sense that this is a moment the trilogy has not quite earned.  It’s remarkable as a tonal shift, a third act that really feels quite out of place for a series that began with a cartoon fish-rabbit version of Stepin Fetchit.  And it draws into stark contrast all the things that the trilogy has done wrong – as Darth Vader cuts down all the political conspirators from the previous two films, one feels a sense of frustration that all those machinations had distracted us from what should have been a compelling yet inevitable tragic fall.

It’s even more painful that Revenge of the Sith, rather than focus on this first-rate third act, introduces a whirlwind of new plot elements – including General Grievous – before realizing quite quickly that the trilogy has done next to nothing to set up the Original Trilogy – the pregnancy that will bear Luke and Leia is a passing subplot, and the characters who need to die because they don’t appear in the Original Trilogy are shuffled off with little fanfare.  Notable exception – the Jedi Order itself, killed off during the aforementioned third act during a beautifully grim montage.  It’s not that Grievous and company are uninteresting material, but they’re perhaps better suited in some of the Expanded Universe material.

The greatest pain in the midst of the third act is that it throws into sharp relief just how poor of an actor Hayden Christensen is.  He has his moments, to be fair, though I wonder how much of the work is actually being done by Williams’s score and the special contact lenses Christensen wears.  Revenge of the Sith is really the only prequel where any acting actually gets done; McGregor embraces the showboat nature of Obi-Wan’s character, Portman does a good bit of emoting, and McDiarmid really chews up the scenery as the snarling Palpatine.  But Christensen continues to yell without much emotion, leaving the characterization work in the hands of the other elements of production.

But I don’t want to take away that sense of accomplishment from Revenge of the Sith.  It’s holding 80% over at Rotten Tomatoes, which might be an overestimation.  The third act, however, is fully worth that, if only because it finally takes the audience where it wanted to go all along.  That’s a little bit funny, actually; usually we criticize prequels for merely setting up the original film, but in this case the world built in the Prequel Trilogy is so poorly misjudged that we’re glad finally to be rid of its ill-advised detours and distractions in favor of the more familiar – and more successful – elements of the Star Wars universe.

Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith is rated PG-13 for “sci-fi violence and some intense images.”  Two characters are burned alive in surprisingly graphic detail; others, including several children, die bloodless and off-screen deaths (including an implied decapitation).  Palpatine’s transformation into the wrinkly-faced Emperor is a bit disturbing.

We’ll be back in two hours with Star Wars (also known as Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope)!