How do I even begin describing how much Return of the Jedi means to me? Let me put it this way: if someone told me that I could only watch one more movie before I died, it would be Return of the Jedi. This is the film of my life, the one that sparked my life-long love of Star Wars and enraptured me into the magic of the movies. I was so young when I first saw it that I don't remember what the experience was like, but it doesn't matter. I was born in 1984 (a year after it was first released), so I didn't see the film in theaters, but that doesn't matter either. What's important is the effect it had on me as I watched it, the incalculable impression it made on my developing mind. For instance, I was never consciously scared watching the scenes in Jabba the Hutt's Palace, even the part with the giant rancor monster. However, it had a definite effect on my subconscious. To this day, I still occasionally have dreams about being in that awful place, surrounded by dangerous aliens, hoping that I won't become the rancor's next lunch.

Why do I hold this particular episode of the original trilogy with the utmost nostalgic importance and not the other two? Quite simply, it was the only Star Wars movie my family had on videocassette when I was very young. They recorded it off some movie channel on TV (we recorded the other two films some years later) and I would watch that cassette just about everyday. I remember my good, patient mother having to fast-forward through the cassette to just the right spot. I remember sometimes asking my mom to fast-forward through those conversation scenes on Dagobah, which were too long and boring for me as a child. (Don't worry; I like them now.) There were other movies that I watched frequently at that age, yet it's Return of the Jedi, not those other films, that has stuck with me all these years. I'm an adult now and I still love it just as much as when I was a child. What has made the appeal of Return of the Jedi (and Star Wars in general) last so long for me?

In a way, Return of the Jedi is the ultimate Star Wars movie because it is such a proper conclusion to the entire saga, a powerful culmination of all that preceded it. Fittingly, there's a storytelling scene in which C-3PO (Anthony Daniels) recounts the events of the original trilogy to the Ewoks (which is funny because he said he wasn't very good at telling stories in A New Hope). This scene indirectly parallels the other storytelling scene of the saga, when Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) tells the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise in Revenge of the Sith. Both have the same purpose: to recruit an important ally (the Ewoks and Anakin Skywalker, respectively). But, C-3PO has good intentions and is telling the truth, whereas Palpatine has evil intentions and the truthfulness of his tale is questionable.

If the main themes of the previous episode, The Empire Strikes Back, were fear and loss, then this movie is about undoing all of that damage. Its main themes are freedom and redemption. The characters succeed in breaking their chains (literally and figuratively) and winning against the odds. The Empire is slowly decaying, visualized by the skull-like appearance of the second Death Star. The two main tyrants of the series are both killed by their slaves. Jabba the Hutt, the ruler of Anakin's home planet of Tatooine, is strangled to death by Anakin's daughter, Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher), using the chain Jabba has bound her with. Anakin himself kills his malicious master, Emperor Palpatine, by picking him up and throwing him down an infinite chasm. Anakin wouldn't have been able to endure Palpatine's Force lightning if it weren't for his suit, the "prison" he's been in for over 20 years (although his life-support system does eventually fail because of the lightning).

CONTINUED IN PART 2...