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.

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

Review by videohead — August 25, 2011 @ 5:43 pm

I would have to agree, this to me was by far the worst of the original trilogy, and with that said this is a great edit of the final episode in an epic saga.

A part of me really misses the rancor pit scene (though i agree with the reason that u took it out).

One of the little shots that always bothered me was – at the execution scene where r2 launches Lukes saber into the air, why does luke have to look up to catch it? hes a jedi, he should just catch it, light it, and swing it all in one movement. little things like that would make the jedi’s in the movies look that much tougher in my mind.

The only cut that looked strange to me was after the rescue when Luke leaves the group he just pops back up in the next scene and is like “hey guys!” while i was just like “wait, didn’t you just leave?”, a very strange cut in my mind. I think the talk he has with Obi Wan should be left in.

The only real problem i had with this edit was that the ending, it felt a little flat to me. I mean this is the final episode in an EPIC saga, and the ending should show that. Now with that said i still hate the original ending and yours is still superior.

Overall great job! 8/10

Review by Captain Khajiit — April 16, 2011 @ 2:54 pm

Spence’s edit shows that ROTJ has the potential to be much better than it is. I didn’t think that I would enjoy watching a ROTJ edit this much.

Video: The quality was good overall. In some scenes the color correction doesn’t quite work, but this aspect of fanediting is *very* hard to pull off. Some extremely ambitious effects work was undertaken, mostly successfully. 8 out of 10
Audio: The audio editing and audio quality were excellent. Most of the cuts were smooth, which was impressive given that they were done in 5.1 and this film is rather heavily scored. There were a few relatively minor audio problems that others have noted. 8 out of 10
Entertainment: I found this more enjoyable than watching the theatrical cut or the special editions. 8 out of 10
Editing: There were many clever edits and most of the changes were successful. I still feel that more could be done with this film, but Spence has really shown the way. 8 out of 10
Presentation: there is cover art available for those that want it. The menu is basic, but that’s fine with me. There are some nice special features. Great to see and hear you, Spence! 8 out of 10

Overall: It’s a solid 8 out of 10 from me. I hope that Spence will consider revisiting this film at some point after he has had a break from it, but as it stands this version is very highly recommended. :-)

Review by tylerdurden389 — April 14, 2011 @ 8:47 pm

Just finished watching this. Here’s my thoughts. First let me start by saying that I am not a huge Star Wars fan anymore. Never cared for it as a child, but I was quite obsessed with it around the time leading up to the special editions (I was 12-13 years old during this time). I did actually see Phantom Menace (4 times to be exact), but my fascination with all things Star Wars fizzled out shortly afterword, and I never even saw ep. 2 in theaters.

Anyway, I definitely like this version over the theatrical/special edition. However, I feel it’s too short. I understand that dialogue and Ewok stuff was cut to avoid camp, but I think some things could’ve been retained. I LOVED the entirely new opening. From the text crawl, to the introduction of characters. Superbly done. I like how now we understand that Luke has been training since the end of Empire. I always wondered about the timeline between Empire and Jedi, and what Luke’s training consisted of. I liked how we got through the Jabba stuff much quicker. However, I didn’t understand where Luke flew off to after they fly off of Tatooine. Also, his return when they’re discussing the plans to attack the Empire. I understand that by using the fade cuts of Luke being aware of what’s going on with his friends meant him rushing to save them (Which was GREAT btw. I loved how they did this at the end of Empire and was disappointed it wasn’t utilized in Jedi), however I hated losing his conversation with Obi-Wan. I understand that the dialogue was bad since it negates things from the first film, but it left me wondering how Luke figured out that Lea was his sister. I suppose this works better though.

I personally didn’t care for the added music during the forest speeder chase. We heard the triumphant Star Wars-ey music during the big action sequence from before, so no need to re-hash. Actually, I just say that cuz for some reason I LOVE the sounds of those speeders. Speaking of music, since I could care less about the prequels, I DID NOT care for the “duel of the fates” music for the first half of the saber fight at all. Also didn’t care for the music change for the Vader reveal at the end. i also didn’t like the special edition ending with all the other planets celebrating, but it’s better than the Ewoks celebrating. As for the final shot of Luke burning Vader’s body, there was no sound of fire, only the music. The scene didn’t seem “complete” (ugh, I hate using that word in context of this film, lol).

Lastly, did you add in sound effects of Harrison Ford grunting from the Indy films for when he fights the stormtroopers? Nice touch if you did. Anyway, this film will never be on par with the first 2, but this edit certainly is an improvement. I consider the theatrical/special edition about a 6 out of 10. I give this fan edit an 8 out of 10.