Added: Feb 23, 2012
Author: OcpCommunications
Time: 6:41
Part four of my retrospective/review of Return Of The Jedi(1983) starring Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee Williams, Kenny Baker, Anthony Daniels, Peter Mayhew, David Prowse, Ian McDiarmid, Sebastian Shaw, and Warwick Davis. Directed by Richard Maraquand.TriviaWhen sound designer Ben Burtt was working on the sound effects for the speeder bike chase, he tried to emulate Treg Brown's sound effect work on the Road Runner cartoons as closely as possible.Sound designer Ben Burtt got the opportunity to operate the mike boom in the dialogue scene between Luke and Leia on Endor. He didn't know the entire scene would take almost 3 minutes to shoot, so he got very tired holding up the microphone, and nearly dropped it on Carrie Fisher's head.Ian McDiarmid, a prolific stage actor, based his character's unusual voice on the Japanese method of using your stomach to project yourself. The result was a strange, guttural croak that Lucas decided was perfect for the character of Palpatine.The point-of-view shots for the speeder bike sequence were achieved by having a camera operator walk through the forest at normal speed with a camera filming at one frame per second. When the footage was played back at twenty four frames per second, it gave the appearance of flying through the forest at high speeds.This is only the second film in the series to use American locations for live-action location filming.The roofs of the "Chicken Walkers" bear an uncanny resemblance to the roofs of the gun turrets on WWII German Tiger tanks-especially the small railings that these tanks had.Originally to be titled "Revenge of the Jedi" but producers thought Jedis wouldn't seek revenge, being so righteous and all. Some posters and theater stand-ups were made early, but pulled very soon as the title changed names. Also Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan was originally to be called "Star Trek: The Revenge of Khan", but the title for that movie was changed to avoid confusion with this movie back when "Revenge of the Jedi" was being considered.David Prowse has said that he did not take part in any of the lightsaber-fighting sequences. As with Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back, the film's sword master, Bob Anderson played Darth Vader during the duel sequence, wearing platform shoes and careful filming to make up for the height difference.David Prowse, who played Darth Vader's body in three films, was unaware of the planned unmasking scene in which a different actor, Sebastian Shaw, played Vader's face.Ian McDiarmid (The Emperor) and David Prowse (Darth Vader) have never met. Vader was played by Bob Anderson for all of the camera shots in which Vader and the Emperor appeared at the same time.Whilst clambering over Jabba the Hutt, one of the high heels that Carrie Fisher was wearing accidentally punctured the latex casing and pierced Mike Edmonds who was operating the tail inside.George Lucas fired his friend and producer of the previous two Star Wars movies, Gary Kurtz, before production began (although some sources say he simply quit on his own) as Kurtz disagreed with Lucas' assertion that audiences didn't care for the story but for the spectacle.The slithery noises made when Jabba the Hutt moves were created by sound-man Ben Burtt running his hands through a cheese casserole.When Steven Spielberg saw Paul Verhoeven's Soldier of Orange he was deeply impressed. He called Verhoeven to tell him he wanted to get him an American project. Years later Verhoeven heard that Spielberg wanted to bring him up to direct Return of the Jedi. To be sure of his talent, Spielberg organized a viewing of his latest feature film Spetters. Spielberg was shocked by the extremely sexual content and never called him again. Verhoeven later said that he thought Spielberg was afraid the Jedis would break their celibacy under his direction.The official poster of the film displays a disclaimer. "This film may be too intense for very young children."The Jabba the Hutt puppet took Stuart Freeborn's team three months to build, cost $500,000 to make and weighed 2000lbs.10 puppeteers, 9 mime artists, 42 extras, 18 principles, supported by a crew of 90 worked almost a month on the Jabba's Palace sequence.Admiral Ackbar's famous line 'It's a trap!' was originally scripted as 'It's a trick!'. The line was changed in post-production after a negative test screening.
Category: Film
Tags: star wars return of the jedi movie review mark hamill harrison ford carrie fisher billy dee williams kenny baker anthony daniels peter mayhew david prowse ian mcdiarmid sebastian shaw warwick davis richard maraquand george lucas 80's science fiction retrospective
Rating: 5.0' max='5' min='1' numRaters='2' rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#overall ( ratings) View Count: 123 Comments: 1
ILiveAgain1 says:
Feb 29, 2012 - Awesome 4 parter to tell you the truth I never had a problem with the Ewoks but i do agree with you on Luke&Leia being brother&sister was just a bad idea also to me I have to say this the end of the war becouse knowing then what i know now Lucas would've just fucked up the sequels as munch as he did for the prequels and the blu ray versions IMO.