Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1983
	Director: Richard Marquand
	Actors: Mark Hamill (Sushi Girl, Body Bags), Harrison Ford (Indiana Jones 1-4), Carrie Fisher (The Blues Brothers), Billy Dee Williams
	Country: USA
	Genre: SF, Adventure
	Conditions of visioning: 20.04.2015, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: While the Galactic Empire is building a new Death Star capable of destroying planets, Luke (Hamill), Leia (Fischer), Chewbacca and Lando Calrissian (Williams) attempt to rescue Han Solo (Ford) from the lair of Jabba the Hut.
Review: As in The Empire Strikes Back, this conclusion to the original Star Wars trilogy contains many classic SF moments. The first half hour on Tatooine is a movie in itself, culminating with the destruction of Jabba the Hutt and its barge, and the splitting up of Luke from the rest of the team. Everything converges to make this moment a highlight: heroism, justice, sword and gun fights, Leia is her slave outfit (a fantasy for generations of Geeks) and of course the music that carries it all beautifully. You literally have to take a breath afterwards. The second visit to Yoda thus comes right on time, and provides the right amount of magic, mysticism and revelations for those who were starting to miss those elements. In general throughout the whole movie, I found that Mark Hamill appropriately plays a more mature Luke Skywalker and I appreciated that. Then comes the weaker part of the movie that involves the Ewoks, hated by many. I don't have that strong antipathetic feelings against them but admit that their apparition slows down the rhythm of the movie. I have learned by watching a making-of documentary on the Blu-ray that Georges Lucas wanted on purpose that the Empire would be defeated party thanks to the help of a primitive civilization ignoring technology. Fortunately, this slower section is soon interleaved with scenes of Luke facing Vader and then the Emperor, the highlight of the movie. The last half hour is brilliant in many aspects, revolving around the Emperor's plot to bring Luke to the Dark Side by confronting him with the simultaneous demise of both his friends and the Rebellion Fleet. The editing of those scenes is perfect, and include the best space battle of the whole saga, if not of the History of cinema: the one involving The Millennium Falcon and the Rebel Fleet against the Death Star (I had already noticed the improvement of special effects quality from Episode IV to V, but this time another leap was taken). And the ending is fully satisfying, so much that when I was often watching the trilogy 15 years ago, after this ending I immediately wanted to start over again with the three movies. This brings me to the modifications made by Georges Lucas to the movie in the Special Edition in particular (I have discussed this process in more detail in the review of Episode V). The ending contains new scenes of celebration of several planets like Naboo and Coruscant (that we actually discover in the new trilogy) and a new music that I actually like. I have seen the original ending and it was already good, but this one works even better I find. In the end scene we also see a young Anakin Skywalker as played by Haiden Christensen in the new trilogy, a modification that I find useless. And the one that disturbs me more is when (spoiler for the few who haven't seen the film, highlight to read) Vader defeats the Emperor. While it used to be a silent moment by Vader, emotionally strong nonetheless, it is now accompanied with a shout of No, Noooooooo! that spoils a bit the scene for me. Watching again Return of the Jedi also made me connect the original trilogy to the new one more and more, and I am thus looking forward to link the two by watching the episodes for which a review is missing on this blog: Episode I: The Phantom Menace (in spite of the too long pod race) and Episode II: Attack of the Clones (in spite of the cheesy romance).
Rating: 9 /10