Star Wars: Return Of The Jedi Pitch Meeting

In the latest entry of our ongoing series, Screen Rant’s Ryan George reveals what (probably) happened in the pitch meeting for trilogy closer Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi. Released in 1983 and directed by Richard Marquand, Return of the Jedi united Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Leia Organa on the big screen one last time as they fought to destroy the second Death Star and defeat Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine once and for all. With the help of some bloodthirsty teddy bears.

Before they can do any of that, however, Luke first has to rescue Han and Leia from the clutches of Jabba the Hutt, who has frozen Han in carbonite and put Leia in a gold bikini (it’s hard to say who’s worse off). By the end of the battle, Jabba has been strangled to death by Leia, Boba Fett has fallen into the Sarlacc pit, and all seems well. However, when Luke returns to Dagobah he discovers that his mentor Yoda is dying – which is something of a roadblock in Luke’s training schedule.

Having learned in The Empire Strikes Back that Darth Vader is actually his father, Anakin Skywalker, Luke changes tactics from trying to overpower Vader to convincing him to return to the light side of the Force. This approach doesn’t prove to be very effective until Emperor Palpatine starts killing Luke with Force lightning and, unable to watch his son die, Vader hurls the Emperor to his death before dying himself. Meanwhile, Rebels down on the forest moon of Endor manage to disable the Death Star’s shield generator, Lando Calrissian leads a strike team to destroy the enormous killing machine, and everything ends happily ever after. Or at least, so it seems.

Disney’s Star Wars sequel trilogy has been filling in the gaps of what happened in the following few decades, and quite a lot went wrong for our trio of heroes after they had their happy celebration with the Ewoks on Endor. While Han and Leia did end up together, their son turned out to be a rage-filled mass murderer and Luke was partly responsible for turning him into that rage-filled mass murderer. The three friends ended up estranged from one another, with Luke living a hermit life on Ahch-To and Han and Leia breaking up after Ben Solo turned to the dark side and became Kylo Ren.

The Skywalker saga is set to come to an end after more than forty years in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, which arrives in theaters this December. That movie will see a return to Endor as Rey and her friends seek answers from the remains of the second Death Star – but they may find more than they bargained for inside.