Return of the Jedi movie review (1983)

This third movie lacks the resonance that Obi-Wan and Yoda brought to the second one (they make cameo appearances, but are not major players). We see a great deal more, however, of Darth and the Emperor, who looks uncannily like Death in “The Seventh Seal.” There is, of course, the climactic moment when Vader reveals his real face, allowing the character to become the first in movie history to be played by three actors (body by David Prowse, voice by James Earl Jones, face by Sebastian Shaw). By this third installment, I think, we've seen quite enough of the swordplay with laserbeams, and those scenes could be shortened. The Sharper Image catalog, I see, is offering replicas of the lightsabers for $350 to $450--pricy, when you consider the original prop was a photoflash grip.

At the end of it all, after the three movies, we've taken an epic fantasy journey. Lucas has in common with all great storytellers the ability to create a complete world. These films may spring from space opera, science-fiction and Saturday serials, but they are done so superbly that they transcend all genres and become a reverberating place in our imaginations.

Thinking back over the three, I find that the most compelling characters are Darth Vader, Yoda, and Obi-Wan Kenobi. That is because their lives and thoughts are entirely focused on the Force. To the degree that characters have distance from the Force, they resonate less: Skywalker is important, although boyishly shallow, and Princess Leia harbors treasured secrets, but Han Solo, for all his importance to the plot, is not very interesting as a person, and a little of Chewbacca, as observed earlier, goes a long way.

The droids, R2-D2 and C-3PO, play much the same role here as their originals did in the movie that inspired them, Kurosawa's “The Hidden Fortress.” They're a team, Laurel and Hardy or Vladimir and Estragon, linked together by fate and personality. The other characters--Lando, Jabba, the Grand Moff Tarkin and the many walk-ons and bit players--function, in Eliot's words, to swell the progress of a scene or two.

At the end, what are we left with? Marvelous sights: The two Death Stars, the lumbering war machines on the snow planet, space warfare, the desert monster, buckaneering action. Marvelous sounds: the voices of Darth Vader, Jabba and the chirpy little R2-D2. And an idea--the Force--that in encompassing everything may, perhaps, encompass nothing, and conceal another level above, or beneath. I'm guessing that will be the subject of the next trilogy.