Return of the Jedi

• 1. The Rancor's Trap

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  Luke Skywalker stands before the massive jaws of a rancor, his lightsaber glowing green in the dim light of Jabba the Hutt's palace. The creature roars, its teeth grinding together as it lunges forward. Luke leaps back, dodging the beast's attack with agility born of desperation. He strikes the creature's eye, blinding it momentarily, then uses the opportunity to push it into the pit below. The rancor falls, its body disappearing into the darkness of the underground chamber.

  Jabba the Hutt watches from his throne, his eyes narrowing as he realizes the threat posed by this young Jedi. He orders his guards to capture Luke and bring him before the Sarlacc, a monstrous creature that waits patiently in the desert sands outside the palace. Luke is thrown into the pit, but he manages to escape, retrieving his lightsaber from the rubble. He fights his way out, cutting down Jabba's thugs one by one.

  Leia Organa, disguised as a bounty hunter, infiltrates the palace under the pretense of having captured Chewbacca. She releases Han Solo from the carbonite block, only to be caught herself. Jabba enslaves her, forcing her to wear a slave outfit and dance for his amusement. Leia struggles against her captors, using her wits to survive until she can find an opportunity to strike back.

  The group escapes as Jabba's sail barge explodes, sending debris flying through the air. Boba Fett falls into the Sarlacc's pit, never to be seen again. Leia strangles Jabba to death with her chains, ending the crime lord's reign of terror once and for all.

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• 2. Marquand's Selection

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  George Lucas considered Steven Spielberg to direct Return of the Jedi, but their separate feuds with the Director's Guild of America led to Spielberg being banned from directing the film. David Lynch was approached next, but he declined, believing that Lucas should direct the film since Star Wars was his creation. Lucas also offered the role to David Cronenberg, who turned it down because he preferred to direct films he had written himself.

  Lucas finally chose Richard Marquand, a director with relatively little experience in special effects. Marquand joked that directing Jedi was like trying to direct King Lear , with Shakespeare in the next room! He worked closely with Lucas on set, often relying on the producer Howard Kazanjian to handle some of the more technical aspects of production.

  Kazanjian pushed the shooting schedule to begin a few weeks early to allow Industrial Light & Magic more time to work on the film's effects in post-production. This decision left some crew members doubtful of their ability to be fully prepared, but it ultimately allowed ILM to create over 900 special effects shots for the film.

  Marquand praised the cast's kindness and his ability to work with actors, though he did clash with Anthony Daniels on set. Daniels recorded his dialogue with Lucas instead, while Carrie Fisher disliked working with Marquand, who often yelled at her.

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• 3. Effects And Budget

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  Filming began on the 11th of January 1982, and lasted through the 20th of May 1982, a schedule six weeks shorter than Empire. Working on a budget of $32.5 million, Lucas was determined to avoid going over budget as had happened with Empire. Kazanjian estimated that using ILM (which was owned by Lucasfilm) for special effects saved the production approximately $18 million.

  The first stage of production spanned 78 days at Elstree Studios in England, where the film occupied all nine sound stages. The shoot commenced with a scene that was later cut from the film, in which the heroes get caught in a sandstorm as they leave Tatooine. For the rancor, Lucas wanted to use a stunt performer in a suit in the style of the Toho Godzilla films. The production team made several attempts, but were unable to create an adequate result.

  Lucas eventually relented and made the rancor a puppet filmed at high speeds. In April, the crew moved to Arizona's Yuma Desert for two weeks of Tatooine exteriors. Production then moved to northern California, where the crew shot Endor forest scenes in Grizzly Creek Redwoods State Park on private land near Smith River.

  Principal photography concluded with about ten days of bluescreen shots at ILM in San Rafael, California. One small post-production unit shot background matte plates for a day in Death Valley, and a Steadicam unit shot forest backgrounds for the speeder chase on Endor.

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• 4. Revenge Or Return

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  The original teaser trailer for the film carried the name Revenge of the Jedi. In December 1982, Lucas decided the word "Revenge" was not appropriate because he believed a Jedi should never seek revenge. He returned the film to its original title, but by that time thousands of "Revenge" teaser posters had been printed and distributed.

  Lucasfilm stopped the shipping of the posters and sold the remaining stock of 6,800 posters to Star Wars fan club members for $9.50. The screenplay was not finished until late in pre-production, well after a production schedule and a budget had been created, and after Marquand had been hired, which was unusual for a film.

  Instead, the production team relied on Lucas' story and his rough draft of the script to guide their early work. When it came time to write a shooting script, Lucas, Kasdan, Marquand and Kazanjian spent two weeks in conference discussing ideas; Kasdan used tape transcripts of these meetings to construct the script.

  Kazanjian echoed Lawrence Kasdan's concern about the weak title, and the title was changed to Revenge of the Jedi soon after. However, Lucas ultimately rejected the idea of using the word "revenge" in the final title.

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• 5. Box Office Records

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  Return of the Jedi grossed $314.3 million in the United States and Canada, and $166 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $480 million, against a production budget of about $32.5 million. It earned a total of $6.2 million on its opening day, beating out Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan to have the highest single day gross in history.

  It would hold the record for having the highest pre-Memorial Day Wednesday gross until 1996 when Mission: Impossible surpassed it. Return of the Jedi made $23 million from 1,002 theaters in its opening weekend and grossed a record $45.3 million in its opening week. It set a new domestic opening weekend record, surpassing the $14 million opening of The Wrath of Khan.

  Its $22,973 per theatre average would stand as a record for a nationwide release on an inflation-adjusted basis for 36 years, until it was surpassed by Avengers: Endgame in 2019. Return of the Jedi finished first at the box office for six of its first seven weeks of release. Box Office Mojo estimates that the film sold over 80 million tickets in the US in its initial theatrical run.

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• 6. Critical Reception

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  The Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert gave Return of the Jedi four out of four stars, calling it "a complete entertainment, a feast for the eyes and a delight for the fancy." He said that Lucas and his team "keep topping themselves." Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune also gave the film his highest possible rating, calling it a "childlike delight" which features "every facet of filmmaking at its best."

  Writing in The Washington Post, Gary Arnold called Return of the Jedi a "feat of mass enchantment" and "an imposing landmark in contemporary popular culture." Colin Greenland of Imagine magazine stated, "You would think a series like Star Wars, fuelled by public adoration, coasting along on the hyperdrive of its own hyperboles, would get inexorably worse. It is not. It is getting better."

  Sheila Benson of the Los Angeles Times wrote that the film is fully satisfying, overflows with "new inventiveness", and carries "a weight and a new maturity" without becoming any less fun than the previous films. She likened the characters in Return of the Jedi to close friends which the viewer must leave behind as the trilogy ends.

  Vincent Canby of The New York Times called Return of the Jedi the "dimmest adventure" of the trilogy. Pauline Kael of The New Yorker felt the film's imagery was lackluster, and called it "an impersonal and rather junky piece of moviemaking." In his review for Ares magazine, Christopher John called Jedi a failure and "a cheap and tarnished crown for the series which shook the world of film when it started out."

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• 7. Legacy And Revisions

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  In 1997, for the 20th anniversary of the release of Star Wars, Lucasfilm released the Star Wars Trilogy: Special Edition in theaters. All three films in the original trilogy contained changes and additions in the Special Edition. Changes in Return of the Jedi include the addition of several new aliens in Jabba's throne room, a different song performed in the throne room, the addition of a beak to the Sarlacc, the insertion of various worlds celebrating the fall of the Empire, and different music during the closing scene.

  The runtime of the Special Edition, and all subsequent releases of Return of the Jedi, is approximately five minutes longer than the original theatrical version. Return of the Jedi was re-released theatrically by 20th Century Studios on the 28th of April 2023, to commemorate the film's 40th anniversary.

  In September 2011, all the films of the original trilogy and the prequel trilogy were released together on Blu-ray by 20th Century-Fox Home Entertainment. The version of Return of the Jedi in this set contained some new changes, including Ewoks blinking and Vader yelling "No!" as he throws the Emperor to his death, an alteration which drew sharp negative criticism.

  In 2021, Return of the Jedi was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." According to the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 84% of critics have given the film a positive review with an average rating of 7.30/10.

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