CT The Return of the Jedi 40th Anniversary! “I am a Jedi like my father before me.”

I love John Carpenter's commentaries, he has a ball when he's talking with Kurt Russell, his commentary with Roddy Piper for They Live is good too. I love John McTiernan's commentaries on Predator, Die Hard and Die Hard with a Vengeance too.

 

I like John Carpenter's work as a composer and director. I haven't heard his commentaries, but I want to now.



This video confirms that Lucas tricked Hayden into looking down and posing for footage he later used of him as a Force ghost. Apparently, Hayden wasn't offended by this. He probably was amused. I knew that Lucas did something similar with Sebastian Shaw. But he told Shaw it was for publicity. Shaw has a great smile and he had a warm look as a Force ghost. But his smile is best when he's under the Vader makeup in that suit. His mannerisms and loving look toward Luke are perfect for that moment. So unlike Vader because he's Anakin again. I do like the wide, final shot of Anakin looking up with pride at Luke and Leia during the the celebration.

I just don't know why Lucas told either Shaw or Hayden that he was tricking them into filming scenes for Anakin as Force ghosts. It is kind of funny, though. Anyhow, I like this explanation. Anakin looks young because he retains his appearance during his final Jedi moment...when he was twenty-three...or twenty-four. However old he was. Lucky look, though. But I imagine Obi-Wan and Yoda don't really care that they appear elderly in spirit form. They have other things on their minds. I also think that Anakin has fewer limitations as a Force ghost. He obviously carried Ahsoka into the World Between Worlds, and something tells me that most Force ghosts couldn't sever a bridge in that realm. He seemed to be able to transfer Ahsoka between timeframes at will and without going into a sphere. That's interesting. I like the idea that the Chosen One can do things like that. He probably now has access to most, if not all, of the powers of the Father of Mortis now. Very interesting.

 

I don't think Anakin cares about his looks in the afterlife either. In fact, I don't think he is able to care about that, since immortality requires selflessness. Not in the sense that he stops being himself - he obviously is - but he's let go of all greed, vanity and pride.
What I do think is that he appears as his youthful self simply because that's a reflection of what his soul feels like to him; how he knows himself. That's the Anakin persona that he's familiar with, so he looks and behaves as the good parts of the young Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker.

As Morpheus would say, it's his residual self-image.

 

If I remember right GL had a hard time persuading Sir Alec Guinness into portraying OWK as a ghost due to religious reasons, may be he wanted to avoid a similar situation occurring with Sebastian Shaw. I guess with HC, he might've thought HC would be uneasy about filming a scene where he'd be replacing not only a fellow actor but one that was deceased. I always found it strange how the Screen Actors Guild never objected to Shaw being replaced, had it been a director the Director's Guild would've kicked up a fuss.

For me I thought it was an unnecessary move to replace Shaw but once it was done it made sense to me at the time to have both OWK and Yoda morph into their younger selves. But now I think we see Force-ghosts as the person who's looking at them sees them, which is why we see Anakin as a Jedi dressed like OWK when Luke sees him and as he was dressed the last time Ahsoka saw him when she sees him.

 

Not sure if it was religious reasons. I always thought that Alec Guinness was just super offended and hurt that Lucas abruptly decided to kill off his character in the middle of filming, which rather put a damper on the mentor role in the sequels that Obi-Wan was supposed to have.

As a standalone film SW 1977 makes it a very open question whether Obi-Wan's voice is actually a Force ghost, or just memories and voiced intuitions that Luke perceives occasionally and might or might not be objectively "hearing". (In fact, without Obi-Wan getting killed off, the series might never have had Force ghosts at all.) And even in ESB Obi-Wan's role was sharply dialed back in favor of Yoda, partly due to Alec Guinness' health reasons but also because I think a ghost training Luke was still seen as somewhat strange. Not to mention Guinness' relations with Lucas appear to have sharply cooled by this point due to the aforementioned rupture.

 

I don't know what their rules are, but GL did only replace the head - and only in that scene. Maybe they thought it was acceptable (or had to accept it) because Sebastian still has the big death scene (where his eyebrows and eye color were altered to match ROTS/Hayden but he was otherwise untouched).

 

Just recently i got the 2006 release of original trilogy dvd that you have to zoom to see it widescreen and i was amazed how much better they are than the special editions, yes its grainier but these were the movies i remember growing up and just to see them again were great , the original musical Lapti Nek is so much better than the max rebo band and i do prefer seing Sebastian Shaw as Anakin smiling at Luke alongside Yoda and Alex Guiness/ Obi-Wan and Yub Yub ending is better also.

 

If I remember the "Making of 'Star Wars'" book correctly, Guinness wasn't happy about the decision at the beginning. But Lucas explained the dramatic reason for it (Ben didn't have much to do after the Death Star escape, and his presence seemed a bit anti-climatic), and Guinness eventually agreed with the decision.

 

Honestly, I suspect that might have been a gloss put on it for publicity reasons, and that Guinness still felt rather upset about the whole thing. I wouldn't be surprised if he still thought privately that Lucas had, in his view, acted extremely unprofessionally by changing the storyline at such short notice, and without asking his input first.

 

GL was following Campbell's 'The Hero's Journey', in his original outline for it to be more than one film OWK was going to die in the 3rd film. There are two different versions of how it came about, one's GL moved it forward because the character would have little impact on the film once they escaped and it's likely he wasn't sure future films would be made, while the other was AG was fed up with sci-fi and asked to be killed off.

I don't believe the latter because it doesn't make sense in why AG agreed to do the film in the first place, also MH and HF have said many times they had a great time on set with AG. I think AG asking to be killed off was AG trying to save face, he didn't understand sci-fi but he did appreciate the story and his role as a mentor in it and was understandably disappointed that he wouldn't be seeing it through.

 

Interestingly, Sebastian Shaw gave an interview to the Starlog Magazine about his role as Anakin in 1987.
You can read it on here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20080828003407/http://www.sebastianshaw.com/html/starlog.html
It also debunks the speculation that he didn't know the first two Star Wars movies before shooting ROTJ.

 

This was not only my favorite ROTJ scene, but my all time favorite SW scene ever!! I usually say it word for word while watching this part. Just love it so much as you can see that Luke struck a cord with his father showing his true humanity shine through.

I made it to the 40th anniversary showing on May 3rd (2023) seeing an afternoon showing plus going to see Raiders of the Lost Ark right after. One of my only double features I've done in a long time.
There wasn't any special 40th cups or buckets, but the movie was so awesome on the big screen! There was a few people in there and everyone seemed to enjoy it. I clapped of course for some scenes. This made up for missing it during the special edition as I remember not wanting to go by myself. Really regret that but I did see ANH & TESB. ROTJ is my 3rd favorite OT film but it's such a classic and will always have a special place with me as it's one of the first films I remember going to see. And I had the action figures with Jabba playset and speeder bike, plus lots of figures, great times. I'm blessed to revisit these times recently watching the movie with my family and playing out the scenes with the figures with my son. A priceless feeling. Look forward to going again , hopefully for the 50th anniversary!

 

i'm rewatching ROTJ and it really is amazing how real the Rancor looks. you can see the sweat gleaming off of it and everything. i can imagine how scary it was for a little kid watching it in the theater in 1983.

 

Thats some day that. 2 classics.

One of my favourite scenes. Such a great idea. I can clearly remember that I thought everything in Jabba's palace was scary and started the film off with a tone similar to Empire.

 

Very

 

Any more details you know about this? I was watching a fan reaction of Empire the other day and it popped in my head, "I wonder what Guinness' reaction was to being asked to return for Empire?". It's such an important role he in that film, albeit a small one, so would be curious to know more.

 

I really can't see Guinness having a problem playing a ghost, not least because he'd done it just a few years earlier in Scrooge.

 

I', sure it was either in Rinzler's The Making of Empire Strikes Back or The Making of Return of the Jedi. SAG was only contracted for ANH and GL had to negotiate for each sequel.