Return of the Jedi: Remastered

I was 6 years old watching "Return of the Jedi" in the theater, and all too well I remember the collective *gasp* of the crowd when Yoda did indeed confirm that Darth Vader is who he was. It was a sublime moment. Those my age may have forgotten how much buzz and excitement surrounded the OT when this film first came out - there was definitely a lot of magic to behold in this presentation. And you can dare guess how the final lightsaber fight, with those choral background voices, affected this young American kid. Star Wars has been an undeniable part of my mythology since then.

Alas, time was not kind to ROTJ. Watching it years later the magic moments are still there, but the shock of the "new" has worn and the flaws become undeniably present and irritating. I have been on the lookout for a good fanedit for years now, and this is the one that's my current go-to.

Adywan currently has captured my imagination as to what the art of fanediting is, and what it can be. He is currently out to tackle this movie for his next project, which I will happily wait years for, if necessary. In the meantime, darthrush's edit will do you better than anyone could hope for. I made my own attempt at ROTJ and was mildly pleased, but this one handles itself gracefully.

The bad is essentially gone. I couldn't be happier with the Endor battle, the lack of Ewoks in general, the silliness of Jabba's palace toned down, the deletion of the uber-corny moments between Han and Lando or Han and Leia or Han and the Ewoks or Han and his jealous alter-ego (poor Harrison, no wonder he wanted to get out of this series). The final half-hour of the film has a real dynamic sense of story flow, and I couldn't be happier with how the elimination of the Ewok "noble savage" element actually makes perfect sense in light of the fact that Han hadn't yet blown up the generator. They totally SHOULD be losing.

No speeder-bike-Ewok nonsense. No "Jedi Rocks". No screaming, tortured droids. No bad matte shots of the Falcon. No Leia sharing rice cakes with teddy bears. Trimmed 3PO story-ridiculousness. No Chewie tarzan scream. No "I love you" during the big battle. No Hayden ghost. No yub yub....man, the more I think about how much CORN was in ROTJ, the more you see....and now it's gone!

That said, we could have lost Jabba's little pet-dude (made him disappear almost entirely from my fanedit), or maybe even more Ewok-whatever. There are a few roll-your-eyes moments left in. Still, it's hard when you're dealing with ROTJ....Star Wars has always had an amazing sense of humor when it's good.....but when it's bad, it REALLY IS BAD. There is also a "hurried" feel to the film.....I can't even now remember if that element existed in the original. It's slight, maybe a necessary evil of the fanedit.

I'll for now match this one up with both Adywan edits as my OT trilogy. This edit has read my mind in a great many ways, and has salvaged what really isn't a great film on par with ANH and ESB. The magic of Star Wars permeates this film throughout, however....some of that is probably nostalgia (people DID cry in the theater when Yoda "sleeps"), and some of it is this film's determination to see its own mythology through to the end. Maybe it would have been great if it was Kashyyyk and David Lynch was at the helm. But hey, we got what we got, and we care enough about what we DO have that we even bother with any of this at all.

Bravo, darthrush. Thanks for the experience!

There are so many fan-edits of this film out there, but I find that they change the story too much. This is just a simple edit which trims down the bad parts of the film to make a better story without changing it. I still feel like I'm watching the same 'Return of the Jedi' only more streamlined. All in all, it's really good and fixed many of the problems the timeless film has.

I'm gonna start by saying that Return of the Jedi is and has always been my favorite Star Wars movie and I was waiting forward for seeing this fanedit. I never disliked Ewoks but then again haven't really loved them either.

The battle on the moon of Endor has always been inferior to the space battle to me and this edition didn't change that. I like that many silly parts were cut but still I would wanted to see Ewoks destroy the walkers. The battle was way wore realistic but also felt a bit one sided and therefore maybe less exciting. The editing however was done very well during the battle.

There were some nice dialogue cuts here and there but I didn't really feel they made much difference in enjoyment. Now that I think of it, I'd rather wanted to see Han Solo and Lando / Leia talks. The Jedi Rocks cut was ok but I would rather have seen the original material there and not the bad CGI characters.

The biggest flaw in this edition was the video quality. The HD version (.mp4) just didn't look as sharp as Q2's fandit for example. It seems the video quality was suffered by re-encoding already encoded material. The audio quality also wasn't as good as I would have hoped. In addition the volume seems to go mystically lower at around 1h 11mins which was a bit annoying. Otherwise the audio editing was was done well, and I really liked the music addition to the Obi Wan scene. Got goosebumps there!

I'm sure this edition works for those who didn't quite like Return of the Jedi that much. For me, it didn't deliver that much. The problems with audio and video really lowered the enjoyment. I hate to say that I think I like the original more than this one. This was actually the first time for a long time that I absolutely didn't love the viewing experience of Return of the Jedi.

Props for bringing an alternative, good quality fanedit of Return of the Jedi. I'm sure many like this more than original. It just wasn't quite for me. Without the video and audio problems I probably would have liked it a bit more.

Let me just say this real quick: OMFG THIS IS THE BEST DAMN EDIT OF ROTJ POSSIBLE AND I AM SO FRIGGIN HAPPY IT EXISTS!!!

Ahem... sorry about that. I just got ahead of myself. Alright, let's do this. darthrush has done the best damn fan edit of Return of the Jedi I've seen, and I've watched maybe 3 or 4 versions. While the Ewoks are still in the movie, they're cut down SIGNIFICANTLY. I mean, short of refilming a bunch of scenes or CGIing the hell out of every Ewok to make them into scary awesome wookies this is the best you can possibly do with it. Also, I really appreciate how darthrush 'fixed' much of Han's clunky dialogue, looks, and actions. I mean, either Harrison Ford was phoning it in or the director was telling Harrison to 'act worse' (or both?) but darthrush did the best he/she could to trim that stuff out, making Han seem much cooler and sharper like in the previous SW films. There are a few Special Edition CGI elements (the Sarlacc) I miss but I'll take losing that to get rid of the stupid Jabba's Palace musical number (FINALLY!!!).

Does this fan edit reach the level of Empire or A New Hope? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA uh still no. HOWEVER, it does make for a SIGNIFICANTLY better cut, the story flowing more smoothly, having less of the kiddie crap, and making Han not a dumbass anymore. Additional wishes wouldn't be possible short of refilming or creating custom CGI, so this makes for a solid deal for me! There's still a few lines that could have been trimmed or re-edited (mainly about Leia's memory of her mom. Did you see Episode III?), but on the whole I have found my new definitive cut of Return of the Jedi. Thanks darthrush!

I love the original trilogy. A lot. Those films are some of my all-time favorites. However, Return of the Jedi always seemed a bit…off… to me. Not bad, mind you, just off. [One reviewer mentions “cut scenes”. I think that’s a pretty good description of how some parts of ROTJ feel.]
As I thought about it, I came to realize that this “off balance” feeling the original version of the film has is due to three key distractions in Return of the Jedi:

1. Jabba’s palace silliness. The focus should be on Luke rescuing his friends, but instead we’re treated to a musical number and other cartoonish elements.
2. Han Solo seems jealous of Luke, which shouldn’t have been a focus of the film. His jealousy made his character arc move weirdly backwards. He seemed very immature and lame in Return of the Jedi, at times.
3. Obviously, the Ewoks. Nothing against them or their cuteness, it’s just that the battle as was presented in the original version of the film was unrealistic and thus distracted from the prime conflict of the film: Luke becoming a Jedi and confronting his father.

This edit takes care of all three. Lapti Nek/Jedi Rocks [and droid screaming] is excised, Han’s problematic lines are (sometimes quite brilliantly) removed.

The Endor ground battle was fantastic. It’s completely believable. Han and Leia get trapped in the bunker, C3PO and the Ewoks realize this and get help. They arrive as a distraction when the rebels are brought outside with their hands up. The Imperials go after them, and get a nasty surprise from the Ewok’s bow&arrows. From there on out, Han, Leia, Chewbacca, and the rebels fight the fight and get their job done. The Ewoks do their part and run around and distract the empire. They try to fight but their sticks and stones just can’t beat the imperials. Finally, Chewie breaks into an AT-AT, does some real damage, Han and Leia get into the base, and the rest is history.

The only place this lost points were some audio transitions that didn’t necessarily sound natural. Unfortunately, I think these kind of things are unavoidable when you are not the person who made the film—and thus you don’t have full access to all the audio resources used for the movie.

Anyway, the result of the edit is a version of Return of the Jedi that retains everything we love about the film. It is still a worthy conclusion to a great trilogy, but now it is also fantastic film in its own right. I would recommend this edit to anyone who has had the same feelings of Return of the Jedi as me.