60: Twelve Movies - Return of the Jedi

CAUTION: Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.



12 Days: 12 Movies – Special Edition
Day Four: Return of the Jedi
(1983, 129mins, Dir. Richard Marquand)



And so we get to what is generally considered the black sheep of the Original Trilogy. A lot of puppets and folks-in-suits, which led people to think of it as more of a ‘kiddies film’, but after the darkness of Empire, they’d have had that problem with any film that didn’t kill all of the heroes at the end...

Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker both turn up at Jabba the Hutt’s pad, intent on freeing Han Solo from his (wardrobe-malfunctioning) carbonite prison. It all kicks off, and before long, our band of plucky terrorists (that’s what they are, people) are steaming into Endor to blow up a government installation, and receive the trust and help of an indigenous population that the Empire would have realistically slaughtered before setting up the shield-generator base.

That aside, I love the third act of this film; the duel between Vader and Skywalker is amazingly choreographed and executed, with The Emperor providing the same voyeuristic interest that the audience also have. Ian McDiarmid is excellent in this movie; bear in mind that he was only in his thirties the first time he played The Emperor, before ‘growing into the role’ for the prequel trilogy.

In my humble opinion, it’s the weakest of the Original Trilogy films, but with an ending as strong as this, it’s almost certainly better than you remember.



The Good: The final, protracted, awesome duel. Beautiful acting from Prowse, McDiarmid, Jones and of course Hamill. And the sound-design during the speeder-bike chase is beautiful.



The Bad: Even if it was viable to torture droids, you wouldn’t do it by branding their feet. It just defies the logic which the SW universe has worked so hard to build up. Also, the threat of the Sarlaac Pit; to be “slowly digested over 1,000 years”. Well, given that a human would be dead from dehydration/starvation in under 10 days, it’s not that bad, is it? Oh, and Carrie Fisher’s acting in the ‘revelation’ scene. Jeez...



The Ugly: Han’s shirt does a reverse switch, to complement the one it did in Empire. I’m not sure if this means the continuity people noticed or not...

Best Line: “So be it... Jedi.”, The Emperor

My biased rating: 7/10


Tomorrow: Ewoks: Caravan of Courage

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.

• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organizations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.