A sign of things to come

Rating: 7/10 (13 June 1999)

The Return of the Jedi is the movie that shows the first signs that Lucas' creative well was starting to dry as the merchandising finally corrupted the Star Wars universe.
The movie starts promising with the rescue of Han Solo from his nemesis Jabba the Hut. After this, everything plotwise goes downhill. It seems that they really wanted to end this thing, but didn't know how. They didn't know how to fit Yoda into the storyline, so they kill him (He seemed perfectly healthy to me and all of a sudden, he's dead). They didn't know what new evil could the Empire come up with, so they throw us a recycled, uncomplete, Dead Star to blow up again. And finally, the hated teddy bear like Ewoks whose only purpose in the movie is to sell more toys. Darth Vader's redemption was too nice, too easy, too fast. Fortunately some very exciting action sequences (like the "bike" chase scene) save the film from being a cutefest.
16 years later, George Lucas releases his god-awful Episode 1 The Phantom Menace which resembles more the shallowness of this film than the good points.
Jedi is still a great movie, but unlike the previous two, can't stand on its own.