- Whereas The Empire Strikes Back took the Star Wars series in a rather bold new direction, at least by big-budget sequel standards, Return of the Jedi chooses instead to retread some pretty familiar ground. Thus, we find our old Rebel friends returning to the deserts of Tatooine, revisiting the swamps of Dagobah, and, yes, even re-destroying the Death Star. Sure, there are a few new creatures to battle, including the truly sebaceous Jabba the Hutt and his disgusting minions. There is also a new arch-enemy, the nefarious Emperor (Ian McDiarmid), who looks to be every bit Yoda's (Frank Oz) equal in both age and ability. Otherwise, it's Star Wars business as usual, right down to the climactic lightsaber battles and desperate aerial assaults.
- Of course, that's not to say that the film is particularly bad. After all, you could do a lot worse than to copy plot elements and locations from the first two Star Wars films (in fact, I wish that George Lucas had been considerably more self-referential when he made his later trilogy). Furthermore, Return of the Jedi does actually contain a few shining moments. In one such scene, John Williams' score ratchets up the tension perfectly just as Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) is forced to walk the plank of a desert skiff. Later in the film, the noble deaths of two very different Jedi lend an impressive amount of gravitas to what have otherwise been fairly light proceedings.
- All of that said, however, I have trouble watching Return of the Jedi without quietly wondering precisely when the magic ended. Despite the film's virtues, its surprisingly rote plot and the alarmingly high incidence of drooling, burps, and teddy bears (named Ewoks) established the puerile tone that would, to borrow a phrase, forever dominate George Lucas' destiny. When the otherwise respectable Chewbacca utters a Tarzan cry while swinging across a valley on a vine, things have officially gotten silly. In my mind, Return of the Jedi marks when Lucas went from wanting to be a kid again to actually making films like one.
- Of course, everybody is back for the third film, even if I didn't mention them.
- I didn't explicitly note this, but I was reviewing the original Star Wars trilogy. The "Special Edition" is anything but, and apparently things are only going to get worse.
