Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi

Sixth in a series of posts that will offer a review of the newly released Star Wars: The Complete Saga on Blu-ray. I'll be avoiding detailed plot rundowns as I assume that most reading have seen the movies. If you haven't be warned that these reviews may contain spoilers.

Entry 1 can be found here: Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace
Entry 2 can be found here: Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones
Entry 3 can be found here: Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
Entry 4 can be found here: Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope
Entry 5 can be found here: Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back

When Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi was released in the spring of 1983 it captured my imagination in ways that few films before it had. Like E.T.,Superman II and the other Star Wars films before it Return of the Jedi was fuel for a 9-year old boy's mind.

The Blu-ray contains the latest Special Edition version of Return of the Jedi. This is different than the 1997 theatrical Special Edition and the 2004 DVD release. Out of all of the Special Edition changes Jedi has some of the worst. For me the first 40 minutes or so (the sequences at Jabba's palace and on his sail barge) are my favorite of the series and with some of the changes it doesn't feel as "special" as it once did. The addition of a new musical number with CGI characters is truly distracting. My main gripe is with the mixing of puppets and CGI characters. By themselves either work for me but when combined there is an incredibly inconsistent look. When the changes take you out of the movie that's a bad thing.

Visually this seemed like a slight improvement over Empire. Maybe it is the settings or the color choices but Jedi looked better to me and also seemed to be more consistent. And now for the last time I will also add that this is the best that the film has looked on home video.

Like every film in this set the special features provide a glimpse into the creation of the movie. At this point I'd say that the DVD releases of these films provided a much more in-depth look at how much effort goes into making a Star Wars movie. The initial 2004 DVD release of the original trilogy films included the excellent Empire of Dreams: The Story of the Star Wars Trilogy documentary. And while that is not included here we do get some archival TV specials. Overall that gives the original trilogy a boost in terms of extras over the prequels.

Two commentary tracks are included on the main Return of the Jedi disc. The first is carried over from the original 2004 DVD release and features George Lucas, Ben Burtt, Dennis Muren, and Carrie Fisher. The second is new for this Blu-ray release and is made up of archival interviews with the cast and crew. Just like the tracks on the previous movies each commentator is identified by an on-screen subtitle. I have yet to listen to any of the new tracks from this release but assume that they will provide a lot of information and possibly make up for the loss of the DVD bonus features.

The remaining special features are found on the 8th and 9th discs in the set. These discs include all of the non-commentary features for the original films. Features to a specific sequence or location are in their own section. For Return of the Jedi the locations/sequences are Tatooine, Endor, and Death Star II Space Battle.

Each sequence/location has the same layout and feature headings: Interviews, Deleted Scenes, The Collection and Concept Art Gallery.

Like the ones related to Empire I found the Interviews be pretty interesting. Hearing Dennis Muren and Phil Tippet explaining the steps they went through to execute a particular sequence is fascinating. These 2 alone could probably fill hours of time discussing their work on each film. Each interview runs about 3-5 minutes.

Jumping to the Deleted Scenes on Tatooine we get: "Vader's Arrival and Reaching out to Luke" and "Tatooine Sandstorm". Next Endor brings us: "Rebel Raid on the Bunker". And finally on Death Star II Space Battle we find: "Jerjerrod's Conflict" and "Battle of Endor: The Lost Rebels".

Notable scenes include: "Rebel Raid on Bunker" shows us the raw takes from multiple angles for a quick sequence. It isn't a particularity interesting scene but seeing the elements of a sequence before they are cut together is fascinating. Jerjerrod's Conflict" is a small sub-Plot aboard the Death Star that is worth seeing but better lost. At a little over 9 minutes "Battle of Endor: The Lost Rebels" is the longest deleted sequence yet. Again this is raw footage of several rebels on attack ships conversing with each other over com lines. Quite a few Rebels are shown and like some of the other sequences you can hear the director's instructions from off screen. As a fan of the process of building a film I quite enjoyed watching these scenes.

The Collection is made up of key costumes, characters and spacecraft. Each includes a 3D fly around feature that really gives the opportunity to check out the detail. Select pieces also include video commentary that go into the creative process behind their creation. There are lots of goodies to be found here so spend the time looking and you ill be rewarded.

Finally Concept Art Gallery provides pre-production artwork for select characters, costumes and spacecraft. Concept art is always interesting in that many times it greatly differs from what eventually ended up on screen.

As previously mentioned you can access all of the special features for each sequence/location separately or the "Play All" feature will lump all of the interviews, deleted scenes, etc. from all of the original trilogy films together for a seamless viewing experience.

Disc 9 contains documentaries and spoofs related to the original trilogy and we get one additional Return of the Jedi features: "Classic Creatures: Return of the Jedi".

"Classic Creatures: Return of the Jedi" is a TV special from 1983. It runs 48 minutes. Much like "The Empire Strikes Back: SPFX" "Classic Creatures" looks at some of cinema's greatest creatures as well as the ones from Jedi. It is hosted by Carrie Fischer and Billy Dee Williams. It is something that I'll watch once but it is nice to have.

Join me next time as I look at the remainder of disc 9.