A case of déjà-vu - but a nice enough one

Rating: 7/10 (18 March 2014)

This is the weakest of the original trilogy. Watching it, one gets the feeling that Lucas is mixing recycled material with some things dumped from the original because he had too much material for one film. Now it's not quite enough for three.
The Wook... pardon me, Ewoks have shrunk in size for this one. Cuter=more merchandise. We do get to see the forest world of Chewbacca eventually in the prequels. How the Ewoks survive in the wild if they can't even wield a slingshot is beyond me. And while one can have some limited success with arrows and stones against armored troops with laser guns, the battle on Endor is simply comical in the way the stormtroopers practically slaughter themselves in horror at the little bears. The Death Star gets blown up again. It feels like it was the planned original climax, but with more of the story worked out in the second and third film, what to but to just do it again? The set piece in the Canti... pardon me, Jabba's fortress, has the band playing it up again. The Emperor commits the classic 'James Bond villainous mastermind' mistake: let the good guys into your inner sanctum (such as the field generator on Endor) while chatting them up, thus giving them plenty of opportunity to blow your hideaway to pieces. Dr. No couldn't have done it any better. It's OK: the original Star Wars was more comedic (and thus actually better) than the prequels, just like the James Bond films. It is a Space Opera, not a Space Odyssey!
I have to give John Williams credit for the music. The re-orchestration of older material is great, and one tune in particular, the Ewoks' Parade, is a nice piece of neoclassical composition that holds its own even on public radio programs. It made the little critters almost sufferable! As an extensive listener to the classic repertoire, I would say Williams did not rip the old-timers like Dvorak off any more than they did each other (Such as Dvorak ripping of the Leitmotif from the Scherzo of Beethoven's 9th). His score has to be one of the best film scores of the 20th century, and I say that despite plenty of stiff competition from Jarre Sr., Herrmann, or sf experts like Goldsmith. I would say in recent memory, only Howard Shore has matched such a variety of good melodies and deft orchestration for the LOTR films.
A parting shot regarding the re-mastering almost 20 years later: as always, Lucas could not resist overdoing it when sprucing up 'Return' for re-release. Consider the following little example: in the original, there is an outside shot of the twin suns of Tattooine setting over Jabba's fortress. The shot is quiet, suggesting that everyone is slumbering away, which is exactly what Leia is supposed to think while thawing Han. In the remake, Lucas had to put some desert frog in the foreground of this formerly serene shot, snarfing up a bug and burping loudly. It's as though he has forgotten why he put that scene there in the first place. Oh, George.