Chat corner 39: The Return of the Jedi

[annathecrow]

Welcome to this week’s chat corner!

Optional prompt

This week, the topic is the last movie of the Original Trilogy, “Star Wars: Return of the Jedi”. Any thoughts? Does it make you happy or sad or both? Any favorite part?

 

Comments

[astromech1138]

I have to admit that RotJ is my least favorite of the original trilogy. (Well, one of them has to be!) While Luke's story is great, Han and Leia have almost nothing to do. It always bothered me even as a kid that Leia was rescued by the Ewoks, got a new frock and hairdo, and just didn't bother to try to find her friends or make allies out of the Ewoks. Was she just planning on living in a treehouse her entire life?

Luke's plan to get Han out of Jabba's palace was so chaotic (why would he get them all imprisoned first? Why didn't Lando just unfreeze Han? I know, I know, ~romance, but honestly), but it was fun. And his final duel in the Death Star was so, so good.

RotJ has the best deleted scenes. I'd give anything for that deleted sandstorm scene to be included! And one thing I loved about the first two movies was seeing opposing points of view within the Empire; it would have been nice if they hadn't cut so many of Jerjerrod's scenes.

ETA there's also this raw footage from Yoda's hut. It's fascinating how different the tone of the movie would have been with some of these cut lines included, especially Yoda explaining that Ben would have told Luke Vader was his father long ago but Yoda didn't let him, and that "sorry" wasn't going to cut it regarding Luke's first confrontation with Vader. (It's also really interesting, to me, to see how the performance evolved over multiple takes.)

I'm reading JW Rinzler's The Making of RotJ right now and it's fascinating how much of what happened in this movie (in terms of story line, production, etc.) was GL's reaction against ESB. Originally they had so many wild ideas! They thought about the rebels attacking the Imperial City, Luke facing Vader in his lava palace, Leia leading a strike force to a grassy planet to take out a communications tower and shield generator that was protecting two Death Stars.

Anyway, despite its flaws, this is always a fun rewatch. Would be even better with approximately 64% fewer Ewoks though ;)

[yourlibrarian]

When you say Lucas' reaction against ESB, was it because he was dissatisfied with the storyline in it? Or that he was just trying to create something different?

[astromech1138]

I think the main problem was that ESB was way over budget and way over schedule -- and GL had literally bet the farm on it, so it was his money at stake. Turned out to be a brilliant business move for him, but you can see why he was angry at the time, even if it was worth it for the sake of the film we got. That kind of bled into everything else.

[yourlibrarian]

Ah, yes. In retrospect ESB seems like the safest bet ever but I can imagine it was different at the time. Of course New Hope getting finished and released at all seemed so perilous given what I saw in a documentary but having to run so much more of the production would have created new stresses.

[astromech1138]

It's amazing in hindsight that a sequel after SW wasn't assumed! And, since sequels historically do much worse than the original, ESB wasn't a sure thing, even with the success of SW. It definitely made GL more conservative on RotJ--for instance, no more faraway sets, filming in Arizona and California instead of Tunisia or Norway.