Recalling Revenge of the Jedi
The Excitement of Episode 6: Before they changed the title
I first went to see Return of the Jedi as an excited 9-year-old with my cousin and my younger brother, in the summer of 1983. My cousin was ten years older than me and therefore, at least in the eyes of the law, an adult. He drove a Ford Escort with loose seat belts, wobbly mirrors, and an unreliable petrol gauge that made any journey that was longer than ‘to the shops’ something of an adventure.
In fact, there was a certain parity when heading out with him, to Luke & Leia joining Han on the Millennium Falcon.
We were going to see the film in town, at one of the big cinemas — The Odeon on Queen Street. Going into town to see a film, as opposed to the Monico, our local cinema, was a big deal, reserved for special occasions.
And this was as a big a deal, as special an occasion as I could imagine. We were going to watch a new Star Wars film.
A Day Long Remembered
Star Wars had been a fixture in my life forever and the reason why there was such excitement over Return of the Jedi.
It was three years since the release of Empire Strikes Back, and the trauma that had unleashed on my tender and young emotions.
Three years.
A third of my life had elapsed waiting to find out what was going to happen next. Three years in which our young minds would imagine, create adventure and speculate. Empire had left us all on the edge of the precipice. It bordered on being cruel — leaving us with such large, dramatic unanswered questions for such a prolonged period.
And, boy were there questions that needed an answer?
Was Darth Vader really Luke’s dad?
How was Luke going to cope with his new robot hand?
Was Han Solo dead?
Would Boba Fett feature much?
OK, let’s deal with Boba Fett first.
Boba Fett was an interesting character in the Star Wars films. Through the anecdotal evidence available to me at the time, he was second only to Han Solo when it came to being the coolest character in the galaxy. Even though he’d only appeared in Empire Strikes Back for about three minutes and hadn’t really done anything apart from shooting at Luke and missing; which was no different to your average Stormtrooper and their notoriously shoddy aim.
So, why the popularity?
It boiled down to attitude and aesthetics.
The way he refused to be intimidated by Darth Vader, talking with an iconoclastic sneer while Vader’s subordinates quivered and ultimately fell to their force-choked doom.
The second and more important reason for his popularity was because he just looked so damn cool. Full, blue-grey body armour and helmet, packed full with the kind of weaponry and gadgets that Q and Bruce Wayne could only fantasise about.
And then there was his JET PACK.
This was the 1980s and jet packs were all the rage. Quite simply, there was nothing more awesome than a man with a jet pack. A glimpse into the future, as we were all reasonably convinced that they’d be standard issue to all adults on earth by about 1995.
Rumours were rife about the new film and Boba Fett’s role in it. He was going to do something amazing — of that we were certain (of which, more later).
Revenge: The announcement
Official word about the third Star Wars film started to filter out about a year before its release. The first snippets of news to reach my ears coming by way of one of my best friends in school. He had older siblings and they regularly offered him tantalising tales from the grown-up world; a lot of which we would later find out to be absolute nonsense.
Our smaller world was the yard, the playground of the junior school. We gathered each break, each playtime, lunchtime. Small clusters of boys and girls, savouring the twenty-minute escape from the classroom. Marbles and conkers, football and kingball, girls teasing boys teasing girls. We traded football stickers, ate our lunch and played games.
Sometimes it was football, sometimes it was British Bulldogs. On this particular day, it was Hit The Pipe. A simple game, simple rules. We’d stand on one of the yellow-painted lines in the quad, taking turns to throw a tennis ball at the drainpipe on the side of the building. If you hit it, you stayed in the game. Miss and you were out.
“They’re making a new Star Wars film,” my friend said, as we waited our turn to throw the ball.
“I know,” I said. Everyone knew they were making a new Star Wars. How could they leave the story as it was after Empire?
“Yeah, but I know what it’s called.”
“No you don’t. What is it?”
He leant forward, a signal for those of us nearby to huddle around so he could share this golden nugget of information. He paused — for dramatic effect.
“Revenge of the Jedi.”
“Woah,” we said in collective awe.
Revenge of the Jedi — it sounded so right.
This was indeed the original name of the film, somebody somewhere is almost certainly sitting in a cave of defunct memorabilia, surrounded by t-shirts and mugs bearing the film’s first name — before the change.
“When’s it coming out?”
“Next summer.”
“Next summer?” I said.
Nobody was playing Hit The Pipe anymore.
“Next Summer?” I said again.
A year to wait. A year until we found out whether Luke would turn to the dark side (we all knew he wouldn’t), before we got to see what kind of awesomeness Boba Fett would perform and, more importantly, until we found out the true fate of Han Solo.
A year. That was, like, forever away.
In the months that followed the rumour mill went into overdrive. Luke was Vader’s son, Luke wasn’t Vader’s son but Obi-Wan Kenobi’s. Han Solo was dead (a rumour which filled me with horror), Luke and Han were brothers, Luke turned to the dark side, Obi-Wan returned to kill Vader, Boba Fett kills Lando, Boba Fett joins the rebels, Luke and Leia were brother and sister, Chewbacca signs for Manchester Utd and Yoda is appointed General Secretary of the UN.
None of us, in truth, really knew. We’d just have to wait. And 9-year-old boys aren’t very good at that.
The Night I Saw Return of the Jedi
We walked the lit-up streets through the city centre. There was something eerily exciting about being in town at night; a young boy from the suburbs in the care of his cousin, walking in the dark, all the shops closed. There were different people around town at night. Odd people, scary people, drunk people. Queen Street was lit by the artificial glow of street lamps and the bright yellow bulbs of the Odeon billboard; a pale yellow that seemed to hover above us, pressed down by the dark night sky. The queue was already forming but we had pre-booked tickets, on the insistence of my mum, and we were able to walk in. Looking up as I entered, letting my eyes settle on the Billboard, on the words that signified a lifetime of excitement:
RETURN OF THE JEDI
I don’t really know when or indeed why they’d changed the name, but I really didn’t care.
The next two hours passed in a blur.
Old friends, new situations.
I watched as C-3PO and R2-D2 returned to Tattooine, watched Han freed from the carbonite by Leia, felt strange at seeing her in that gold bikini. The rescue from Jabba’s Palace, Luke’s fight with the Rancor monster. Rejoiced at Han Solo — alive and better than ever.
I was stunned, a little bit crushed, and then outright enraged to discover that Boba Fett was, in fact, all show and no substance. For all his cool exterior, his flashy gadgets, and menacing armour, despite his ownership of a bloody jetpack, Boba Fett was frankly hopeless in a scrap. When the going got tough, Boba Fett got eaten, putting up only minimal defence as he plummeted into the mouth of the mighty Sarlaac, suffering the ignominy of causing the cavernous monster to belch. [DISCLAIMER: Yes, I have seen the Mandalorian, but that doesn’t change what I felt at the time]
Then there was Luke, a Jedi now, returning to Yoda, finding out the truth about Vader, finding out the truth about Leia. My brother was next to me, resting on his knees, fidgeting in excitement. I didn’t mind, didn’t really notice. I wasn’t really there — I was a million billion miles from the Odeon.
I was on Dagobah, on the Death Star, on Endor. I was a rebel, working with the Ewoks, a spectator aghast at the Emperor’s twisted evil face. I was with Luke as he confronted Vader, called him father, noted the first signs of weakness, the glimmer of goodness in the baddest baddie I’d ever known.
The noise of the ships, the whoosh, and hum of the lightsabers and lasers. And, behind it all the music; themes and scores that last forever in my mind, foreboding and joyous, elegiac and adventurous, ratcheting up to a resounding thump of the space battle scenes at the end.
As I watched Luke and Vader battle for the Emperor’s pleasure, I longed to be back on Endor with Han, Leia, and Chewie. When on Endor I craved to find out how Luke was getting on.
We cut between scenes, the fights in the forest, the frenetic war of the spaceships and Death Star, the father and son, duelling lightsabres.
Sensing the turning tide, the approaching climax — Han, Chewie, and Leia blowing the reactor, Luke growing stronger, overcoming Vader, this invincible giant of my childhood. As he struck him down, lopping his hand off, I cheered, shouted, jumped from my seat; goosebumps crawling up neck and head, down my spine.
When the rebels’ spaceships overpowered the Imperial ships I knew this was the end, the culmination of it all. As Admiral Ackbar settled back in his chair on the rebel’s flagship so I settled into my seat, exhausted in the Odeon.
Going in I’d wanted Han to live, by the end I was rooting for Vader’s survival. Seeing him dethroned, unmasked — a sad, weak old man. The Wizard of Oz with the curtain pulled back.
The Ewok music cut in, the yub-nub tune long since edited out of the re-editions, Luke reunited with Han and Leia. Chewie and Lando compared war tales, the spectral images of Obi-Wan, Yoda, and Anakin appeared, a smile from Luke before turning and walking away into the night, and I was left alone with the familiar music of the saga, blue credits on the screen and a strange, bittersweet emotion.
I was nine — almost a decade old and Star Wars, so focal to my early memories, was at an end. And, I wasn’t really sure how to feel about that.
