Return of the Jedi
Return of the Jedi
EPISODE
VI
RETURN of the JEDI
The final installment proved Luke Skywalker a true knight of the Force, gave Darth Vader a chance at redemption, and left fans wanting more.
The Empire’s war machine assembles in formation. This establishing shot of the Emperor’s arrival is a combination of a matte oil painting by artist Frank Ordaz and live actors.
AS THE EAGERLY AWAITED RELEASE OF RETURN of the Jedi neared, there were mixed emotions among the Star Wars faithful. As far as anyone knew, George Lucas’ trilogy would be just that: three films and three films only—a beginning, middle, and end. Now the third and final act was finally upon us, and its arrival felt bittersweet for fans, some of whom had waited as long as eight days in lines outside movie theaters to purchase tickets for opening day on May 25, 1983.
“A SPECIAL EFFECT IS A TOOL, A MEANS OF TELLING A STORY. A SPECIAL EFFECT WITHOUT A STORY IS A PRETTY BORING THING.”
—GEORGE LUCAS
Director Richard Marquand between takes on the set of Jedi. After the film he would go on to direct the hit 1985 thriller Jagged Edge, before dying from a stroke in 1987 at age 49.
R2-D2 becomes an object of fascination to the Ewoks on the moon of Endor. The original scene was intended to be the Wookiee home planet of Kashyyyk.
Han Solo, Chewbacca, Princess Leia, and Luke Skywalker share a brief moment of levity before the Battle of Endor.
Luke Skywalker has the galaxy’s most awkward elevator ride with his father, Darth Vader, before he is taken to the Emperor.
Lucas had been a busy man in the three years since The Empire Strikes Back. Moviedom’s newly minted mogul had produced both the steamy 1981 noir Body Heat and the same year’s blockbuster sensation Raiders of the Lost Ark—a new take on an old-fashioned action-adventure formula that he’d conceived years earlier with Steven Spielberg on a beach in Hawaii while Lucas anxiously awaited the box office fate of Star Wars. In fact, Lucas had wanted his friend Spielberg to helm Return of the Jedi. But the in-demand director was too busy with his own projects and unavailable. Instead, Lucas chose Richard Marquand, a talented, but relatively untested Welsh director who was willing and enthusiastic about following Lucas’ original story as closely as possible. If the tone of Empire was dark and doom-drenched, Lucas believed that the final installment needed to be hopeful, upbeat, and uplifting.
As Jedi kicks off, we are still mired in the somberness of Empire’s cliff-hanger finale. Han Solo remains frozen in his sub-zero carbonite prison, and Darth Vader is at work on a second—bigger and more lethal—Death Star. And yet, hope is not lost. Luke, who began his hero’s journey as a young apprentice feeling his way with the Force, arrives in the third film as a fully formed Jedi, confident and fearless. And it’s not just delusions of grandeur, as Han Solo puts it; Luke has evolved into the galactic savior that Obi-Wan and Yoda had hoped for. But while he shows off his new mastery of the Force above the Sarlacc Pit, it’s a team effort that rescues Han: Leia uses Chewbacca as a cover to enter the palace; R2-D2 smuggles in Luke’s light-saber; Lando infiltrates as a guard.
Throughout Lucas’ trilogy, the visionary storyteller had never stinted on providing ample supplies of swashbuckling action and derring-do (or opportunities to create characters perfect for merchandising like Jedi’s cuddly Ewoks). But it’s in this third chapter where Lucas finally teases out the deeper themes he’d previously raised, especially in Luke’s Freudian moments with Darth Vader. The pivotal showdown in Jedi comes when Luke confronts Vader, desperately pleading with him to look within himself, renounce the Dark Side, and find the goodness that was once inside of him. It is a movie about compassion and redemption. No one, not even the most evil man in the galaxy, is beyond salvation. “I feel the good in you,” Luke tells Vader.
For Lucas, Jedi remains an adult story that is within reach of his younger target audience. “[Jedi] is designed more for kids,” he said. “It’s sort of natural to the way I feel about things. I think it’s the most emotional of the three films; at least it is for me.” Whether or not you agree, this much is undeniable: In the course of three films spanning six years, the Star Wars trilogy remained a remarkably sustained and singular vision. Lucas created a set of myths that continues to speak to us and sustain us—while leaving us hungry for more. —CHRISTOPHER NASHAWATY
“I WAS CONVINCED THAT HAN SOLO SHOULD DIE. I TOLD GEORGE, ‘HE’S GOT NO MAMA, NO PAPA, AND HE’S GOT NO STORY. LET’S KILL HIM AND LET HIM DIE AND GIVE SOME WEIGHT TO THIS THING.’ GEORGE WOULDN’T GO ALONG WITH ME.”
—HARRISON FORD
The young Skywalker, now a Jedi, faces off with Darth Vader in a Freudian sci-fi showdown while Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) watches on with sniveling, sadistic glee.
After three films of flirtatious will-they-or-won’t-they banter, Leia finally plants one on jealous Han Solo.
Visual Effects
Behind the Monsters and the Magic
THE STAR WARS SERIES HAS BEEN GROUNDBREAKING IN MANY ways, and one of the biggest has been in the realm of special effects. “At that point in time, the tech pinnacle was 2001: A Space Odyssey, but the problem was you couldn’t pan,” George Lucas said in 2015, speaking to the technological challenges with A New Hope. None of the space battles could be filmed using the current stop motion technology available. “Now Kubrick wanted a quiet movie, but I was telling a space fantasy. So [special effects pioneer] John Dykstra had to come up with a new technology that allowed lots of camera moves—pans, cuts, tilts. I had to start a company from scratch to make Star Wars.”
That company was visual effects juggernaut Industrial Light & Magic, which has gone on to produce special effects for more than 300 films, including the Harry Potter series, the Jurassic Park series, the Back to the Future trilogy, and others. But more broadly, it inspired a style of action-fantasy films with an eye toward realism. Now that’s a force to be reckoned with. —C. MOLLY SMITH
The AT-AT walkers featured in The Empire Strikes Back’s Battle of Hoth stand more than 20 meters tall on screen, but were realized by miniature models.
Makeup man Doug Beswick poses with the alien heads and hands that brought Figrin D’an and the Modal Nodes—the banging ensemble of Bith musicians—to musical life for the Mos Eisley Cantina scene in A New Hope.
Phil Tippett and Stuart Freeborn, makeup and creature designers on Return of the Jedi, appear with their creations, including crime lord Jabba the Hutt and his majordomo Bib Fortuna.
