Greetings, and welcome to Earthling Cinema. I am your host, Garyx Wormuloid. This week's
artifact is Star Wars 6: Return of the Jedi, fondly remembered as the one that killed the
franchise for sixteen years.
The film centers on Luke and his buddies, who are still trying to juggle work and family
in the big city. Leia breaks into a giant slug's house and melts Han back into human
form. Unfortunately, she gets captured and sentenced to objectification. Luke arrives
and gets himself captured too, but they dont have a bikini in his size, so the slug decides
to throw his big mouth into a big mouth.
A fight ensues, and fan favorite Boba Fett is given the honorable sendoff he deserves.
After Leia puts some salt on that slug,
it's time for them to get the story rolling.
Luke goes back to visit Yoda to apologize for missing his birthday, but Yoda doesnt take it well.
"When 900 years old you reach, look as good you will not. Hmm?"
With his last words, Yoda struggles to tell Luke that theres another Skywalker.
A gesture made completely irrelevant when Obi-Wan's ghost confirms that information in greater detail moments later.
He says that the other Skywalker is a girl, which somehow causes Luke to make
the insane leap that hes talking about Leia. Which apparently he is, since Leia is the
only girl in the galaxy.
The good guys find out that the bad guys are reusing the plot from Episode 4, so they
hatch a plan to also do the same thing they did last time. But first they have to take
down a shield thing in a forest. There they meet a bunch of build-a-bears and have a quick
pod-race. Luke tells Leia about the whole twin situation, which she says she knew all
along. "I've always known." Yep, never a doubt in her mind.
Luke surrenders to Vader, who takes him to his supervisor, the Grand Wizard. The Wizard
informs him that the new Death Star is fully operational and the good guys are are about
to get hosed big time. "It's a trap!" And Luke gets mad and cuts off Vader's hand for synchronicity's sake.
The Wizard says to kill Darth Vader. "Take your father's place at my side." Damn, dude, bros before foes.
And Darth Vader, you gonna let him do you like that? Not even a word of objection?
Fortunately, Luke still puts dads before cads, and politely gives the Wizard his two weeks
notice. What's a new thing they can throw in there? Ok sure, how about lightning? After
two whole minutes of silently watching his own flesh and blood get tortured, Vader fulfills
the American dream by throwing his boss over the railing, something that a supremely powerful
being who can manipulate objects with his mind is powerless to stop. Luke takes off
Vader's mask and Vader dies of sun exposure.
Meanwhile, the teddy bears snuggle some chumps to death and the good guys lower the shield,
allowing the mayor of Cloud City to fly into the Death Star and blow it up real nice. Then
they all stay and party on the forest planet, a place to which they have no connection,
rather than going back home. It's not like they have families or anything. Speaking of
family, Leia intentionally makes Han think that she's dumping him for Luke just to be
an asshole. "You love him." "Yes." And Luke burns his father's body at a haunted house.
Like its predecessors, Return of the Jedi contrasts the Empire's cold reliance on technology
with the more humanistic nature of the rebellion and its allies, the bears. The empire
looks to satisfy their destructive ambitions with technology, like this robot chicken
and this harmonica. Conversely, the bears live
a simple existence off the land. They just want to chill out, relax, and savor the taste
of human flesh. And while the Rebellion is racially and genderifically diverse, the Empire
consists entirely of human dude-bros who want everyone to see how big their balls are.
The lush forest moon Endor is based on the Earth jungles of Vietnam during Vietnam War One.
Like the Viet Cong, the bear-people menace their more technologically advanced and well-funded
invaders with cunning and primitive booby traps.
But try as they might, the Rebellion can't win with boobies alone. Instead of matching
technology with technology, they opt to squeeze all the juice they can out of Vader's compassion
fruit. "There is good in him. I felt it." In other words, sending an unemployed guy in his early twenties to convince his
estranged father to quit his lucrative job. Obi-wan says its never gonna work.
"He's more machine now than man," but Luke doesn't know the meaning of the words "never gonna,"
since hes an idiot. However, once Vader sees that Luke is "never gonna give him up or
let him down," he chooses to run around and desert his old principles, proving that self-sacrifice
is the most human thing there is. Was. Same difference.
This transition from machine to man can also be heard in the films music, provided one
has ears. The menacing and mechanical Vader theme (music) shifts in tempo, rhythm, and
instrumentation to become light and organic at the moment of father-son reconciliation.
This ties into Earth musician Richard Wagner's concept of the leitmotif, or a recurring musical
phrase that is associated with a theme, such as the Force, or a character, such as Leia,
or an idea, such as mortality. The concept of the heavymotif wasn't understood until decades
later, when humans finally discovered the brown note.
For Earthling Cinema, I'm Garyx Wormuloid.