Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi Review

The throne room is why this film survives. Three characters, one chamber, long stretches with no cutaway to spectacle, and the entire arc resolving on whether a son can refuse to become his father. Mark Hamill does his best work in the series here, and David Prowse and James Earl Jones together sell a helmet turning its head as a decision made under enormous pressure. Alan Hume shoots the Emperor's chamber as a black void ringed in red, and the fleet action above Endor is still the most legible large scale space battle ever staged, with Richard Edlund's model work giving every capital ship real mass.

The problems are famous and they are real. Jabba's palace runs long and reprises a rescue we have already watched. The second Death Star is an admission that nobody could invent a fresh threat. And the Ewoks are a commercial decision dressed as a thematic one, so the ground battle plays as slapstick at the exact moment the film needs weight. The dialogue thins out badly outside the throne room. Even so, the ending earns its catharsis, and Vader's unmasking is still the most affecting thirty seconds in the saga.