Celebrate the love

Rating: 9/10 (17 December 2015)

'Return Of The Jedi' is a bit like a kid who grows up to be a successful neurosurgeon only to stand in the shadows of two older siblings; one who landed on Mars and the other who became President... we're talking like Abraham Lincoln, not Chester A. Arthur. It's a cruel fate, really, as such a child might ultimately have been better off being born in a family where they're the first to get their high school diploma (GED, of course). In the land of the blind,... but I digress.
There are flaws here, and they've been dissected ad nauseam for over thirty years now (Ewoks, burp jokes, Ewoks, rehashed plot devices, Ewoks, the dumbing down of Han Solo, Ewoks). I have nothing fresh to add to this, but suffice it to say, none of them is fatal. Third acts are notoriously difficult, and 'Return Of The Jedi' had more challenges than most thanks to its predecessor's leftover story baggage. The entire first act is spent tying up loose ends. By my math, that only leaves 2/3 of its runtime to, I don't know, wrap up the definitive work of cinematic mythology of the late 20th century. No small task, that. But it does it, and in grand, rousing fashion. And, at a time in the story when you don't really expect any twists, we get perhaps the biggest of all; the redemption of Darth Vader.
People talk about Vader's reveal in 'The Empire Strikes Back' as one of the greatest shockers in movie history, and it is, but I contend that his redemption is at least as shocking. You have to remember, this was Vader when he was the icon of evil, before the prequel trilogy (clumsily in my opinion) humanized him. To think in 1983 that Vader would ultimately come back to the light after what we'd witnessed in the previous two films... not many saw that coming.
'Return Of The Jedi' stumbles, it even falls, but it keeps getting back up on its feet and races to a thrilling climax that puts a triumphant exclamation point on the saga... or so we thought.