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“Return of the Jedi” completes the epic “Star Wars” cycle withthe final destruction of the Empire and the inevitable faceoff between LukeSkywalker and the evil Darth Vader, now revealed, as we surmised, to be hisfather. The film has a tone of its own. If “Star Wars” was a brash space operaand “The Empire Strikes Back” was a visual feast, “Return of the Jedi” is ariot of character invention. We get a good look at Jabba the Hutt and hiscourt; we meet the fuzzy-wuzzy Ewoks, and we are confronted by two wonderfullyloathsome creatures--the beast in the dungeon beneath Jabba's throne room andthe desert monster made of teeth and gullet.
If I had to choose, I would say this is the least of the StarWars films. It lacks the startling originality of the first two. It's moreconcerned with loose ends and final resolutions. It was the correct decisionfor George Lucas to end with a trilogy and then move to another point in timefor the continuation of the saga. To return to these characters a fourth timewould destroy the mythic structure of the story and turn it simply into aseries.
Still, there are inspired things here. The early scenes aredominated by Jabba the Hutt, whose cavern is populated with lots of smallobnoxious creatures in the corners and a grotesque intergalactic jazz band thatseems to have been improvised along with its music. Secure in his lair, Jabbahas Han Solo frozen in a sculpture on the wall, and eventually takes all of ourheroes captive. His gurgling voice is wonderfully reprehensible, and he squatsbeneath his cavern ceiling like a stalagmite of slime. (It has been observedthat Jabba seems much larger here than in “Star Wars.” Some say it is becausehe is on a platform; some say it is an optical illusion. I suggest that a huttis a slug, and slugs continue to grow all of their lives.)
The monster in the dungeon, made of teeth and scales, is theembodiment of disgusting aggression, and yet its death provides one of themovie's finest moments. The creature is crushed beneath a heavy door, and thenwe see its keeper come forward, weeping to have lost his pet. It's a throwawaymoment, but typical of the film's richness.
An extended sequence takes place in the desert, where Jabba'sHovercraft positions itself over the creature in the sand, which seems toconsist primarily as a large digestive system. He intends to force his captivesto walk the plank, but the tables are nicely turned. I have always felt Lucaslost an opportunity here; since Jabba obviously must die at some point, why notfeed him to the sand thing? I can envision the Hutt's globular body slitheringalong the plank and plopping down into the big open mouth--and then being spitup again, as too unsavory even for this eating machine. Final shot: green gooeyJabba-stuff dissolving in the monster's digestive juices under a pitiless sun.
The Ewoks (never referred to by name in the film) are cute andbring a kind of innocence to the Forest Moon, where the power station for theorbiting Death Star is located. Their forest provides the location for themovie's most inexplicable sequences, in which characters chase one another onhigh-speed hover-scooters. As you know if you have seen the film (and USA Todayassures us the average American has seen it several times), bad guys regularlyget wiped out by running their scooters into trees. Question: Isn't a thicklyforested area the wrong venue for these vehicles? How about flying above thetreetops, where there's nothing to run into?
This third movie lacks the resonance that Obi-Wan and Yodabrought to the second one (they make cameo appearances, but are not majorplayers). We see a great deal more, however, of Darth and the Emperor, wholooks uncannily like Death in “The Seventh Seal.” There is, of course, theclimactic moment when Vader reveals his real face, allowing the character tobecome the first in movie history to be played by three actors (body by DavidProwse, voice by James Earl Jones, face by Sebastian Shaw). By this thirdinstallment, I think, we've seen quite enough of the swordplay with laserbeams,and those scenes could be shortened. The Sharper Image catalog, I see, isoffering replicas of the lightsabers for $350 to $450--pricy, when you considerthe original prop was a photoflash grip.
At the end of it all, after the three movies, we've taken anepic fantasy journey. Lucas has in common with all great storytellers theability to create a complete world. These films may spring from space opera,science-fiction and Saturday serials, but they are done so superbly that theytranscend all genres and become a reverberating place in our imaginations.
Thinking back over the three, I find that the most compellingcharacters are Darth Vader, Yoda, and Obi-Wan Kenobi. That is because theirlives and thoughts are entirely focused on the Force. To the degree thatcharacters have distance from the Force, they resonate less: Skywalker isimportant, although boyishly shallow, and Princess Leia harbors treasuredsecrets, but Han Solo, for all his importance to the plot, is not veryinteresting as a person, and a little of Chewbacca, as observed earlier, goes along way.
The droids, R2-D2 and C-3PO, play much the same role here astheir originals did in the movie that inspired them, Kurosawa's “The HiddenFortress.” They're a team, Laurel and Hardy or Vladimir and Estragon, linkedtogether by fate and personality. The other characters--Lando, Jabba, the GrandMoff 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 twoDeath Stars, the lumbering war machines on the snow planet, space warfare, thedesert monster, buckaneering action. Marvelous sounds: the voices of DarthVader, Jabba and the chirpy little R2-D2. And an idea--the Force--that inencompassing everything may, perhaps, encompass nothing, and conceal anotherlevel above, or beneath. I'm guessing that will be the subject of the nexttrilogy.
