Star Wars Episode III: Return of the Star Wars

Okay, that subject makes no sense.

We all know that in Star Wars parlance, Episode III refers to a 2005 movie called Revenge of the Sith. We're not up to that in our viewing, and who knows, we may never get there.

But in the parlance of my family, we had our third movie-length Star Wars "episode" this past weekend on Easter, which was finally watching Return of the Jedi -- the third movie made, but Episode VI using the episode numbering that all Star Wars fans, and most other people, are familiar with. 

I say "finally" because it's been an eternity since we watched The Empire Strikes Back, following a similar eternity since we had watched Star Wars. (I won't name the episode numbers for those movies, because when they first came out, they had no episode numbers, and that's the way I like it.) 

Maybe "eternity" is a bit of an exaggeration. It was actually October 4, 2020 that we watched Empire, so only 18 months ago. But my hope had been that Empire would be such a hit with my kids that they would want to gobble up all the remaining Star Wars movies in short order, and that we wouldn't have another gap like we had between watching Star Wars, which we did on December 22, 2017, and Empire.

This gap was shorter, but it was still indicative of my kids' feelings on these movies in general.

However, maybe that's about to change. 

"What did you think of it?" I asked my older son, who is now 11, as the credits rolled. 

"Good," he said. "I finally like a Star Wars movie."

He knew there was something at stake here just as much as I did.

The younger one didn't directly answer the question, but he was making shooting noises and explosion noises in the play he uses to fill up brief moments of downtime, so that may have been answer enough.

The Book of Boba Fett was what gave me confidence to reintroduce Star Wars to these guys now. They're into "Star Wars" as a concept, having watched two seasons of The Mandalorian in addition to Boba Fett, but the movies have never worked for them -- "too old," "too slow," "looks bad" have been the sorts of complaints they've offered. They obviously don't have a geek's relationship to the material, but I had hoped that recognizing a lot of characters/locations from Boba Fett when they watched Jedi would be the kind of thing that would crystallize feelings of excitement about the show and transfer them to the movies.

I'm not sure if that really happened, or if they just liked the movie on its own terms. I didn't subject them to an extensive exit interview and was just happy with the positive reaction. But because they didn't spontaneously emit exclamations like "Hey, it's the Rancor!" or "Hey, it's a Gamorrean Guard!", I wasn't sure they actually felt that excitement of recognition I had been relying on, and wasn't sure if the movie would work for them at all.

They did seem to find the Ewoks somewhat charming, as my wife and I would sometimes produce little laughs at things Wicket W. Warrick (the original www?) would do, and they seemed to go along with that. 

If I had to guess what finally clicked for my older son, I'd suggest it was the happy ending -- the repudiation of the Emperor (I won't say "death," because we now know he didn't actually die), the redemption of Darth Vader, and the survival and celebration of all the characters we love. I think the ending of Empire had left him perplexed, since there were so many open wounds, and he was unaccustomed to watching movies that ended on a down note. Jedi definitely wraps things up in a nice tight bow.

Then I suppose I also must consider the role of the scope of the movie. We watched it on the projector in our garage, which is as close to a cinematic-style projection as he's ever gotten on a Star Wars movie. We've started to watch a lot more things in our garage so it's perhaps less of a novelty, but a Star Wars movie deserves a bigger canvas, and this one finally got one.

I have to say it was not a 100% success. In the context of his positive review, my older son did mention the pacing issues and made a comment along the lines of "For about ten minutes there I was bored to death." But I guess if a movie's slow patch only lasts ten minutes, that's not too bad, and it means something came back along to stoke your excitement after that. (I don't know which ten minutes it was that bored him so much, but in my mind I imagine it's the conversation between Luke and Leia on Endor. Then again, the moment he did call back to a couple days later was when Luke elevates C3PO to prove to the Ewoks that Threepio is a god, which he obviously enjoyed and which was only a minute or two before that.)

Now the problem is, where to go from here. If their interest in Star Wars is, indeed, stoked, we could move on to one of the next two trilogies. The question is: Which one? If we went only in the order the movies were released, it would obviously be time for The Phantom Menace. But it's possible we'd have better luck with the newer (and better) movies, meaning my personal favorite of the most recent six, The Force Awakens, would be up next. That also picks up where the story left off.

The only thing is, I don't know if they're ready for the successive deaths of each of the three main characters in the next three movies they watch. If my son was perplexed by the ending of Empire, I can only imagine how he'd handle a whole movie where Luke Skywalker is irritable and glum, only belatedly redeeming himself at the end. Should Luke Skywalker be a character who requires redemption? (This is what I asked myself, and still ask myself, about The Last Jedi.)

I suppose whichever way we go, if we go, I will let my children dictate the pace this time. I've already force-fed them the three movies I really want them to see, and anything from here is a bonus. We'll watch Obi-Wan Kenobi when it comes out soon, and if they continue to enjoy that, it would make an easy transition into watching the same actor portray that role in the three prequels. 

But I won't push it on them. They need to make the choice now. My indoctrinating days are over.

Part of me thinks that now that they've enjoyed Return of the Jedi, they should try Star Wars and Empire again. But I've got to just let it go. 

Recreating your own childhood with your kids is an enterprise that is always doomed to failure, be it Star Wars, or the books you loved as a kid, or the sports you played. You can make suggestions and point them in directions, but they've got to take it on themselves at some point, or it can't possibly have that value to them.

At least we went 1-3 on the original trilogy, which was much better than a big fat zero. 

Return of the Jedi, now with 83% more Hayden Christensen!

I've seen Hayden Christensen inserted into the end of Return of the Jedi, so now I've seen everything.

And now I've also seen everything in terms of my six rewatches in my Year of Star Wars, leading up to The Force Awakens next week.

In truth, I was not as bothered by it as I expected to be. I was not even all that bothered by the insertion of "No!!" as Vader throws the Emperor down that shaft at the end. (Oops! Spoiler alert!) Even though in this post I fully expected to be. (And I just now realized I spelled "Anakin" wrong throughout that post. Who knew the name didn't have three N's?)

And in fact my wife -- who has been very critical of any recent changes to the movies, and even thought she didn't want to watch Jedi with me because the Ewoks were too "Jar Jar Binksy" -- actually offered a reasonable defense of it. She argued (as others probably have, but she's certainly never read their arguments) that Anakin returned to how he looked before he'd fallen from grace. And explaining the age discrepancy between the young Anakin and Obi-Wan and Yoda at the age they were when they died, the latter two never fell from grace, so they have nothing to "return" to.

I rejoined with my own unexpected justification of it. When that Anakin ghost used to be Sebastian Shaw -- the actor who plays the unmasked version of Vader at the end of Jedi -- he was dressed just like Obi-Wan, in traditional Jedi robes. But the thing is, Anakin never wore Jedi robes at the age he was when he died. So essentially, they fit him with some post-mortem afterlife Jedi robes that he never actually wore when he was alive. Seems a bit funny when you think about it.

What did bother me were some changes that have been around since the special editions in 1997, which I've already seen once if not twice. And both are in what I've now decided are my favorite portion of the movie, the part set on Tatooine.

One is, of course, the stupid song added to the first Jabba lair scene. Back in the day, Max Rebo's band never had a singer, but as of 1997, it now has two. Two shitty digital characters who look like cartoon characters more than the great practical-effect characters that surround them. This is a pretty typical complaint about the nature of Lucas' additions to the original trilogy, and Return of the Jedi in particular. However, I do have a more specific thing that bothered me about both characters -- their mouths. Adding to the cartoonish quality is that Lucas thought it would be funny (I guess) to focus on these characters' mouths. First it's the female singer, whose mouth is on the end of a long snout-like protrusion. Lucas has her lips come out toward us, almost like you would if you were thinking of having the movie in 3D -- which, to my knowledge, has not actually been done with these movies yet. Then the male singer does a similar thing in terms of jumping out at the camera, but he has just a regular (albeit big) mouth. So instead of protruding, it just opens up unusually wide. It's cartoon humor and it has no place in this scene -- especially since it indicates a kind of "good time" vibe that is not really what we're feeling in that moment.

Then I was also bothered by the mini mouth in the Sarlacc pit. This is not the plant from Little Shop of Horrors. This is the almighty Sarlacc, and the less we know about exactly how its victims are digested in its stomach over a thousand years, the more mysterious.

Still, I loved the Tatooine scenes because they reminded me of how weird the whole Jabba interlude is in the timeline of the Star Wars saga. Most of the rest of everything else is focused on this direct rebellion of the rebel alliance against the empire, but some of the key players in the rebellion have to take time out from that issue to go deal with a bunch of gangsters. Not only that, but they have to develop a plan to beat Jabba the Hutt that is nearly as intricate as any of the previous plans to steal Death Star plans and the like. Of course, the confidence with which Luke is brimming leaves you pretty certain that everyone you care about will make it out alive, but there are definitely some hairy moments. That confidence also gives you your first indication of how much Luke has developed as a Jedi in the three weeks? four weeks? two months? it has been since he fought Vader on Bespin. The only thing we know for sure about how long it's been is that a) they've had time enough to develop their plan, and b) Lando has had time enough to infiltrate Jabba's inner circle. If you're looking for a Star Wars spinoff movie, the story of Lando passing himself off as a disreputable bounty hunter type would be a good one.

The Jabba portion also has one of my single favorite touches in the whole saga: the Rancor keeper shedding a tear (or a whole cascade of tears) over the death of his beloved pet. It's one of the purest examples of the idea that everybody loves somebody, and they totally could have left the whole thing out, except that at that moment, somebody decide to remind everyone that we're all creatures with feelings and that, to anticipate R.E.M., "everybody hurts, sometimes."

I don't have a lot of specific takeaways to report on regarding Endor, but I did like those scenes too. And I decided that the Ewoks do not seem too Jar Jar Binksy for me. In fact, I thought it was kind of a stroke of brilliance that the gruff and macho Han Solo has to contend with a bunch of furry little creatures. His reactions to them are priceless. I also love when the Ewoks start to drive the walker while Chewbacca is still standing out of the cockpit, nearly knocking him off the top of the walker. His near stumble and quick grab to avoid falling make for a very humorous moment.

What I was most interested in, coming into this viewing, was how I would see Return of the Jedi in comparison to Empire Strikes Back, since you remember that my affection for Empire suffered a few hits back in October when I watched a copy of the original movie as it looked when it was released in 1980. Complicating any and all apples to apples comparisons, the Return of the Jedi I watched was, like Star Wars, the BluRay version, which indeed did look great. But if I am going to try to focus only on the stories that are told and the bits of character development, which seems like kind of an impossibility at this point, I did indeed find that I liked Jedi more than Empire as well this time. Jedi's got the Emperor and Jedi's got the terrific Tatooine stuff. It also felt less rushed to me, which was also my takeaway from watching Star Wars again. By comparison, Empire feels very rushed.

So now I've arrived at the last moment in the saga that occurs prior to the first moments we'll see in The Force Awakens next week. And not that I really needed this little six-movie refresher to be ready, but I'm glad I've done it -- it's been fun, even if containing some surprises that have shaken certain parts of my whole foundation for how I thought I viewed these movies. Perhaps that's a good thing. Or perhaps that's just a fluke, and next time I see Empire I'll love it again.

Incidentally, when I borrowed this BluRay pack from the library, it did also come with Empire and I did think of trying to watch it again. But it's the end of the year and I have plenty of 2015 movies to catch up on. Who's got time?

T-minus nine days and 11 hours until I see The Force Awakens.

Like I said, I'm ready.

Should Annakin Skywalker go to hell?

All this hand-wringing recently over the decidedly awful addition to the ending of Return of the Jedi for its BluRay release has got me thinking a lot about the heroic redemption of Annakin Skywalker/Darth Vader.

Although I think it's absurd to add the much-reviled "Noooo!" as dialogue for Vader during the crucial moment when he saves Luke from the Emperor's lightning torture, I do think there has been one clear benefit of this: It's made me realize that the scene, as originally constructed, had a kind of minimalist brilliance.

Never before had I had chance to think twice about that scene in terms of its impact relative to other choices they could have made. I knew Vader didn't vocalize his internal struggle as it was going on, and there was probably a time when I considered that sort of unusual. Now that I see the alternative, it makes me realize how cool the scene was when it relied on a minimum of acting. You can't see a face behind Vader's mask, so without words, only the befuddled movements of his helmet made you realize he was appalled at what his master was doing. I don't know if you credit that to David Prowse (the guy who walked around inside the Vader costume) or just to the director (Richard Marquand, remember him?), but either way, it works great. Through just a few sharp movements of his neck, Vader conveys the message "What the fuck, dude?"

So that was the first thing this discussion made me think of.

The next was whether The Megalomaniac Formerly Known as Annakin Skywalker should get into heaven so easily.

I mean, let's consider the facts. As a young man, Annakin oversaw the extermination of as many living Jedi as he could find. Once transformed into Darth Vader, he was the primary malevolent force behind the destruction of whole planets. (He was the Emperor's puppet, but still.) Throughout his adulthood he squashed people like they were bugs, and if he'd had his way, he would have crushed the whole rebellion in Episode IV. (And Episode V, and Episode VI.) In fact, only because the will of the Empire is flouted at the end of Return of the Jedi is he even in a position to overthrow his master. And then, you could argue that he only does it out of some latent sense of paternalism toward his son -- which could actually be described as a selfish, rather than selfless, act.

Yet moments after the flames consume his body on Endor, he gets to join all the other benevolent ghosts, like Ben Kenobi and Yoda, as if nothing ever happened? Wouldn't they be like "You! You're that guy! You killed all those people, you motherfucker!" And give him a ghostly shove or something?

It makes me recognize even more the true Christian underpinnings of the saga. That stuff is, of course, there if you look for it -- Luke is the "chosen one" (Jesus), who has mystical powers that can't be explained by science. (Does that mean, in this scenario, that Darth Vader is God?) But what about the whole idea of Christian redemption? One act of genuinely asking God for forgiveness on your death bed, and you're saved?

In all the years of people discussing and writing about Star Wars, I'm sure I'm not the first person to think of this or write about it. But, I will say that I'm not stealing from something I read when I post these thoughts here.

As for the BluRays ... well, they were always just another chance to get us to spend a little more money on Star Wars. The time I'll really step up to the plate is when a version of the saga is made available that appears exactly as the films were shown to us in 1977, 1980 and 1983. The only conclusion about all these multiple versions made available in multiple formats over the years, with multiple new bits added to each film, is that it just whets our appetite even more for the original, unmolested versions. Which George Lucas is undoubtedly sitting on until that exact moment when our frustration has reached its limit, and we're simply desperate to shell out money for untainted greatness.

However, we may have to endure 10-12 more lesser versions of each movie (their 3D rereleases are up next) before we get to that point.

A sucker for faces made of branches

Ranking Return of the Jedi on Flickchart just now, I came across this amazing poster I'd never seen before.

It's apparently by a guy named Olly Moss (www.ollymoss.com), who has designed posters for Star Trek and Lost, among others. (He's also got an Empire poster with a Boba Fett silhouette, and a Star Wars poster with a C3PO silhouette, but they aren't as arresting as this is.)

It's a unique poster in terms of Jedi subject matter, to be sure. The lone imperial walker almost appears to be lost, in a portrait of Endor that looks like it has more in common with Dagobah. And then there's the fact that the whole thing appears inside a Darth Vader silhouette ... well, it's just enthralling. In fact, you can almost look at it like the imperial walker has its head craned upward in Vader's direction, seeking approval and/or guidance in the task at hand.

But I think it's really the branches making up Vader's eyes that I love.

I didn't realize it at first glance, but this poster got me excited in the way that a similar poster got me excited for a considerably lesser movie: Premonition.

If you've never seen the original Premonition poster, which trusted us enough not to emblazon Sandra Bullock's face across it, here's an example below:


I like this poster so much, I even remember where I was when I saw it for the first time. (Outside the Laguna Beach single-screen theater, which was flooded last year. I sure hope they can repair.)

Nothing more to say for today. Just keep those face-branches coming. I'll never get tired of them.