Odd little things about Return of the Jedi

Well, I have the day off work, and it's an absolutely beautiful day. I've just got back from some leisurely stuff I had to do in the morning, and I have the whle day ahead of me! I could go for a swim to get some exercise, prepare my finances and arrangements for my upcoming University course, or just read one of the many classics I've collected for the summer.

I'm watching 'Return of the Jedi' again. And I've managed to justify it to myself as 'research' for a Star Wars fanfiction I'm writing.

As I watch, I thought I'd point out strange little things that make me laugh every time I watch it. To me (and so many people in my generation) the 'Star Wars' trilogy is like an old lover you've become completely comfortable with. You've stared lovingly at its sleeping face so many times that now, you know every beautiful detail, and cherish each one. And there are some strange little pocks and blemishes, that although you find them enchanting, you like to poke at them in the mornings, knowing that the movie won't mind. It's 'Return of the Jedi', after all! It'll just lazily brush its hair, blink, and smile contentedly at you. It's comfortable with you looking at its innermost soul.

(I'll admit I'm totally stealing this idea from Protoclown on I-Mockery.com, but I'll at least point out different oddities!) Like I said, these are things I've noticed, over and over, and which really tickle me for some reason.


1) C-3P0 clearly doesn't speak Huttese

I always liked the scene right at the beginning (after Darth Vader has done freaking out the Imperial SS Officer) where See Threepio and Artoo Deetoo are outside the massive sandy gate to Jabba the Hutt's crazy palace. Lucas and the director seem to be bringing the trilogy full-circle, mirroring the opening of the original film, and once again using C-3P0 and R2-D2 as the audience's eye to the epic story - again honouring 'The Hidden Fortress'. So once again our lovable, bickering peasants are trying to help out the Princess' rebellion, this time by breaking into a giant slug gangster's underground cave lair. Threepio is being a massive wuss about it of course, coming up with excuses why they should just run away and leave Han Solo to die. And then the little eye-robot guardsman comes out of the wall (not unlike the extended version of Return of the King... got my eye on you, Jackson...) and yells urgent gibberish at them.
'Huttese', when you see aliens speak it in the SW films, has always been nonsense made up on the spot. But sometimes the actors really don't seem to be putting any effort into the making-up process, and Anthony Daniels as Threepio cracks me up here every time I see him!

"Artoo.... Deto-ah..." he says to the eye, "Bo... Say... Three Pay Oo-ah..." And already I'm loving his questionable 'translation' of their names. It sounds more like pig-Latin than a mysterious alien language at this point. But then! Then he starts adding the questioning, raised intonations at the end of phrases - and you just KNOW Threepio is making this up as he goes along! "Uhh... too-ta... mishka...? Jabba Du Hutt?"

After this, the eye retreats back into the wall, no-doubt hugely offended by Threepio's semi-racist attempt to impersonate their language by simply speaking English with a silly accent.
It's like that episode of Family Guy where Peter tries to speak Italian - "Ahhh, bibbidy, bobbity!" I bet he doesn't speak the binary language of moisture vaporators, either!

2) Chortle at Threepio's boner

Just a few minutes after C-3P0 has made a fool of himself as a translator, he does it again surrounded by all of Jabba's wierdo friends. When Jabba subtly reminds the audience that he has Han frozen in a block of ice (by pointing at it), Threepio yells out, "Look, Artoo! It's Captain Solo, and he's still frozen in carbonite!!" At this point all the aliens and crooks in the room start laughing for some reason - I can only assume they're laughing at Threepio's terrible attempt at exposition.

3) Skipping droid

Still in Jabba's Palace... I'm always amused by the creepy droid who runs the foundry/droid torture chamber underneath Jabba's happenin' Night Club Cave. It's the way he talks - every time I hear it I laugh because I'm reminded of schoolgirls skipping a rope. "How. Many. Languages. Do. You. Speak!" One! Two! Three! Four!

4) Luke's diabolical smack-talk

Luke Skywalker is one of those heroes who lets his actions speak for him. He was just a wet-eared, geeky moisture farmer, but he was a good enough pilot to take down the Death Star with no training. He has been a Jedi apprentice for about a week, but he dared to take on Darth Vader in a swordfight just to save his buddies. At the beginning of this film he does all sorts, including redeeming his Sith Lord father, defeating the Emperor and killing a giant monster armed only with a rock and a bone. But... before that, he attempts to frighten Jabba by staring him down and issuing very meek threats. I really love how he apparently thinks he can intimidate a gint slug, surrounded by guards, just by walking into his base in a black hood and muttering quietly about what a badass Jedi knight he is, in his whiny, whiny, high pitched voice. His broken-voiced, "This is the last mistake you'll ever make!!" (as he's being led away in handcuffs) makes him sound a lot like a teenager who's just been dumped at the prom. And I love when he glances diagonally toward the camera with his eyes thin like Clint Eastwood, and tries to reassure Han by breathing, "Just stick close to Chewie and Lando. I'm taking take care of everything..." which makes Han roll his eyes sarcastically, and makes the audience wonder if perhaps Luke has been drinking.

But my favourite moment is easily when he dramatically reveals himself to Jabba. The small, black-hooded man in centre-stage steps forward, accompanied by a swell of suspenseful music, looks up, and removes the hood to reveal..... Mark Hamill, in his early twenties, with a fashionable, floppy brown fringe. Whoooah, Jabba, you and your small army of mercenaries had better think twice! You don't wanna mess with this!
Of course, when push comes to shove, and when he and his posse are in the most exposed, dangerous position imaginable, he does kick everyone's arses and single-handedly save the day with his Jedi powers. But absolutely nobody was expecting it! Maybe he's smarter than I thought...

5) Jedi sexism

When Yoda dies, his last words, his very last effort, are "There is another Skywalker", referring to Luke's twin sister, friend, colleage and occasional make-out buddy, Princess Leia. When the ghost of Ben Kenobi hears Luke's doubts (and by doubts I mean lack of bloodlust), he throws his hands in the air, insisting, "You are our only hope!" and that without his efforts, "The Emperor has already won!" It's only when Luke presses the matter that he admits that Leia is his sister - and thus just as suitable to save the Universe as he is.

But then... why didn't they train Leia too? She's clearly just as powerful, and has already demonstrated psychic clairvoyance in the last film. Not to mention that unlike Luke, she is already an accomplished leader of men, strategist and gunfighter! A few scenes later we learn that she's also an incrediblly-skilled motorcyclist, who shows absolutely no fear (or any kind of acting, really) in the face of danger! So now she's equalled Luke's feat at the Death Star, too. Throughout all three movies, she repeatedly demonstrates that she's more experienced, calmer, and much more emoionally detached than Luke. Plus, she's already a senior figure in the Rebellion - so there's no need to coax her into it!

And yet the all-male Jedi leadership seems very reluctant to hire her...

6) Listen with Threepio

I know I'm mentioning C-3P0 a lot... I suppose I just feel that he has no place on Endor. But the movie specially engineers a place for him, by having him use his brilliant translation skills (see above) stop the lovable cutesy Ewoks from butchering and eating Luke, Han and Chewie, and.... God only knows what they had planned for Leia.
For reasons we can only guess at, the Ewoks assume that Threepio is a God, and carry him home on a chair. One odd line from Threepio here is, "But it's against my programming to impersonate a deity!" Who the hell programmed him with such bizarre, specific instructions?! (No, I don't accept it was young Anakin.)

But it's later, when he starts trying to get the (astoundingly impressionable) Ewoks to lay down their lives for him, when I really get confused. To win them over, Threepio decides to have all the Ewoks gather round his chair, and then tell them the entire Star Wars trilogy up to this point. To bring it to life, he waves his hands around as if he had action figues in them, and plays sound effect clips directly from the films. Which is fine (if a bit odd) except for the fact that the enitre story takes him about thirty seconds to tell. Surely that's not enough for them to understand! If I were lsitening, I'd be constantly raising my hand and asking questions, like, "Yes, okay, but what IS a Death Star?" "Is he a bad guy, or what? I understand that he breathes heavily, but what does he do?" and "Can you please go over this 'Millennium Falcon' bit in more detail? We eat raw meat and hunt with stone spears."
There are frequent reaction shots during the story, often of young Ewoks recoiling in fear and awe. But we also see Luke, Han, Chewie and this one Ewok with a pipe, staring at Threepio like he's gone mad. I love those shots! Luke in particular is frowning quite a bit, as if he's about to call 'bullshit!' on the whole story. But Leia, for some reason, is loving it. At one point we see her, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, cosying up to Han and following Threepio's every move with her eyes. Maybe she wouldn't make such a good Jedi after all.

Also about Threepio on Endor:
I notice that everyone is wearing jungle camauflage, except for Han (who is too damn cool for that crap) and Threepio, who is painted bright gold.

7) Watch that officer, he's going places

When Luke hands himself over to the Empire, he's picked up by some stormtroopers and an SS guy with four medals. They decide to put Luke in handcuffs and transport him to Darth Vader, who has just landed. So they take a massive, armoured walking tank through the dense forest and deliver him. And then the SS guy says, "This is a rebel that surrendered to us. Although he denies it, I believe there may be more of them!" Well, gosh darn, that's a smart officer. He's sticking with his gut feeling that the rebels would send more than one guy, EVEN THOUGH the enemy soldier denies it. He's a goddamn visionary.

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And after that, there really is nothing to make fun of, except the silliness of the Ewok battle. Which surely has been done to death on the internet!

The bits on Endor that don't involve Ewoks as much are truly thrilling. The full-on space battle (featuring Lando and Wedge, both personal favourites) absolutely astounds me. And as for Luke's dramatic confrontation with Darth Vader, the Emperor, and the darkness within himself and his dad... I have nothing negative to say about it. The music in that scene, in particular, really is amazing.

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One last one:

8) Lando's sad dancing

Video here.

This is something I never noticed until an old friend at University pointed it out to me, years ago. Right at the end, in the very last seconds of the film, all the main cast strike a pose, Street Fighter style, for the camera. Everyone tries to look cool, and sum-up their characters and how they're feeling at the end of this long, incredible, intergalactic civil war.

Except for Lando 'Hey buddy, relax, try this: Colt Malt Liquor' Calrissian, who stands at the back, grinning, and clapping to himself. And throughout the whole ending / celebration scene, he's still doing it. During the famous moment when Luke smiles at the ghosts of the dead Jedi, you can even see Lando there! Clapping and swaying by himself, in the background, completely oblivious to the apparition of Darth Vader a few feet to his left, because he's too busy dancing and trying to get random strangers to shake his hand.

This wouldn't be so funny were it not for the fact that Lando (as played by super smooth Billy Dee Williams in a cape) is easily the coolest character in the movie. It's so strange to see him, right in the second before the credits roll, looking like a big nerd, at the back, dancing like your dad while everyone else is mingling, geting close with their significant others and chatting with ghosts.

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And if that's not a very funny note to end on, check out this video clip, by someone far, far funnier than me:

Please, Mister Lucas, please incorporate this edit into your next revised version of Return of the Jedi!