The best of the star wars trilogy - Return of the Jedi Reviews

Call me a stuck up, half-witted, scruffy-looking nerfherder if you will, but to me, ?Return of the Jedi? is the best of the Star Wars Trilogy. There are parts of it that are just too exciting and too mind-blowing to pass up. Once again, George Lucas was not the director, since he didn?t think he could bear to go back and risk the studio taking his movie away from him. For ?Return of the Jedi?, he was again the executive producer, but he also served as a screenwriter along with Lawrence Kasdan. Lucas? guidance of the film must have been what gave it all the juice. Irvin Kershner, the director of ?The Empire Strikes Back?, did not return for the director?s chair. Sitting in it this time was Richard Marquand, whose previous works included ?The Legacy? and ?The Eye of the Needle?. Would he be able to make the last Star Wars movie with as much greatness as the first two films? This was the big chance: the finale would either be phenomenal or disappointing. Last time, at the end of ?The Empire Strikes Back?, Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) lost the lightsaber duel at Cloud City with Darth Vader (David Prowse; voiced by James Earl Jones), who revealed himself to be Luke?s father. Luke escaped before Vader could convince him to join the Dark Side, but his friend Han Solo (Harrison Ford), who had been captured and frozen by the rest of the Dark Alliance, wasn?t so lucky. It turned out that Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams) was not a villain, but had no choice but to lure Han into the trap. Now, in ?Return of the Jedi?, our band of heroes have traveled back to Luke?s home planet Tatooine to rescue the frozen Han Solo from the palace of the large and vulgar alien gangster Jabba the Hut, who is Han?s captor after Han broke his promise to pay his debts to Jabba. Inside this palace are the funkiest creatures you will ever see, all coming from Jim Henson?s Creature Shop (my favorite of them all was the blue elephant who played the piano). The heroes split up in entering the palace: first the two droids C-3PO (Anthony Daniels) and R2-D2 (Kenny Baker) go in to ask Jabba if they can become servants, then Princess Leia (Carrie Fischer), who is disguised as a bounty hunter, goes in to sell to Jabba the wookie Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew). Leia unfreezes Han, but then Jabba and his creature friends catch them both. Leia becomes Jabba?s ?exotic? prisoner, and then Luke finally enters the palace to do battle. There?s a trap in the floor, and Luke and a poor pig warrior are dropped in, where they are encountered by a hungry carnivorous alien monster. The pig warrior unfortunately becomes breakfast, but Luke, with his Jedi antics, leads the alien monster into death. Sadly, a muscular jailer comes in and looks in tears at his dead pet. Jabba is outraged, and then he orders Luke, Han and Chewbacca to be dropped into the Dune Sea and feasted by the wide ?mouth? down inside called the Sarlacc. Luckily, R2-D2 has a lightsaber inside him, which he shoots off to Luke, and another fight begins. It becomes quite a kill fest, with Han accidentally stabbing the jet pack of the famed bounty hunter Boba Fett (Jeremy Bulloch), causing Boba Fett to fly around like crazy and eventually fall into the mouth of the Sarlacc. Leia even snags her perfect chance to strangle Jabba the Hut to death. Finally, the team blows up the entire transport carrying creatures from the palace, and Lando Calrissian, who?s now a good guy, joins them as they make their escape. Luke and R2-D2 return to the Degobah System to meet up once again with Yoda (Frank Oz), the Jedi creature who instructed Luke last time. Yoda is in his dying stage, and Luke needs to ask him if Darth Vader really is his father. In his bed, Yoda says, ?Your father is.? After Yoda dies, the spirit of Ben Kenobi (Alec Guinness) appears, and when Luke talks with him, he learns something else, something as amazing as when he found out that Vader was his father. The rest of ?Return of the Jedi? takes place on the forest moon Endor, where the heroes meet the lovable, furry little warriors known as the Ewoks, which are like mini-Wookies who wield spears (the lead Ewok was supposed to be played by Kenny Baker, but when he got sick during the time when he was to perform, he was replaced by die-hard Star Wars fan Warwick Davis). As the Ewoks help the team defend the Rebel Base from attackers, Luke decides to leave on his own. Darth Vader and his master, the Emperor (Ian McDiarmid), are planning to convince Luke to join the Dark Side, since he would make a fine apprentice. The Dark Alliance is also building another Death Star; one much more powerful than the one that Luke destroyed in the first film, and it could spell certain doom for the galaxy if Luke doesn?t face his father and stop the Dark Side. It all adds up to the final showdown, in which Luke must fight with Vader and then resist the Emperor?s power before he corrupts him. All will determine the fate of the galaxy. Because of all of the creatures, ?Return of the Jedi? received mixed critical reactions. Many critics claimed that it?s weak on the human side and that the immense visual effects hid the actors. To that I do not agree. I believe the movie is perfect in all departments. Richard Marquand?s direction was stupendous, and we don?t hear from him anymore because he passed away at the end of the 1980?s. Weirdest of all in the movie is the scene where Luke finally takes off Darth Vader?s helmet to reveal the real Anakin Skywalker behind the mask, yet the pale bald man that we see is not David Prowse or James Earl Jones? but a guy named Sebastian Shaw! I bought the DVD 4-Disc Pack of the Star Wars movies, and all three movies are in it. What I don?t like is that they are all newly altered with added scenes; these are the ways George Lucas wanted the movies to be but couldn?t get them to be. Many of the scenes are great, but some of the others (especially the annoying new dance scene at Jabba?s palace) are not what we would want. I wish that the CDs could have given the option of playing the extended version OR the original version. Lucas refuses to release the original films on DVD, but I think he should, since they are the films we are used to. Right now, all we can do is rent the VHS versions and then tape some of the original cuts, so that we can know what they were like before. Lucas says that the original films are only 25% of what he wanted. People should have an option of whether they want to stick with that 25%. Me? I would want to stick with both. ?Return of the Jedi? is the greatest Star Wars movie, in my opinion. It is one of my all-time favorite movies, and it?s one of the very best times you?ll ever have watching science fiction in your life. Not a movie that a moviegoer should be without. Great finale, it is. See it, you must. That?s what Yoda would say. By Adam Zanzie (icebox482000)