Star Wars - Episode VI: Return of the Jedi – The Spence Final Cut

First off, a big hand must be given to musiced921 for supplying me with this edit. I was actually looking for the one without the Ewoks in it, but obviously it didn't satisfy Spence at the time, hence why he re-did it, and this is the edit I ended up receiving. Nevertheless, it was an interesting edit, running rather leanly at just one hour and thirty three minutes, it rearranges scenes, creating a more meaningful first scene for Luke that establishes his path.

In the original cut, he kind of acts a bit high and mighty already, almost as if he didn't need to go to Dagobah and complete his training, but here the crawl and the scene on Dagobah is structured to follow on from Vader's arrival, and we follow Luke on his journey to Tatoonie, not entirely sure of himself as Yoda says he must confront Vader to be fully realised. It's a very well woven scene, and gives both Luke and the audience less detachment from what Luke had been up to in between Empire and this.

The idea of placing the Emperor on the Star Destroyer is another great touch. After all, why would the Emperor risk making himself a sitting duck on the Death Star when chances are his plan could go tits up? Being on a Star Destroyer at least gives him the chance to take off as soon as things do.

The restructuring of the battle of Endor rattles along, there is more urgency, you feel this is a costly battle as good men die and Luke feels more entrapped with the walls closing in, his fateful duel with Vader is even accompanied by familiar cues such as duel of the fates!

I've seen a few edits that have utilised the ending with Luke burning Anakin's body as the fireworks rage on, but it's still powerful imagery to end the original trilogy on. I'd still somewhat like to see the Ewok party as it gives us all a chance to see the group of friends, now very much a family, a chance to be together one last time. Luke can always bury Vader after seeing the ghosts. Maybe the ghosts could have been watching Luke burn Anakin, there's an idea. Ah well.

And lastly the additional end credits are a hoot...though I do wonder who 'lordsidi' is and what he did to warrant an "absolutely no thanks to..." credit. Feels a bit weird to promote the DVD version of this in the credits when all I have of this is the MP4, but ah well...if someone could track the DVD version down, let me know what I'm missing, because it doesn't tell you anything here.

A/V Quality 10/10
No issues with the actual A/V quality. Clean picture, great DD5.1 sound.

Visual Editing 9/10
No issues, really. Sometimes it was pretty obvious when you were switching source material, but it worked fairly seamlessly. The colour correction was very well done.

Audio 5/10
Sorry, but this was the low point of the edit. It's a mixed bag of great ideas that were poorly executed. The speeder chase is great, but the volume is too low. The Duel of the Fates was great, but not mixed in very well. There's a slew of noticeable audio sync issues throughout the edit. And what the hell was with the music over the end credits? In the commentary you mentioned that you watched this edit 4 times - I'm surprised that at least a few of these issues weren't noticed and fixed before it was released, especially with all the time and energy you put into whole thing.

Narrative 10/10
Perfect. Improved the original by a huge margin. All the changes made were for the better. A couple of things were odd - Luke sensing the Leia was in danger was a neat idea, but it didn't work in practice and Luke and Leia hugging like they haven't seen each other in years on Tatooine - but did not really detract from the overall experience.

Enjoyment 7/10
I'd bump it up to 9/10 were it not for the audio issues. But what I really loved was the commentary track. I honestly only bothered to check this one out when I read that there was a faneditor commentary track included. I love edits with faneditor commentary and I really wish more editors out there would do them, especially for radical edits like this one. I love hearing what was changed, how it was changed and, most importantly, why it was changed, as it happens. The commentary track on this is a must-see and provides a lot of insight into the thought process and planning that went into this edit. It was very enjoyable, and perhaps, even more enjoyable than the edit itself. And your explanation as to why there's a giant bottomless pit on the star destroyer was gold.

A truly revelatory edit. I watched this with the commentary on to enjoy Spence's opining about the rampant pacing and structural problems with the movie. As someone who has been trying for, well, my entire life and has had countless conversations with people about why this entry doesn't work as well as it should, this was an eye-opener. It's easy to just take ROTJ for granted and look at it uncritically if you grew up with them, but Spence picks out pacing, dialogue, scene-order problems, almost all of which are 100% on the money.

Not to say I completely agree with all of the choices, I think the excision of Boba Fett and the Rancor is more distracting than anything, for whatever gains are made in terms of pacing, the movie feels a bit smaller as a result and the resultant cuts feel inorganic. Also, with the deleted scenes readily available (nowadays, if not when the edit was originally made, not sure) some of the well-intentioned but clunky cuts of Luke sensing the dire situation on Tatooine from Dagobah could have been smoothed over a bit, as could have the post-rescue moments between the heroes.

Aside from those quibbles, the masterful tweaks, especially to the latter half of the movie, are extraordinary. The removal of force ghosts, the trimming of the Ewok scenes, the adding of stakes by moving Luke and Vader's confrontation to the Death Star are all tremendous. For the first time, the final scene of Luke staring up at the sky after redeeming his errant father's soul sent chills down my spine, something that watching Ewoks cavort around a bonfire never did. For the first time, Return of the Jedi felt like the powerful end of a truly epic saga.

While I've read that he has no intentions to do so, I would love to see Spence take another pass at this. It's already most certainly a shelf-replacer for me, but another version using all the available footage to smooth over a few other cracks would knock it out of the park, imho. After all, third time's the charm -- mostly.

*BEWARE SPOILERS THROUGHOUT*

I was originally going to compare it to your original edit, but as I have not required that yet (someone feel free to help) then I will have to review this first. This is a positive review and I believe this will be my "come-to-edit" whenever I decide to watch Return Of The Jedi, so here we go with the review...

First off, the editor does move scenes around in this final cut and I think it's for the better. From memory, the Luke and Yoda scenes appear very early on in the edit and it's much better placed for me personally. There isn't a long death scene for Yoda and the viewer can learn about Leia from the beginning, which I think benefits the pacing too. Obi-Wan is completely gone - for me that's a positive, as whenever the supposedly "wise" Obi-Wan opens his mouth in RotJ you just wish he had kept it shut. No force ghosts appear in this film whatsoever....I didn't miss them.

Jabba's Palace begins with Leia rescuing Han and that's how it should have been in the original as there's no dawdling 3PO and R2 and all the unnecessary padding is cut. I think the only cuts that did catch my eye was with Luke sensing that Leia and Han was in trouble whilst still on Dagobah. Did they need to be in the edit? I don't know. I'll be honest and say that for myself, they felt slightly out of place, but I think the editor may have wanted Luke's presence to be more announced to the audience, perhaps....

I personally loved there being no songs or dancers at Jabba's Palace. It somehow makes the palace look less trashy. But most importantly (or controversially I should say) is that the Rancor is completely gone. That may divide Star Wars fans somewhat, but I couldn't care less about the Rancor or his obese crying owner either. I think the absence works and quickens the pace as we are quickly led straight into the original (yes - the original!) Sarlacc Pit, which is personally my favourite part of the film. I think what was most creative about this scene edit in particular was that the editor made 3PO and R2 fall off the deck due to the explosion that Luke caused. I liked that very much. But best of all - there is NO Boba Fett - and it's a big plus, as his supposed "death" is bloody awful and still annoys me to this day. You'd think Lucas with his "brilliant remasters" would have done something with the much loved Boba Fett character? Ah well. One day....


Other scenes that I will say a few words on are:

- The removal of the Wicket scenes. I believe you edited most of the Ewoks stuff on the original edit, so I'm yet to watch and comment on that. I personally cannot stand the bloody sight of them, so naturally I thought they were in this too much! I personally think the whole Battle of Endor goes on way too long and is just a bit boring (even Death Star II could be cut further down).

- The Luke Skywalker/Darth Vader fight scenes were stunning and the editing work you did was stunning. They worked so well together! Somehow you made it join together flawlessly. The music was a surprise and managed to find a few more inches of suspense in those fight scenes!

- Having "Anakin's Theme" for Anakin's death was possibly the greatest thing you did with this entire edit. It simply worked. It's so much better than the original dull "Darth Vader's Death" score, which frankly makes the scene cold and an oddity. Instead you created the right tone and this tone should have been made originally when I repeatedly watched that particular bit again and again. You actually improved Return Of The Jedi as a whole with that.

- I didn't miss the original cheesy ending. I think you made the sensible choice with your edit.

- Nice credits notes! ;)

I share much of Spence's disappointment with RotJ. So I was really looking forward to this. I like a lot of the narrative revisions here. Starting with having Luke on Dagobah at the beginning. It always felt wrong that Yoda tells him his training has been completed when he just returned for the first time since Obi Wan and Yoda pleading with him not to go to Cloud City until he completed his training. That said, I'm not crazy about the flashes to Luke on Dagobah when Han and Leia are in trouble at Jabba's Palace. I get the intent but I think viewers would be okay without these flashes.

The whole Jabba's section is much tighter, which was needed in my opinion. Getting rid of Boba Fett and his awful death scene go without saying as positive changes.

A minor quibble, but Luke now separates from the rest of the group as they leave Tatooine for no apparent reason and just shows up to the briefing late.

One random thing that's not really a complaint with this edit is the terrible matte painting of the Falcon when Han and Lando are talking. I'm hoping Adywan is able to redo that when we (eventually) get his Jedi Revisited.

Once we get going on the mission a lot of cheese has been removed and we get to the point a lot faster. In particular, Han is no longer the chump he was originally portrayed as. With a lot of that cheese trimmed the focus is now more strongly on the Luke/Vader/Emperor storyline, which is how it should be at this point of the story.

Speaking of which, Spence obviously thought strongly that these scenes should happen off the Death Star (and I understand his reasoning). I can't say I ever had similar feelings. Though what he's done, he's done well. I still really don't feel it's necessary. But it doesn't detract either. I very much like the Luke/Vader duel happening uninterrupted but it comes at a cost. I feel Vader's defeat comes too soon. I would've liked to have seen the shield destroyed and the attack on the Death Star begin before Vader's defeat. The cut back to the Throne Room when the Emperor attacks Luke is jarring as well.

Again I get the intent but the Anakin's Theme music over Vader's death just doesn't work for me. I didn't mind the earlier use of Duel of the Fates.

I love cutting out Han being a chump about Leia loving Luke but the cuts feel a little rough. I also like ending with the funeral pyre but right after it irises to the credits the music got twice as loud. Not sure if that happens for everyone. Seemed weird.

Overall I enjoyed it. It would be very close to replacing the original for me were it in HD. As it is, I'll probably show both to my kids and see which they prefer.