Return of the Jedi

Bomb Rating: 

The filmmakers of this third installment of the Star Wars series ask themselves the most important question of all: "How do we cash in on this Muppet thing?"

With the battle between good and evil hanging in the balance (no,not Luke Skywalker vs. Darth Vader; rather, "Believable Story" vs. "Merchandising Tie-ins"), the filmmakers of this third installment of the Star Wars series ask themselves the most important question of all: "How do we cash in on this Muppet thing?" Well, the answer appears to be simple: fat worms (Jabba the Hut), pigs (Jabba's guards), rats (Jabba's sidekick) and little walking teddy bears (Ewoks).

Looking like a smaller version of Marlon Brando, the galactic gangster Jabba the Hut is a passable puppet extravagance. However, once Han, Leia, Chewbacca and the robots land on a forest moon in an attempt to disable the shield generator for the new Death Star, the Ewoks send this film far, far away into some Mattel action figure marketer's fantasy land.

By this third "Star Wars" film, the "force" thing starts to make about as much sense as cold fusion. If the dark side of the force is so strong, how come the Emperor needs guards? Why does Luke allow himself to be nearly roasted to death by the Ewoks before levitating C3PO instead of just making a little bear head explode, like in "Scanners"? You don't have to be a Jedi Knight to know that if you make one Ewok head explode, the rest of the Ewoks don't screw with you.

Believe it or not, a Harvard linguist swears this is the funniest film of all time once you understand the Ewok language. All you need to do is substitute these English phrases for the following Ewok expressions:

"Yub Yub" -- "Please pull the burs out of my tushy fur."

"Goo Da" -- "Have some droppings."

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