Believe it or not, there was once a time in which Star Wars: Return Of The Jedi was the most polarizing entry in the Star Wars franchise. I mean, I should say the only other works to compare it to were A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, so the movie faced an uphill battle. Even so, the movie managed to win over critics and audiences well enough, despite maybe falling a bit short of what its predecessors delivered.
I love Return of the Jedi, but there are many questions I've held onto that have sprung up over the years with each re-watch. Some have been there since the start, other questions have formed in light of newer movies, and all of them are worth discussing. Unfortunately, I just don't have the time to question why Joh Yowza is the frontman of the Max Rebo band, but I do have plenty of other questions that can be broken down much quicker and create some food for thought for Star Wars fans young and old.
Why Did Lando Have To Pull Down His Mask To See The Situation?
I never really understood the whole bit with Lando wearing that tusked mask in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. As a child, I thought it was a poor attempt to disguise himself as the many Gamorreans in the palace, but as an adult, I now know he had been working inside the palace as a mole. Regardless of the situation, I'll never understand why he had to pull down his mask to effectively survey the situation going on with Chewbacca's arrest. He had clear vision with it on, and only risked exposure had his friends reacted to his presence!
Why Did Luke Stroll In Jabba's Palace With No Plan?
Luke had a mole operation going in an attempt to save Han, and Leia worked up a good bounty hunter bit with Chewbacca. Then you have Luke, who just walked in and politely asked for Han back. It would've been a badass move had he whipped out any of his Jedi powers to drop Jabba and rescue his friends, but instead, he fell for the trap door bit and almost died by Rancor. Luke then had the stones to play it cool and act like the diving board lightsaber catch was the plan all along, when it actually took a lot of things all coming together at once to stop him from looking like an idiot right before he died.
How Was It Economically Viable To House A Rancor In Jabba's Palace?
Look, I'm not going to sit here and act like Jabba's the type of guy to give his Rancor the best of care, but there had to be some level of hygiene going on to keep that stink from emanating up from the floor during parties. I also get that Jabba has a lot of enemies, but surely even one body a day had to mean this thing wound up more hungry than not sometimes. Plus, killing someone just had to harsh the vibe and ultimately be bad for business, even amongst scum like that. I just don't see how Jabba was in the green keeping that thing beneath his party zone.
How Are The Ewoks So Ignorant Of Technology, But Also Helpful?
The Ewoks are presented as a simple species in Star Wars: Return Of The Jedi, and yet they prove that they aren't all that ignorant minutes later. Somehow they go from being afraid of helmets and worshipping C-3PO as a god to revealing the location of Endor's shield generator. Their knowledge of that alone should be evidence enough that they aren't completely in the dark when it comes to technology, and shouldn't be nearly as naive as they come off in the opening introduction to the species.
Why Rebuild The Death Star?
I guess it makes sense that the Empire would want to show it could rebuild the Death Star after seeing it blown up by Rebel forces, but that confidence also delivered another major message to the universe. The Empire was incapable of change, and if given the opportunity, it would rebuild a death machine with a highly exploitable kill switch if only to prove a point. Not that it even mattered considering the Rebels managed to destroy the second one before it was ever even completed. One can't help but think had the Emperor not been so prideful and insisted on seeing the Death Star rebuilt, the destruction may not have spelled the legion's end.
Why Do Droids Feel Pain?
This is something that was confirmed anytime an astromech squeals in pain getting an electrical charge, but confronted head-on in Star Wars: Return Of The Jedi. C-3PO and R2-D2 are taken to Jabba's droid torture chamber, and while that's messed up, the fact that droids are programmed to feel pain is even worse. Is that a necessary part of their programming to have? Does that mean that Han's biting remarks to C-3PO may have made him cry off-camera? I just don't understand the reasoning behind this, and it makes me rethink some of those scenes in other Star Wars works where a droid is getting banged around.
How Did Leia Remember Her Mother?
Star Wars: Revenge Of The Sith statement a claim from Leia, who claims to remember her mother despite us knowing she died of a broken heart during childbirth. The scene made Leia's comments in Return of the Jedi confusing in which she talked about having memories of Padme Amidala. Fans have debated on this for some time, and right now the current major theory is that Leia is incorrectly remembering Padme's body double Sabé, who was a part of the rebellion and worked with Bail Organa. Another idea is that Leia was accidentally channeling her Force sensitivity to see Padme, which is another cool explanation. That said, neither are canon, so really it's just an unanswered question created by the prequels.
How Did Anakin Immediately Become A Force Ghost?
Speaking of problems Star Wars lore has created over time, there's more than just the legitimacy of Darth Vader's redemption to talk about in that final scene. Based on what we've learned about Force Ghosts in the time since the Original Trilogy, becoming a Force Ghost is a specialized technique learned by Jedi. So did Obi-Wan appear to Anakin in his eleventh hour and explain all this? We're missing a gap of time between Anakin's death and when this could've happened. That said, we don't know a ton about the afterlife of Star Wars, so until we do, this one is a mystery.
Do you have any grievances you'd like to get out in the open about Star Wars: Return Of The Jedi? List all that down in the comments, and continue to stick with CinemaBlend to stay up to date on all things happening in television and movies.
