Movie - Star Wars VI : Return of the Jedi

Movie - Star Wars VI : Return of the Jedi

Score : 8/10 
Year :1983
Director: Richard Marquand
Cinematography: Alan Hume, and uncredited Alec Mills
Music:  John William
Country: USA 
Language: English
Duration:  2h11 (Theatrical) ; 2h14 (special edition)
Writers:  Lawrence Kasdan and George Lucas (screenplay) ;  
George Lucas (story)

Full cast & team (IMDB)


The third made Star Wars movie is chapter VI - Return of the Jedi is set one year after the events in the previous chapter, in this faraway galaxy's calendar year 4 ABY.



In this chapter, Luke goes back to Tatooine to rescue his friend from Jaba the Hutt. Meanwhile, Darth Vader, on the Emperor orders, oversees construction of the newest mass-destruction weapon and seeks Luke to bring him to the dark side.

The opening crawl and John Williams' famous musical theme are now familiar at the start of each of this saga's movies. 

Acting is overall good, but I have very mixed feelings about the Ewokes, both cute and terrifyingly violent creatures. 

After chapter V's reduction on costumes, this time we see an increase ; the Stormtroopers are still conformed to their one-colour outfit (either black, white or red), the Ewokes and the Rebels are varied, showing their societal individuality is a core value. 


There are several action locations, fewer than the previous chapter, and VI is a temporary conclusion to Star Wars' stories - to be taken up again over a decade later with the prequels. Battles are more grandiose, but also repeat aspects from chapter IV, and somewhat too prolonged on this respect.

Sociopolitical comments rely mostly on fighting together in unity against oppression and the problematic gender-balance is very slightly reduced as we see some female Ewokes as well as a few more humanoid women, short dialogue from Senator Mon Motha, and as always, Leia, kick-ass both in her defensive and offensive actions.

A scene around 1h05* into the movie are difficult for me and I tend to avoid watching, as it involves a dead animal's corpse hanging in a tree, so when Chewie heads towards it, I look away. (this time-stamp is for the theatrical cut).

Starring :  Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Ian McDiarmid, Billy Dee Wiliams, Alex Guinness, Peter Mayhew, et al - including voice actors for some of the characters. 

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 Star Wars VI also  has two main versions, with individual duration. Theatrical in 1983 was 2h11, and the special edition 2h14. The differences include new dialogues, scenes, special effects, an extra song (silly) and longer ending - yet, with a total of only 3 minutes difference between both versions.

I again include an imdb list for alternate versions, changes in versions on wiki, and let you find other sources to compare all the differences in the various versions. 

I personally prefer the theatrical but wish that it was released  in full 16:9 image format, not 4:3 letterbox, and with better sound than the 2.0 stereo. More on that, in the media section, bellow.

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Star Wars V... in the media.

Before I detail my dvd's, for comparison I'll add here that the original theatrical image aspect ratio was 2.35:1 and had dolby stereo sound. 

There are numerous dvd and bluray editions, so I can only cover mine.

EAN 5039036028301 is a limited, double-dvd, zone 2 PAL edition, released in 2006. 

Disc 1 : 
2006 version. Duration 2h09  (Pal speedup). 
Movie, widescreen format enchanced for 16:9 TVs, original aspect ratio 2.35:1.
 Language/ Sound : English (only).  Dolby 5.1 surround EX, and dolby 2.0 surround. 
Subtitles: English for the hearing impaired, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish.



Bonus : 

• audio commentary by George Lucas, Irvin Kershner, Ben Butt, Dennis Muren and Carrie Fisher - haven't listened to it.
• DVD-ROM weblink to exclusive content - I assume the link is broken here as well

Disc 2 :
Original 198 theatrical version.  Duration 2h06  (Pal speedup). 
4:3 Letterbox format with aspect ratio 2.35:1. 
Language/ Sound : English (only),  dolby 2.0 surround. 
Subtitles: English for the hearing impaired, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish. 



Bonus : 

• LEGO Star Wars II video game PC demo and trailer (the same as New Hope!)

Both discs have an animated menu with direct access to scenes, options and bonuses- which are meagre as you saw both on New Hope and Empire Strikes Back, brining absolutely nothing new.  

As I said before, the theatrical version is presented with the original aspect ratio but in a 4:3 Letterbox format, which causes the image to shrink and is therefore less visible than the first disc's full 16:9 format, especially on a small-ish tv like ours (81cm, or 32''). 

Sound quality is also reduced because it's limited to stereo 2.0 : even on a decent Yamaha HiFi system, we can hear the dialogues better only in the 2.0 stereo set-up and any other makes dialogues sound muffled, faraway. 
 
If only Lucas would consent for a proper 5.1 and 16:9 re-release of this version!

Bottom line : I prefer the theatrical cut, but wish it was released in better quality. Certain of the changes in the edited version are nice, especially the colours, which are more vibrant.

My other edition has no individual EAN and included the Trilogy (IV-VI + a bonus dvd) box set, all together is EAN 8712626016342 and seems to be a Belge edition that I'd gotten some years ago, with the 2004 versions of the movies.
I'll discuss this set on a separate entry.