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

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.

7/10

Decent edit. Some great ideas. Some which I didn’t feel worked as well.

Liked new cut down opening – although I did wonder why Chewbacca was instantly captured in the crawl!

The separation after the rescue was weird – why did Luke go off somewhere else – and the reunion then after the briefing was…weird. Why are they so overjoyed to see him - they saw him, like 5 minutes ago. And why does Luke choose that moment to get all mystical about her being his sister. That should have been cut.

I liked the new arrangement of the final battle. Keeps the tension up, really well handled. Although the shield should have gone down earlier – there’s enough tension in the original version of the attack run to be intercut with the Emperor.

However – why did you move them off the death star? I had no idea where they were. You seemed to indicate they were on the SSD, but you could SEE it in the battle, AND the Death Star. So they were just lurking about on another random SSD? Also it deflated the attack run of any tension. They’re not on the Death Star, so who cares if they blow it up? In the original the Death Star = Emperor, so blowing it up was a big deal and a crippling blow to the Empire. In your cut they just blew up a big gun….

Also, the death of the Emperor came too early – it should have come after the death star blowing up – it’s the death of the Emperor that the galaxy is celebrating! Everyone was cheering when the death star goes up and all I’m thinking is “but what about the gigantic fleet with the SSD and everything still parking off ready to kick everyone’s ass”. They seemed much more of a threat in your cut than the Death Star.

The duel of the fates was really out of jarring - but I LOVED the Anakin theme music at the end. Inpsired!

And the last shot of the movie being Vader. YES!

In all I enjoyed the movie. It was a fresh cut, with some amazingly good ideas. Would you ever do a v2 with the Emperor back on the Death Star and his death during the attack run (remember, it’s not a given that they succeed…)?

Review by QuickCut — January 15, 2012 @ 7:36 am

This isn’t my go-to version of ROTJ, but it’s pretty well done.

Technical quality – 8/10 – in general, the video was pretty good quality, but there was some flickering or something during the opening crawl. The audio was great except for the end credits when the volume abruptly went really high.

Presentation – 8/10 – special features and scene selection were a nice thing to include, but the random clip after I clicked play was rather abrupt and unnecessary.

Editing – 8/10 – all the transitions were nice, but there were some choices I didn’t particularly like that I’ll address in the entertainment section.

Entertainment – 8/10 – if a few things were cleaned up it would have been a 10. First of all, the cutting between Luke and Han/Leia. I got why you were doing it, but it wasn’t real clear. The transitions to Luke were too abrupt. When Luke and the rest leave Tatooine, it makes no sense why Luke leaves since you relocated the Yoda scene. The Ewoks could have been trimmed a little more and the scene where Wicket pokes Leia with his spear was way too short. There are various bits that could have been trimmed but I won’t recount them all. I half-wish you had left in the ghosts at the end. Other than that, I liked most of your cuts, especially the trimming of the Tatooine sequences, the edits to Han’s character, the changes to the battle, and the added prequel music (only good thing about the prequels).

Overall – 8/10

*Major Spoilers*

Big strides in taken in this edit towards achieving a worthy end to this saga, but honestly I still prefer the actual film.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE that Luke spent time in between flicks training with Yoda.

I love the removal of Lopti Nek or Jedi Rocks.

I LOVE the removal of Boba Fett completely, there was no reason for him to be there in the first place.

Outside of that I'm kind of luke warm.

This is just me, but too much is removed. The movie only actually runs 1:21, and it just feels way too short.

No Obi Wan at all for one, and granted I hate that because he is my favorite character in Star Wars, but the scene on Dagobah also brings nice closure as to why he lied to Luke about his father, and while I totally understand editing the scene to remove Obi Wan's reveal of Leia, the scene could be kept in with that detail removed. Also, why edit out Yoda confirming Vader as Luke's father? Luke would definitely want confirmation of that and if you're running with the idea that they had already talked about it, IMO its very powerful to have Luke only have the medal to finally really bring up what's been eating away at him the past 2, 3 years because he knows its his last chance. And its something as an audience that we would like to see. What if Vader had lied ya know?

I liked the idea of removing the frog thing outside Jabba's, but instead it was a pretty obvious still picture, just felt off to me.

I really didn't like removing Luke force choking the guards, IMO the point of this movie is the fear that Luke is leaning towards the dark side, if he does this that confirms that in a way. Besides his continuous death threats to Jabba aren't very Jedi like either.

Idk why the Lando/han convo before the briefing was cut, sure their winks at eachother is a little odd, but han's last line is a funny quip relating to a convo in Empire before Lando betrayed him, its pretty good if the audience notices and more importantly it shows that han isn't pissed anymore at the guy that you know, TURNED THEM OVER TO DARTH VADER. Kind of major IMO.

Really liked han's silent moment looking at the Falcon.

I do not understand at all removing Vader's "it is too late for me, son." I love that line. It shows that Vader isn't just a shell of his former self, he doesn't just do things because of the great "power of the dark side" he's taking his rage out on the galaxy over his sins and the choices he's made for so long he doesn't know what else to do. IMO his admitting it is too late for him almost shows a light at the end of the tunnel.

I love Ian McDiarmid's performance (who doesn't) but a lot of him is cut. I understand removing the two scenes with him and Vader pre arrival of heroes so that his master plan is revealed more suddenly, but I still think they are executed well, and I think the second one is important but I understand the choice.

Frankly I thought moving the Emperor to the Executor was pointless. Cool idea to see the Death Star outside the window. (Except for sometimes you could see it and sometimes it clearly wasn't where it was in the scene moments before. But it looked BOSS when it was there.) But I thought the whole point of moving Luke, Vader, and the Emperor to a Star Destroyer was so that Vader's death could play out after the battle was over, and the emotional beat could happen after everything was resolved. It took place in the exact same place it does in ROTJ, just on the Executor...but right before Vader dies it shows the Rebels attacking the Executor so...I don't see the point.

So I have to admit something quickly, I was so excited for this edit. As I was downloading it I stumbled upon Spence's youtube channel and checked out some of his test videos for this. And honestly...the test videos of Vader's death and the ending montage are better. The music just climaxes at a better time in the Vader death test and the finale test is WAY more satisfying. I loved the low key force theme playing over everyone dancing with the Ewoks, I like it better than the actual ending in this cut and the real film.

So I know I just wrote a novel about this and griped the whole time, but I do recommend this edit for those who want to see a glimpse at what Jedi could have been, and I applaud Spence for making some really drastic choices here, some that worked very nicely. I'm also aware that I'm such a hardcore fan of the Wars that I have opinions that are ridiculously impossible to please.

The first half of the edit, being significantly trimmed down, feels like something is missing. It ends up feeling like there is little character development and we're just going through the motions. That said, I agree with pretty much all the content that was cut (these issues are present in the original film too, this cut just speeds through them).

I would say that first time viewers should watch a full original cut, but from now on I think this will be my default choice for which cut to watch.

Great job!