Underrated...

Rating: 9/10 (27 July 2004)

By 1983, the market had become so saturated with Star Wars and science fiction clones that programs were beginning to fail left and right. Even the mighty Doctor Who was faltering under the weight of its own canon, and new ideas had become thin on the ground. Many people criticise Return Of The Jedi as suffering from creative burnout, or Lucas getting too offended that the best film in his series has been the one he had the least amount of control over. There's a certain level of truth to this theory, but when you strip back the Hollywood politics and look at the story, you simply see Lucas being Lucas.
At its heart, Return Of The Jedi is the story of one boy who has (finally) grown into a man, and started to face his destiny. He starts off in this by demonstrating that he has mastered one aspect of the Force, in that he can reliably use its powers to his advantage. After doing so, he is told by one of his old mentors that he is just about to face the real test of resisting the temptation to use it in an overtly evil fashion. It's painfully oversimple at times, and sadly indicative of Lucas' tendency to see everything in black and white, but it works.
What makes it work is not Lucas' creative direction, but rather the input of others. The climactic phase of the duel on the new Death Star is a perfect example of this. Here, David Prowse, James Earl Jones, Mark Hamill, John Williams, and Richard Marquand all band together to deliver a performance that, in 1983, had every audience member holding their hands over their mouths in sheer tense panic at what they thought was happening. When it twists and turns back and forth to its climax, the surprise factor is enough to make the audience forget that it really is clichéd to an extreme. In other words, it works.
It also highlights one thing that Lucas seems to have forgotten in the past twenty-two years. Namely that in any film, regardless of its theme, the human performance element is always the most important. In contrast to later films, the majority of what the viewer sees here was built on a set and could be interacted with in front of the camera while the film was being shot. In simpler language, the performances have more impact because the actors aren't struggling to plant themselves in the reality of a scene where they are almost the only things on the set.
Another area where Return Of The Jedi excels is its sense of humour. The numerous booby traps and improvised war machines improvised by the Ewoks deliver some well-timed laughs. Peter Mayhew must have been glad at this time to not be the only person on the shoot who had to struggle with being covered head to foot in fur, too. Matter of fact, it seems the entire cast is more relaxed this time around.
If there is one problem with the film, it is that dialogue which would have helped the human element of the story to some degree has mostly been left out. Questions like what Yoda would think of his last student going on such a major rampage against an admittedly despicable crime figure, for instance, are never answered.
Delving for a minute into another slight problem, the special edition "improvements" were just a bit unnecessary. One has to wonder what the crew who invested countless hours into making the puppetry work for the musical number in Jabba's palace thought of the new number. Putting aside the annoying performers for a second, the number they chose is really awful. It seems we are going to have two competing visions of the future, music-wise. Lucas appears to support the Backstreet Boys version. Seriously, the number in the palace is so clichéd and predictable you can predict every repeated line without having heard the song before. Give me Basil and Zoë Poledouris' number in StarShip Troopers, any day.
Overall, however, I felt Return Of The Jedi was worthy of nine out of ten. It was a slight improvement over A New Hope, and a slight letdown after The Empire Strikes Back. However, even compared independently of the prequels, it is a fun ride that involves a little higher thought on the part of the viewer, which is always a good thing.