Review of Star Wars Episode VI : Return of the Jedi : Teddy Bears Save the Galaxy

Seriously though, more than the teddy bears taking on a scifi army, building a second death star is the most unjustifiable writing choice in this entire movie. 

The empire is constructing a new death star and it’s not going well. The emperor has sent Vader to get the project back on track. Meanwhile Luke Skywalker, who is now styling himself as a Jedi knight, stages a rescue of Han Solo form the palace of Jabba the Hutt. His attempts to bargain with the Hutt fail and he, Chewie and Leia are captured. Jabba takes Leia as a slave and plans to have Luke, Chewbacca and Han executed.  Luke has planned for this however. Retrieving his lightsaber hidden in R2, he stages a rescue resulting in Jabba’s death and he and his friends escape.

Luke leaves Tatooine and returns to Yoda who is near death. Yoda confirms Vader is his father and hints there is another Skywalker before his death. Struggling with the revelation Luke confronts the ghost of Obi-wan who explains that in his view Darth Vader and Anakin Skywalker are different people and that Vader is beyond saving. He also confirms that princess Leia is secretly Luke’s twin sister.

Back with the rebel fleet it the group reunites for a briefing were its confirmed that Palpatine is staying on the partially completed second death star. Luke, Leia, Chewbacca and Han head to the moon of Endor to deactivate the shield generator protecting the station so the rebel fleet can destroy it. 

Leia is soon separated from the group and the rest are captured by the native Ewoks. Eventually reunited in the Ewok village they plan their attack on the shield generator. However Vader as sensed Luke’s presence and Luke leaves the group to confront him. He begs Vader to leave the empire and go with him, but Vader refuses and takes him to the emperor.

Han’s attack on the shield generator turns out to be trap. The rebels are rounded up by the garrison only to be rescued by the Ewoks.  As the battle on the ground continues the rebel fleet arrives to find the shield generator is still up and the imperial fleet is posed to attack.

Meanwhile the emperor tries to provoke Luke into giving into his hate. He reveals he knew about the rebel plans and lured them to the death star, which is operational. He uses the super laser to start destroying the rebel capital ships while mocking Luke. Giving in to his anger Luke attacks the emperor only to have is attack intercepted by Vader. Throughout their duel Luke attempts to keep his cool but Vader continues to provoke him. In his anger Luke overwhelms Vader and cuts off his arm. However he refuses to finish his father off. The emperor, angered by this uses force lighting and overwhelms the young Jedi who pleads with Vader for help. Seeing his child in distress Vader grabs the emperor and throws him down a shaft. In the process Vader is critically wounded by the force lighting. 

Meanwhile the rebels have taken down the shield generator and the fighter attack by Lando in the falcon manages to penetrate the structure and destroy the main reactor. Luke flees with his father but Vader is too wounded and dies on the shuttles boarding plank, having returned to the light side of the force.  

The rebels celebrate the destruction of the death star as the empire is shown to be crumbling in Palpatine’s absence. As the rebel’s celebration continues the ghosts of Obiwan, Yoda, and Anakin Skywalker can be seen in the background. 

This is the worst of the originals. It is far from bad, but it suffers from pacing issues, and poor directing and writing decisions. I love Jabba, but it has little to do with the second half of the movie, and filling it with CGI stuff in the special editions was a mistake. Did the movie really need a song number in Huttese?  Furthermore while the sarlacc pit scene does little to establish Luke as a fully formed force user than to establish that Jabba’s men are really incompetent. Return of the Jedi also goes to pains to show how close Luke is to the dark. He wears all black, he force chokes Jabba’s goons, and he makes subtle threats. Despite that he comes off as way more kind and level headed than Anakin ever did in the prequels. He only uses violence in a controlled manner to help others. The only time he gives into rage is when the Emperor and Vader are goading him.And the Ewoks, they might be acceptable if they didn’t beat up a squad of storm troopers. Granted there attack serves as mostly a distraction while Han and the rebels do the heavy lifting, and granted it’s supposed to make some point about imperialism. But it’s still stupid. 

So what does Return of the Jedi have to offer? Well the fights are pretty good. They don’t compare to the prequels in terms of raw action but they have more heart than most of them. We get to see Luke slash his way through Jabba’s men and another duel with Vader.  While it is not as dramatic as their duel in ESB, it is well done. 

The acting is also good too, Luke the emperor are really well done. It’s always a joy to watch McDiarmid’s Palpatine. And Mark Hamill really makes a good Jedi. His acting here has really matured since A New Hope.

The space battle is the most impressive in the entire original trilogy and better done than the battle of Coruscant in episode III. You mostly follow the fighters as they dart between capital ships and engage TIEs, in a battle which is the pinnacle of practical effects.  And well I am quick to point out the movies flaws many of the scenes I mention are still fun to watch. They are still well done, except the Ewoks. I’m not going to defend that.  

 

Return of the Jedi gets a lot of hate, some of it deserved but it is far from a bad movie.  

8.3 out of 10

-Gedaemon

Back to Index

More On Star Wars 

Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back: How Much Time is this Covering?

This is the movie I’ve been waiting to review. Many regard this has the best Star Wars film. Honest trailers even called it a “perfect movie”. To some of us the end of the duel on Bespin must rank as the greatest movie scene of all time. But does the film hold up to the nostalgia?

The Rebels have set up a base on the ice planet of Hoth. As Luke Skywalker is out on patrol he is ambushed by a Wampa:  a giant snow beast that knocks him out. Taken to its cave Luke awakens, fights the creature off and escapes into a snow storm where he collapses. In his delirium he sees a vision of Obiwan Kenobi who tells him to go to the Dagobah system where he can find the Jedi master Yoda. 

Meanwhile at base Han solo resigns for the rebellion; saying he has to pay off Jabba the Hutt. Before he leaves however he notices Luke has not returned and goes into the snow storm to find him. After surviving the freezing night both are picked up by Rebel speeders and Luke is taken to the medical bay to recover from his injuries. 

In the meantime the rebel fleet has been grounded; keeping Han on base. Furthermore Rebel sensors detect a strange signal on planet. Solo discovers it coming from an imperial probe droid which he destroys, but the probe has already alerted Darth Vader to the presence of the Rebel base.

As the rebels prepare to evacuate Darth Vader enters the system with a fleet of star destroyers. Unable to penetrate the bases shields from orbit they begin a ground assault.  As the rebels attempt to break through the imperial blockade the empire attacks the base with AT-AT walkers. Luke Skywalker’s Rouge Squadron attempt to hold the empire off with snow speeders but are no match for the walker’s thick armor. Soon the walkers destroy the rebel shield generator and imperial troops take the base. 

As the rebels flee the Hoth system Vader’s destroyers pursue the Millennium Falcon which is having problems with  its hyper drive. They take shelter in an asteroid field  while they make repairs. Vader is still looking for them when he his contacted by the emperor who fears Luke Skywalker could destroy them. Vader convinces him that Luke could be converted to the dark side. Meanwhile Luke Crash lands on Dagobah where he encounters a small, annoying alien who claims to know Yoda. The alien takes Luke to its hut as Luke grows increasingly agitated until the alien reveals himself as Yoda and judges Luke unworthy of training. However Luke and the voice of Obiwan manage to convince him to take Luke as a student. 

The Falcon manages to escape the asteroid field and star destroyers, and limps its way to Bespin: a mining colony owned by Solo’s old friend: Lando Calrissian. But with the help of the bounty hunter Boba Fett Vader had already figured out their destination and beat them there. He captures Han, Leia, and Chewbacca and begins torturing them to attract Luke via the force. 

In the midst of his training Luke has a vision of his friends in trouble. Obiwan and Yoda urge him to stay and complete his training but he rushes to Bespin. In the meantime Darth Vader has frozen Han Solo in carbonite and given him to Boba Fett. Fed up with the ever changing terms of Vader’s deal Lando frees Leia and Chewbacca and escapes with them from Cloud City. Luke arrives and confronts Vader who attempts to freeze him. When this fails they fight and Vader cuts off Luke’s hand.  Vader attempts to convince Luke to join him in over throwing the emperor, revealing that the story Obiwan told Luke was a lie and that he is Luke’s father. Luke refuses Vader and is rescued by the Falcon; together with the others he escapes the Empire and rendezvouses with the Rebel fleet at the edge of the galaxy. 

I don’t think this movie is perfect. I think it has a few pacing issues and some unclear parts. Between the battle of Hoth and the showdown at Bespin the movie feels slow. It’s also unclear how long the time period the movie is covering. Did the Falcon jump right to Bespin? Did it have to slowly limp there because if it’s damaged hyper drive? How long did that take? And how long was Luke with Yoda? A few days? a week? A month? Its left ambiguous and only cleared up in Star Wars material outside the movie itself. Worse than this, Luke’s frustrations in the middle of the movie come off as annoying. He wines, he complains, he gets angry and he ignores the advice of his elders. While he never comes off as dangerous this does foreshadow his potential to turn to the dark side, so it does serve a purpose storytelling wise, but it’s hard to watch. 

But despite its small flaws Empire Strikes Back is perhaps my favorite Star Wars movie. It balances action, world building, and character development in a way the prequels tried for but never achieved. It manages to keep the vision on point. The writing is excellent. The characters were iconic in a New Hope but this takes them to the level of modern myth. 

The Effects in ESB are superior in every way to a new hope. You can see ships large and small maneuvering around. Effects look real except in close up.  The choreography has also come along way. Luke and Vader slash and parry each other somewhat convincingly, and the choreography tells the story, Vader toys with Luke at first but is forced to get more and more aggressive as the fight goes on until he removes Luke’s hand in a fit of rage. 

This film is the seminal Star Wars, the film that throws you into the galaxy and makes you want more. I doubt it will ever be topped.

9.4 out of 10

-Gedaemon

Episode IV

Back to Index 

Star War Episode Four: A New Hope: Start with This One

It’s a period of superior writing. Rebels strike the evil empire from their hidden base without the need for a cumbersome backstory.

 As the movie begins Princess Leia is fleeing a star destroyer on her starship, The corvette is quickly captured and boarded by Darth Vader. Thinking quickly Leia hides the Death Star plans on an astromech droid named R2D2. With his counterpart the protocol droid C3P0 he escapes to the surface of the desert planet Tatooine. Captured by Jawas, the two droids are sold to the family of Luke Skywalker, a nineteen year old boy eager to leave Tatooine at the first opportunity. That opportunity soon comes when R2D2 runs away from the farm in search of Obiwan Kenobi, who R2 claims is his owner. Luke finds the runaway droid only to be attacked by sand people and rescued by Obiwan. Obiwan tells Luke that he and Luke’s father were Jedi knights. Obiwan tries to convince Luke to learn the ways of the force and come to Alderaan with him, to return the information stored in the droid to the rebellion. At first Luke refuses but after learning his family has been killed by the empire in an attempt to track down the droids, he decides to join Kenobi. Together they head to Mos Eisley space port where they meet Han Solo: owner of the Millennium Falcon and his co-pilot Chewbacca. Together they head to Alderaan only to find it has been destroyed by the Death Star. 

The Falcon is captured by the death star using a tractor beam.  Obiwan, Luke and Han sneak onto the space station. While Obiwan deactivates the tractor beam Han and Luke recue princess Leia. Obiwan is confronted by Darth Vader. While the two duel everyone else boards the Falcon and Luke watches Vader strike Obiwan down. They escape on the Falcon and head to the rebel base on a moon of Yavin four. Darth Vader has tracked them however, and it’s up to a handful of rebel pilots to take down the death star by exploiting a design flaw revealed by the recovered plans. As Darth Vader systematically shoots down the rebel fighters Luke hears Obiwan’s voice who guides him to use the force to target and destroy the death star.

Compared to the prequels A New Hope is short, and much, much better paced. While the movie leaves you guessing at the back story, in this case it’s simply not required: the characters actions and words convey who has good motives and who has bad. It gives you just enough backstory to ignite your imagination, and no more. This does two things. It makes the movie highly watchable, and leaves hard core fans wanting more, which means books, sequels, supplementary material, etc.

For its time, A New Hope was a special effects masterpiece, but compared to today’s movies it is less impressive. Great cinematography  still make the dogfights incredible, but the star destroyers and other large ships mostly fly in straight lines, often shooting lasers from invisible cannons. Unlike many I like the CGI X-wings added in to the special addition, though admittedly we could do without the CGI animals that were added, as they have not aged well. 

The fighting is a mixed bag. I’ve said before I prefer lightsaber fights to gun fights but A New Hope makes it work though clever writing. On the other hand the iconic showdown between Obiwan and Darth Vader is somewhat lacking. At the time of filming the lightsaber props they used were rather fragile and couldn’t take hard contact. They also lacked the wires and CGI used in so many fight scenes today. 

Another problem is there are continuality errors with the other movies. Obiwan doesn’t recognize R2D2 and C3P0. He refers to Vader as “Darth” as if it’s his first name and not a Sith honorific, he didn’t really “serve” Bail Organa in the Clone Wars, and his lie to Luke about his father’s death just seems cruel. None of these are really faults of A New Hope, but of the movies and books that came later. But it does make certain scenes jarring when they don’t conform to events that canonically came before them. 

It’s also clear how young many of the actors are and they do a decent but not perfect job of making the dialogue sound natural. There is even the famous scene were Luke calls Leia by her actresses’ name: “Carrey”. They are good actors, but it’s not the level of professionalism we have come to expect today. Luke Skywalker has also been called whinny, his wining sound more like that of a cloistered youth than a young A-hole with something to prove. This makes his immature somewhat natural, and causes you to emphasis with him rather than reject him like Anakin. The comic relief is also better. C3P0 is at least tolerable, and his banter with R2D2 is somewhat amusing. While some of the elements that people hated in the prequels are still hear, they are much better done or at least kept to a tolerable minimum. 

A New Hope is a film that stands the test of time not so much for its effects which are dated, but because it has an interesting story to tell and it tells that story so well that we can overlook its flaws. Its flaws hardly even feel like flaws because they just do such a good job overall and the story is so compelling. If you’re going to start someone on Star Wars, don’t go in Chronological order, start with this film.

9.1 out of 10

-Gedaemon

Back to Index

Star Wars Episode Three: Revenge of the Sith: A Merciful End

The Revenge of the Sith is considered the good prequel, or the least bad. This reputation is roughly correct. The film is better paced than the other two but suffers from most of the same flaws.

Revenge of the Sith begins with a battle over Coruscant. Obiwan and Anakin Skywalker lead a Starfighter attack in an attempt to rescue the kidnapped chancellor aboard general Grievous’s flag ship. Flying through the battle the forcibly land on the battleship and fight their way to the chancellor where they are confronted by count Dooku. After a lightsaber battle Obiwan is knocked out but Anakin defeats Dooku and at Palpatine’s urging cuts off his head. They try to escape but are stopped by the cyborg general Grievous. They fight and force the confederates to abandon ship. However the massive space battle has heavily damaged the battleship, and with the escape pods already jettisoned the heroes have no option but to crash land. Using his skills Anakin manages to land the heavily damaged ship. 

Returning to Coruscant Anakin learns his wife Padme is pregnant. He is haunted by dreams of her death, similar to what he experienced with his mother. Going to master Yoda he discretely asks what to do about these kinds of visions and the grandmaster tells him not let go of what he is afraid to lose.

Palpatine summons Anakin to make him his representative on the Jedi council. The Jedi reluctantly agree to this but refuse to grant him the rank of Jedi master. This infuriates Anakin who is further asked to spy on the chancellor on behalf of the council, which Anakin sees as a violation of the Jedi code and the betrayal of a longtime friend.

Anakin is summoned again by Palpatine who informs him the republic has tracked Grievous to the planet of Utapua. He assumes the council wants Anakin to spy on him and begins planting doubts in Anakin’s mind about the Jedi. He also casually mentions the story of Darth Plaugus the wise: a Sith lord who could allegedly prevent people from dying.

Obiwan tracks down Grievous on Utapau were the two fight one on one. Trained by Dooku, Grevious wields four lightsabers at once. However Obiwan easily holds his own and Grevious is forced to flee. Tracking him down they fight again and Obiwan kills Grievous with a blaster.

Anakin informs Palpatine of Obiwan’s progress. In the ensuing conversation Palpatine suggests Anakin go beyond the Jedi training he received and allow Palpatine to teach him what he knows, including the dark side. Anakin identifies Palpatine as the Sith lord the Jedi have been looking for but is too conflicted to challenge him. Instead he goes to the temple and informs Mace Windu. Windu. Mace Orders Anakin to stay at the temple while Mace deals with Palpatine. 

Mace and several other Jedi attempt to arrest Palpatine. Anakin, unable to wait for the fight to end comes in to see Mace attempting to kill him. Palpatine begs for Anakin’s help. Yelling that he needs Palpatine Anakin cuts of Mace’s arm and Sidious uses force lighting to throw Mace out the window. Horrified by his betrayal of the Jedi and desiring Palpatine’s knowledge of cheating death, Anakin agrees to become his apprentice and is given the Sith name Darth Vader. Sidious sends Vader to raid the Jedi temple while he orders the clone army to turn on the Jedi. Taken by surprise the Jedi are easily slaughtered. However Obiwan and Yoda manage to survive

The two Jedi reunite and raid the temple. Learning of Darth Vader they split up Yoda goes to face the newly declared emperor and Obiwan goes to track down Anakin. Going to Padme Obiwan reveals Anakin’s deeds and follows her to Mustafar, where Anakin has killed the Separatist council. Anakin argues with Padme and chokes her out, then fights Obiwan. At the same time Yoda duels Emperor Palpatine. He fights the Sith to a draw but is forced to retreat. As the duel between Obiwan and Anakin continues Obiwan takes the high ground on a lava bank and cuts Vader down as he attempts a jumping attack. Obiwan takes Padme to a medical facility where she gives birth to twins but dies soon after. The Twins Luke and Leia are split up while Obiwan and Yoda go into hiding unitll the time is right to strike back 

This movie is better paced than the first two prequels and to some extent better written. The exposition has been spread out with action scenes and often comes off as more natural but not quite as natural as it should be. The love story of Anakin and Padme still comes off as poorly written, and Anakin often behaves more like an angry child than a Jedi general charged with leading thousands of men into life or death situations. The ending of the movie is also week, having more to do with putting everyone in the proper place for the next movie rather than ending the movie properly as a standalone piece. 

The action in this movie is perhaps the most jam packed of any Star wars Movie thus far. Staring off with the battle of Coruscant we see warships blasting each other with turbo lasers and mass dogfights, however the dogfights are somewhat weaker than in the original trilogy and the sequels, which focused on tension filled dogfighting. But the highlight of the action is the lightsaber fights, Anakin vs Dooku, Mace vs Sidious Obiwan vs Grievous and Yoda vs Sidious are all great fights.

Perhaps the best part of the movie is Palpatine. While some have called his performance over the top, I enjoyed the wide range of emotion and the characters subtle manipulation of everyone on his road to seizing power

While Revenge of the Sith does not quite hold up to the original trilogy but it does hold up. Its not a great movie but it can hesitantly be called a good movie. It’s at least worth watching in full. 

7 out of 10 

-Gedaemon

Back to Index 

Star Wars, Canon, and Dead horses

Pablo Hidalgo, executive of the Lucasfilm story group and perhaps the most important man in the Star Wars franchise, recently tweeted that in his opinion minor details like who shot first or where exactly a character was standing are beneath the notice of “cannon” and naturally differ in various retellings. “It's my way of dodging the who-shot-first horse carcass.” He wrote. “All that's canon is that two people entered that booth, & Greedo died. Reports vary”. His words are actually very fair; in a world where we nerds often take issues of cannon as seriously as religious dogma Hidalgo rightly points out that so many story details are created by the needs of the medium. “So why are these guys standing so close as if they can't get enough of each other? Because they had to fit into the movie frame”, He writes. I am very sympathetic to this idea, there is "but" coming however. 

Nerds--and I am one--love technical details. I recently watched a Youtube video yet again hashing out the dead horse of Star Wars Vs Star Trek. It was pretty well done bu it was amazing how many people were angry over what they saw as cannon oversights on the part of the video’s creator. Among the arguments I saw were “are turbolasers really lasers?”, “what is a phasers output in watts?” and “do the values given for Star Wars weapon outputs match what appears on the screen?” Putting aside the question of whether such debates are worth pursuing we can see that at least one vocal subset of the fanbase is pretty serious about precision in cannon. To such people, and I am one of them, there is a value in keeping story elements such as this consistent. A star destroyer in the books should have the same physical description and abilities as one that appears in the TV shows or movies. If a light saber can’t cut through cortosis in one adaption it shouldn’t be able to cut through it in any other format. Things like retcons should be kept to a minimum. 

None of this means a writer shouldn’t be able to have a slightly different take on a character or events, but there should be some measure of consistency both for the sake of good story telling, and to satisfy the fanbase. 

-Gedaemon