Word: jedi
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Produced at a cost of $32.5 million (compared with more than $10 million for Star Wars and $25 million for Empire), Jedi is more lavish than its predecessors. Star Wars, for example, had about 545 special effects; The Empire, 763; Jedi has 942. "The effects in this film are more or less the way I wanted them to be in Star Wars, but I didn't have the technology to carry them out," says Lucas. "The space battle is ten times more complicated than the one in Star Wars. If you went back and saw that one after seeing this...
...Solo's bearlike copilot Chewbacca, the 7-ft. 5-in. Wookie; the feisty Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher); and Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams), the smooth-talking leader of The Empire Strikes Back's Cloud City. And finally the hero, Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), who already has many of a Jedi knight's weapons, the mysterious but potent powers of the Force...
...that is merely preliminary, however, to the real battle between the Rebel Alliance and the corrupt Empire, and to the contest of wills between Luke, the last of the Jedis, and the black-caped, black-masked Darth Vader. Yoda, the 900-year-old Jedi master from The Empire Strikes Back, reappears to confirm what Luke feared most: Darth Vader is indeed his father, a former Jedi knight who was seduced by the evil Emperor and turned to the "dark" side of the Force, to hate rather than to love. Luke will never be a real Jedi, Yoda says, until...
Taken on its own terms?"Let's face it," says Hamill, "we made a film for children"?Return of the Jedi is a brilliant, imaginative piece of moviemaking. But it does not diminish the accomplishment of Lucas and his youthful team to say that there are flaws nonetheless. The most obvious, ironically, is an overemphasis on effects and a too proud display of odd-looking creatures. Some otherwise breathtaking scenes, such as the visit to Jabba's lair, the hair-raising chases through the redwoods and the climactic space battle, are extended to the point of satiety. The other...
...other hand, the acting in Jedi is better than it was in the other two. Ford was always good as the likable, daredevil cynic, but Fisher and, most particularly, Hamill have broadened and matured their talents. In his final scenes with Vader, Hamill provides Luke with a hitherto unsuspected depth of personality. Despite its shortcomings, which are relatively minor in context, the film succeeds, passing the one test of all enduring fantasy: it casts a spell and envelops its audience in a magic...