Coming May 25, 1983 to your galaxy.

The Empire Falls....

Return To A Galaxy... Far, Far Away

The Saga Continues.


In the final episode of the Star Wars saga, Han Solo (Harrison Ford) emerges intact from the carbonite casing in which he'd been sealed in The Empire Strikes Back. The bad news is that Solo, together with Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) and Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher), is prisoner to the grotesque Jabba the Hutt. But with the help of the charismatic Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams), our heroes and our heroine manage to escape. The next task is to rid the galaxy of Darth Vader (body by David Prowse, voice by James Earl Jones) and the Emperor (Ian McDiarmid), now in command of a new, under-construction Death Star. On the forest moon Endor, the good guys enlist the help of a feisty bunch of bear-like creatures called the Ewoks in their battle against the Empire.

Return of the Jedi, later released as Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, is a 1983 American epic space opera film directed by Richard Marquand and written by George Lucas and Lawrence Kasdan, with Lucas as executive producer. It is the third film released in the Star Wars franchise and the first film to use THX technology. The film is set approximately one year after The Empire Strikes Back[2] and was produced by Howard Kazanjian and Lucasfilm Ltd.
The evil Galactic Empire, under the direction of the ruthless Emperor Palpatine, is constructing a second Death Star in order to crush the Rebel Alliance. Since Palpatine plans to personally oversee the final stages of its construction, the Rebel Fleet launches a full-scale attack on the Death Star in order to prevent its completion and kill Palpatine, effectively bringing an end to the Empire. Meanwhile, Luke Skywalker, a Rebel leader and Jedi Apprentice, struggles to bring Darth Vader, who is his father Anakin and himself a fallen Jedi, back from the Dark Side of the Force.
David Lynch and David Cronenberg were considered to direct the project before Marquand signed on as director. The production team relied on Lucas' storyboards during pre-production. While writing the shooting script, Lucas, Kasdan, Marquand, and producer Howard Kazanjian spent two weeks in conference discussing ideas to construct it. Kazanjian's schedule pushed shooting to a few weeks earlier to allow Industrial Light & Magic to work on the film's effects in post-production. Filming took place in England, California, and Arizona from January to March 1982, with Lucas handling second unit work. Strict secrecy surrounded the production and the film used the working title Blue Harvest to prevent price gouging.
The film was released in theaters on May 25, 1983, receiving mostly positive reviews. The film grossed over $475 million worldwide. Several home video and theatrical releases and revisions to the film followed over the next 20 years. Star Wars continued with Episode I: The Phantom Menace as part of the film series' prequel trilogy. A sequel, Star Wars Episode VII, was announced on October 30, 2012 and is planned for a 2015 release

Although a critical and commercial hit, grossing more than $475 million worldwide,[26] Return of the Jedi has, in the decades that followed, been considered by many critics and fans to be a slightly lesser achievement than its predecessors.[27][28][29] At Rotten Tomatoes, Return of the Jedi's 79% approval rating is surpassed by The Empire Strikes Back (97%), A New Hope (94%), and the final film of the prequel trilogy, Revenge of the Sith (80%).[27] On Metacritic, the film received a score of 52% based on 14 reviews from mainstream critics,[30] and The Empire Strikes Back received a score of 78% based on 15 reviews.[31]
Contemporary critics were largely complimentary. In 1983, movie critic Roger Ebert gave the film four stars out of four,[32] and James Kendrick of Q Network Film Desk described Return of the Jedi as "a magnificent experience."[33] The film was also featured on the May 23, 1983 TIME magazine cover issue (where it was labeled "Star Wars III"),[34] with the reviewer Gerald Clarke saying that while it was not as exciting as the first Star Wars film, it was "better and more satisfying" than The Empire Strikes Back, now considered by many as the best of the original trilogy.[35] Vincent Canby, who enjoyed the first film and despised the second, felt that Return of the Jedi was the worst of all three.[36] According to Rotten Tomatoes, Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune was somewhat critical of the film during the 1997 re-release, stating that it "Lack[s] the humanity and richly drawn characters that brighten Star Wars."[citation needed][27][not in citation given] Siskel later gave Return of the Jedi thumbs up on the television show Siskel & Ebert during the release of The Star Wars Trilogy: Special Edition, saying: "This is my least favorite of the three episodes. That doesn't make it bad, the others are just a lot better." Siskel went on to praise the opening sequence at the Sarlaac pit and the chase sequence involving speeder bikes, but he states his dislike for the closing scenes involving the Ewoks.[37] The New York Post's Rex Reed gave the film a negative review, stating "Let's not pretend we're watching art!"[citation needed][27] Writing in The New Yorker, Pauline Kael (who had praised The Empire Strikes Back after dismissing Star Wars) called it "an impersonal and rather junky piece of filmmaking."
While the action set pieces – particularly the Sarlacc battle sequence, the speeder bike chase on the Endor moon, the space battle between Rebel and Imperial pilots, and Luke Skywalker's duel against Darth Vader – are well-regarded, the ground battle between the Ewoks and Imperial stormtroopers remains a bone of contention.[38] Fans are also divided on the likelihood of Ewoks (being an extremely primitive race of small creatures armed with sticks and rocks) defeating an armed ground force comprising the Empire's "best troops". Lucas has defended the scenario, saying that the Ewoks' purpose was to distract the Imperial troops and that the Ewoks did not really win

The original theatrical version of Return of the Jedi was released on VHS and Laserdisc several times between 1986 and 1995,[43] followed by releases of the Special Edition in the same formats between 1997 and 2000. Some of these releases contained featurettes; some were individual releases of just this film, while others were boxed sets of all three original films. On September 21, 2004, the Special Editions of all three original films were released in a boxed set on DVD (along with a bonus disc). It was digitally restored and remastered, with additional changes made by George Lucas. The DVD also featured English subtitles, Dolby Digital 5.1 EX surround sound, and commentaries by George Lucas, Ben Burtt, Dennis Muren, and Carrie Fisher. The bonus disc included documentaries including Empire of Dreams: The Story of the Star Wars Trilogy and several featurettes including "The Characters of Star Wars", "The Birth of the Lightsaber", and "The Legacy of Star Wars". Also included were teasers, trailers, TV spots, still galleries, and a demo for Star Wars: Battlefront.
With the release of Revenge of the Sith, which depicts how and why Anakin Skywalker turned to the dark side of the Force, Lucas once again altered Return of the Jedi to bolster the relationship between the original trilogy and the prequel trilogy. The original and 1997 Special Edition versions of Return of the Jedi featured British theatre actor Sebastian Shaw playing both the dying Anakin Skywalker and his ghost. In the 2004 DVD and 2011 Blu-ray release, Shaw's portrayal of Anakin's ghost is replaced by Hayden Christensen, who portrayed Anakin in Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. The change drew further fan criticism directed toward Lucas. All three films in the original unaltered Star Wars trilogy were later released, individually, on DVD on September 12, 2006. These versions were originally slated to only be available until December 31, 2006, although they remained in print until May 2011 and were packaged with the 2004 versions again in a new box set on November 4, 2008.[44] Although the 2004 versions in these sets each feature an audio commentary, no other extra special features were included to commemorate the original cuts.
A Blu-ray Disc version of the Star Wars saga was announced for release in 2011 during Star Wars Celebration V. Several deleted scenes from Return of the Jedi were included for the Blu-ray version, including a sandstorm sequence following the Battle at the Sarlacc Pit, a scene featuring Moff Jerjerrod and Death Star officers during the Battle of Endor, and a scene where Darth Vader communicates with Luke via the Force as Skywalker is assembling his new lightsaber before he infiltrates Jabba's palace.[45] On January 6, 2011, the release was announced for September 2011 in three different editions and the cover art was unveiled in May. Although selling well, the Blu-ray caused yet more criticism towards Lucas as the set featured further alterations and the original versions were not included.

Release Date: May 25, 1983


Distrib: 20th Century Fox


Boxoffice: $309,306,177 2014: $785,396,100