As it appears, we have just entered the month of May. If you don’t know, May 4th is National Star Wars Day, otherwise known as “May the 4th be with you” as a pun on the infamous saying “May the force be with you.” from the extremely thrilling and widely known sci-fi movie saga Star Wars. In honor of this annual holiday of sorts, here are a few facts about the 6th movie in the history of the Star Wars universe, Return of the Jedi.
The Ewoks that are brought into the storyline are actually just a budget-cut version of the Wookis. It was very expensive, time-consuming, and difficult to find dozens of 6’2, ginormous people to play the roles of the typical Wookis, so rather than doing that the Star Wars team decided to save money and time and cut these Wookies in half to create the Ewoks.
The Ewoks were actually so loved that they ended up getting their own spinoff trilogy in 1984 that can now be watched on Disney+. This was the first-ever created Star Wars spinoff. Later in 1985, there was a cartoon show based on the infamous Ewoks as well.
Han Solo was actually supposed to meet a not-so-tragic end in the 6th movie in the saga “Return of the Jedi.” Harrison Ford thought it would be tasteful to kill Han in a heroic way as he was saving his friends from the enemy. This did not end up making showtime, and instead, Han dies later on in the saga.
The plans for Luke Skywalker in The Return of the Jedi were much different than anticipated. Once Luke defeats Vader, the original script says that Luke takes Vader’s mask and declares himself the new Darth Vader. This did not make the screen and changed the whole course of the movie. I don’t know about yall but I honestly prefer Luke as his heroic Jedi self.
As you may know, Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber is known to be green, right? Wrong! Originally it was blue but had to be changed because the blue part of the saber kept appearing lost with the background being a bright blue sky.
Lastly, The Return of the Jedi cost a whopping $42.7 million dollars to make in 1983. If the movie was filmed in today’s time, due to inflation it would cost $128 million dollars to create.
With all of that, I hope y’all will be rewatching this movie in honor of the 40th anniversary and the clear hard work, time, and money put into its creation, and happy Star Wars Day (May 4th)!
