Return of the Jedi/Trivia: Difference between revisions
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* [[The Other Marty]]: {{spoiler|Anakin}}'s Force ghost in the special edition DVDs. Sebastian Shaw's appearance is removed and replaced by Hayden Christensen. This was a huge point of contention among the saga's fans, as the younger Anakin doesn't interact as well with Yoda and Obi-Wan as the older Anakin did. Christensen mentioned in an interview that he didn't fully know what George Lucas was up to, otherwise he would have played the scene totally different.
* [[Serendipity Writes the Plot]]: Luke's new lightsaber was originally going to be blue, as Obi-Wan's and Anakin's had. This showed up on a poster and even in some early screenshots and trailers. However, the special effects team realized that this wouldn't look good against the blue sky on Tatooine during the scene on Jabba's barge, so it was made green, thus codifying the idea that the Jedi usually have blue or green lightsabers while the Sith use red.
* [[Troubled Production]]: As for the final part of the original trilogy, creating ''Return of the Jedi'' may not have been as contentious as ''A New Hope'' or ''The Empire Strikes Back'', but the production crew certainly faced their own problems according to J.W. Rinzler's "Making of ''Return of the Jedi''" book:
** The producer of the previous two films, Gary Kurtz, split up with Lucasfilm due to a combo of the budget overruns on ''The Empire Strikes Back'' and his dislike of the direction Lucas was taking the series with the film, such as his belief that Lucas was playing it safe by rehashing the Death Star conflict, putting more emphasis on special effects than story, and trying to play up the merchandising angle of the movie more with characters like the Ewoks (ironically, the toys for the latter creatures did rather poorly in merchandise sales).
** During pre-production, Lucas and Lawrence Kasdan would constantly argue over story beats and setpieces, with both of them getting into heated discussions over whether to scrap Endor entirely in favor of setting the climactic battle on Had Abbadon, the supposed Imperial "home planet".
** Richard Marquand was brought on as director after several of Lucas' planned choices didn't pan out, and they ran into frequent conflicts during filming. Not only was Lucas constantly on-set when Marquand directed, but the former would often give the actors advice contrary to Marquand's direction.
** Likewise, Marquand alienated several of the actors, with both Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill accusing the director of treating them terribly while simultaneously fawning over Harrison Ford's performance.
** Principal photography was beset with numerous delays and clashes between Lucas and Marquand, with the former wanting to use multiple cameras during each take so he could have more material in the editing room, and the latter wanting only one or two cameras with no fallback option. The filmmakers inadvertantly used old film stock that caused many shots to have a bizarre blue tint, which forced ILM to fix the color timing on many shots in post-production. At a certain point, Lucas essentially took over the majority of directing duties from Marquand.
** Lucas also ran into budget problems as a result of ensuring his loan with 20th Century Fox after the release of ''The Empire Strikes Back'', to the point of interfering with filming. Marquand had to beg Lucas for a Rancor hand prop to be constructed so that close-ups of Hamill could be filmed.
** The infamous "Black Friday" incident, where 100,000 feet of film stock containing effects shots that couldn't be read in an optical printer were unceremoniously dumped by Lucas himself. The crew at ILM were forced to go back to the drawing board and start again from scratch, with many getting drunk when they heard the news.
** Ralph McQuarrie became burned out because of his constant work on the film and his hatred of the Ewok concept, and walked away from the production.
** Cinematographer Alan Hume, who was angered over Lucas' treatment of Marquand, informally stepped away from his duties, leaving camera operator Alec Mills to finish filming in the last month of production.
** The first screening of the film (using an early cut) was reportedly a disaster, with Lucas deriding the editing and the fact that it didn't feel like a ''Star Wars'' film. Eventually, one of the film editors, Sean Barton, did his own cut that Lucas preferred a lot more, and it was this cut that the final version was crafted from.
* [[What Could Have Been]]:
** The name is originally titled Revenge of the Jedi in both posters and even the teaser trailer before Lucas changed the title a few weeks before the premier (as Jedi do not seek Revenge).
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