Star Wars Episode V: Return of the Jedi Three stars
Screenplay by George Lucas and Lawrence Kasdan
Directed by Richard Marquand

Return of the Jedi is my least favorite Star Wars movie of the original trilogy for three main reasons: 1.) Ewoks, 2.) Not much Han-Leia-Luke dynamics, 3.) It should've been as dark as the final third of the film. Not that they didn't conclude the series well, but they could've done so much more with the material that they had. But I guess with the greatness of the first two installments the only place to reach is rock bottom. There are still many things I did enjoy, however, through all of my negativity. I just felt that the plotting and narrative weren't as sharp as its predecessors. For all the hype that surrounds the conclusion of a grand modern myth of a franchise like Star Wars, it's almost impossible to live up to that pressure.

So back to my main problem with the film: Ewoks and the forest world of Endor. I didn't have much of a problem with the planet Endor (it's a very colorful and tranquil star system), but that they spent about one third of the screen time with these annoying little furry primitives whom we don't even understand. You can practically see Lucas giving into studio pressures of marketing for kids since Empire was so dark. But I guess he did balance it out with scenes with the Emperor which were by contrast with the Ewok scenes as disturbing as scenes from a horror movie. And therein lies the fundamental problem with the film: they don't go together. Ewoks seem totally out of place with the darker scenes with the Emperor and vice versa. The thing that made the first two installments work were the epic Shakespearian mythology, the quirky character relations combined with wall to wall adventure and it all seemed to blend together into a hybrid of 50's serial adventure, space fantasy, and space opera. The colorful species and backgrounds were second nature to the rest of the themes I mentioned. But this time, those Ewoks actually felt like screen time filler, which was never a problem for the franchise beforehand.

All right those were my problems with the film and here's what I liked. Luke Skywalker has matured into a very wise and humble Jedi Knight as opposed to his whiny, immature, inexperienced, and reckless kid in the previous films. He's gotten more powerful and he knows it. Dressed fully clad in black with his fully honed lightsaber skill, he's, in short, a total badass.

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