Return of the jedi is the culmination of the original Star Wars trilogy. The movie picks up shortly after the events of the Empire Strikes Back with Han Solo frozen in carbonite in the possession of the corpulent mobster Jabba the Hutt. Luke, Leia, Chewie, Lando, and the droids set off to retrieve their friend back and defeat the Empire who has secretly been developing a new Death Star on the forest moon of Endor.

Return of the Jedi is a solid entry in to the Star Wars series. While not reaching the heights of Empire, Jedi is at least as good as the original (A New Hope) and far superior to the prequels which were released nearly 20 years later. The movie is very action packed, with a space battle dwarfing the scale of the original Death Star assault, as well as a ground battle on the forest moon of Endor. There is also a final lightsaber clash between Darth Vader and his son Luke as the Emperor watches.

The strong points of the movie continue to be Harrison Ford's unabashed swagger as Han Solo and the epic scope of the final space battle. Character development is far less pronounced than in the prior installments, with nearly everyone except Luke already set in their mold. The movie also introduces or gives additional screen time to several new races, people, and vehicles, such as B-wings, A-wings, Admiral Ackbar, Mon Mothma, and the Emperor - before only seen via a hologram in Empire Strikes Back.

Where the movie stumbles is in its need to make the audience try to love ewoks - the furry little protagonists who help the Rebels take on the Empire on the forest moon of Endor. Cute for the sake of cute, primitive, and forced down our throats for the latter half of the movie, the ewoks feel like a portent of what we were to see later in the prequels and special editions - silly creatures occupying valuable screen time and undermining the gravitas of the real plot and performances.

Regardless of these flaws, the movie is still an absolute must-see for fans of Star Wars, science fiction, or great cinema.