Return of the Jedi treatment
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…
The REBEL ALLIANCE swells as more and more planets join the epic war against the GALACTIC EMPIRE, thanks to the diplomatic efforts of PRINCESS LEIA ORGANA
The princess courts the ruthless trader baron BETO THULE to the rebel cause, the last piece in the puzzle to the rebellion’s final assault on the empire
Meanwhile, LUKE SKYWALKER completes his training with MASTER JEDI YODA on DAGOBAH…
We open in the swamps of Dagobah. Luke is kneeling, the necessary components to a lightsaber floating in the air in front of him, a green crystal in the center. Using the force, Luke merges the components, then guides the saber to his hand. He tells Yoda he shouldn’t have disassembled his own, but Yoda says he hasn’t needed it for a very long time, and won’t.
Luke takes the Jedi oath as Yoda watches on:
“I swear on my honor, and on the faith of the brotherhood of knights, to use the Force only for good; denying, always turning from the Dark Side; to dedicate my life to the cause of freedom, and justice. If I should fail of this vow, my life shall be forfeit, here and hereafter.”
That night, Luke has a dream where he is standing in the Emperors throne room, the Emperor sitting motionless as Luke makes his way up the steps. Finally, the Emperor removes his cloak to reveal the face of Luke himself. Luke awakes screaming, but is stilled by the voice of Obi-Wan telling to be quiet, lest he awake Yoda. Luke asks Obi-Wan where he’s been all this time, but Obi-Wan tells him to ask the question he really wants to know.
“How could you lie to me about my father?”
“Your father was my greatest pupil, and my greatest shame. When I brought you to your uncle, he made me promise we would never tell you who your father had become. When he became Vader, he stopped being your father. I was protecting you, Luke. You can never become like him. You can never join the Dark Side.
“Now, there’s something else I’ve been hiding from you. You have a sister, Luke. I lost track of her a long time ago, but she’s out there somewhere. Search with the Force, and you’ll find her.”
The next morning, Luke is preparing breakfast for Master Yoda and himself. The pair argue back and forth as Yoda refuses to eat Luke’s cooking, evidently Yoda hasn’t eaten much at all lately. Luke reminds Yoda that he has to take his X-wing into orbit to see if Leia has sent him any messages, Yoda grumbles his consent.
Up in orbit, Luke pulls out a device while reassuring R2 that their friends haven’t forgotten about them. To both of their surprise, they’ve received a message from Lando Calrissian, who informs them that he has found Han Solo on the smugger’s moon, Nar’Shada. Jabba the Hutt has put him on display there, as a warning to all who might cross him. R2 is delighted, but Luke isn’t so sure about leaving Yoda.
Suddenly, out in the distance, Darth Vader’s Executor arrives out of a hyperspace jump. Perplexed at the Empire’s arrival, Luke hurries back down to the surface, telling R2 they can’t just leave Yoda despite the droids protests. Once there, he rushes into Yoda’s hut, who then promptly refuses to leave. Luke pleads, but Yoda tells him that he is a Jedi Knight now, and the battle to come is his alone.
As Luke walks through the hut door, he looks back and sees Yoda’s robes collapsing into itself, Yoda having become one with the force. Luke rushes to his X-wing fighter and lifts off just in time to enter a ferocious dogfight against several Imperial TIE fighters. As he and R2 speeds away, we momentarily move into the Executor. Darth Vader paces on the bridge of the ship. A lieutenant asks him if they should pursue, but Vader says no. They found him once, they shall find him again.
We then transition onto Rad Samaa II, the space station that houses the Galactic Trade Union, where Leia is deep in negotiations with its leader, Beto Thule. He’s threatening to walk out of the negotiations, saying they keep going around in circles. The team with Leia, rebel leader Mon Mothma and Chief Admiral Ackbar (among others), protest that they’ve already increased their offer by 100,000 credits, but Thule says it isn’t just about the credits. He is already more wealthy than most men could even imagine, and if he just in it for the credits, he could always turn in the princess and her merry band to the Empire. After all, there are massive bounties on all the rebels heads. Leia, angry, lays into Thule, saying he has no good in him, and they are not asking him to join the rebellion and risk his own head, they just need the use of his trade ships and routes. C3PO enters, pardoning for his interruption, and informs Leia that Luke is arriving.
She rushes to the space dock and the two embrace warmly. C3PO is delighted to see R2. Luke asks her if she’s heard from Lando, but she says no, she couldn’t take the transponder with her for fear the Empire could intercept the transmission and locate her, worse still realize what mission she was on. Luke says the transmissions are encrypted, but Leia counters that the Empire can get past such obstacles easily, the only hope was that they didn’t look in the right place. He finally admits it was his fault the Empire found him, that he should have flown to another system, and blames himself for Yoda’s death.
Leia says there’s it is no time for guilt, that they must focus on rescuing Han. They plan to leave first thing in the morning. That night, Luke tosses and turns in bed, his dreams haunted with visions of great destruction, worlds on fire and the death screams of countless people.
The four of them travel to Nar’Shada, into the underbelly of a worldwide metropolis, and meet up with Lando and Chewbacca. Imagine the Mos Eisley cantina on steroids and acid, then you have the smugglers moon. It is filled with nasty monsters and hedonistic characters. Han is being held on display inside the courtyard of Jabba’s headquarters on the moon, as message to all who come for business and otherwise. Do not cross Jabba the Hutt. Lando explains all the major crime lords have some kind of operation on Nar’Shada. He also explains the problem isn’t necessarily getting to Han, but escaping with him. Jabba’s thugs guard the entrance, the courtyard, and who knows how many were inside. A hologram of the building is shown on a table. The group agrees they will need assistance, so Leia contacts the rebellion and requests a squadron of rebel commandos.
A costumed/disguised Leia guides a chained up Chewbacca, as C3PO follows behind, into Jabba’s headquarters. She tells the Gamoran guards to take her to Bib Fortuna, she’s here to sell Chewie to Jabba. They enter a den of debauchery, filled to the brim with nameless monsters, On stage a band of peculiar creatures jams in a foreign language and culture. In the center, surrounded by lieutenants, is Bib Fortuna. As they make their way through, Leia makes eye contact with two Rebel commandos in disguise. He welcomes them, assures that Jabba will be interested. A hologram of Jabba the Hutt appears, using a special communication device. He is a specially hideous creature.
C3PO begins translating Jabba’s Hutteese, and the negotiations go poorly after Leia asks for a ridiculous sum of 100,000 credits. Eventually Jabba asks why doesn’t he just kill her, and take Chewbacca for free? Leia fires into the communication device, destroying it, as Chewie throws off his chains and rips Bib’s arm off. Leia wraps the chain around Bib’s throat, and the two commandos in disguise reveal themselves, blasting two of the Gamoran guards and aiming their blasters at two more, taking their arms. Bib shouts for no one to make a move.
We shift perspectives to infamous bounty hunter Boba Fett, set up atop a warehouse across the thoroughfare, as he watches the remaining Gamoran guarding the entrance get blasted, and then watches Luke, Lando, R2, and Captain Harand and a pair of Rebel commandos rush inside.
Once inside the courtyard, one of the commandos is shot. Luke force flips and takes out a Gamoran with a swipe of his lightsaber, using the force to throw it at the other guard like a boomerang. Lando peaks in, and sees Leia holding Bib hostage. Luke hurries up R2. Finally, Han emerges from the carbonite. Suddenly, Boba Fett comes flying to the attack. Han tells them he can’t see, so he’s entirely defenseless. Fett takes out the remaining commando outside and gravely injures Captain Harand. Lando shouts inside to hurry up.
Luke leads the bounty hunter away, exchanging blaster fire and jumping miraculous heights out of the courtyard and onto higher platforms. Luke deflects Fett’s blaster fire with his lightsaber, and pulls Fett to him with the force and takes a strike, but the bounty hunters armor proves resistant. Fett strikes Luke, knocking him to the ground. As he walks forward, Luke uses the force to push him off the platform. Breathing heavily, to Luke’s exasperation, Fett comes flying back up. He deploys the missile atop his jet pack, only to have Luke use the force to turn it back onto the bounty hunter, who evaporates in the explosion.
Luke gets back as Leia rushes out of Jabba’s headquarters, Chewie close behind and returning fire with his iconic bowcaster. A wipe transition to Han and Harand suspended in a bacta tank. Han climbs out as Lando and Chewie watch on, with Harand still resting in his tank, Han almost immediately begins questioning why Lando betrayed him. Lando has a lot of excuses, Vader terrified him, he was selfish, but ultimately he helped Chewie and the rest find you, which wasn’t as easy as initially thought. Han tells Chewie to grab Lando, but Chewie denies. Lando says, I saved your life. Han says, yeah I guess you did do that.
The team return to Rad Samaa II, finally together again on the Millennium Falcon. C3PO and R2 catch up. As they approach the space station, we transition back to Nar’Shada for a moment.
Darth Vader is interrogating Bib Fortuna, who is missing an arm. Jabba’s majordomo tells him it isn’t his fault, he was ambushed by the Wookiee and they had help. Vader doesn’t particularly like that answer, and demonstrates his anger by force choking Bib to death.
Then back on Rad Samaa II, a Luke and Han join the negotiating table. He mocks the trader baron Thule, despite Luke’s protests, and to everyone’s surprise, Thule actually delights it. It is revealed that the pair know each other from a past life. Thule says he is surprised to find him with this group, and asks why he thinks he should contribute his vast resources to the rebel cause. The one time scoundrel tells him simply, because it is the right thing to do. The trader baron has no hope to thrive under the empire, not really. One can only survive. Even with all the credits to his name, there’s nothing stopping the Empire from yanking it all away in a heartbeat. Leia is shocked, especially so when Thule agrees.
They quickly begin making war plans. Mon Mothma addresses the group, along with a crowd of rebel officers and pilots. She tells them that they have a unique opportunity to strike a deciding blow against the heart of the Empire. If they could take down the Emperor, and capture the capitol all in one swoop, it would probably win them the war.
Chief Admiral Ackbar goes over the plan, dividing Lando, Han, and Chewie into a group, with the plan for them to lead a strike team onto the moon to destroy the shield generator protecting the planet. Luke, Captain Harand and his commandos, would strike the capitol and target the Emperor and Darth Vader, their intelligence saying they’re together.
A wipe transition to Had Abbadon, where the Emperor sits atop his throne surrounded by rivers of lava, and tears into Darth Vader for his failure in capturing Luke Skywalker, calling him the greatest disappointment of his reign.
The fateful battle comes.
They enter the Imperial Core with Thule’s trader fleet, who himself has a small navy at hand. We see inside an Imperial Star Destroyer, where an Empire officer is reporting that several ships are different than on the manifest sent by the Galactic Trade Union. We see they are Rebel dreadnoughts and X-wings and Y-wing bombers. A great space battle commences, with Han in the Millennium Falcon and Luke in his X-wing as he guides him to the planet. Darth Vader’s Executor is a casualty on the Empire’s side.
Han leads his team down to the moon, the only land to speak of being an archipelago. The fighting is fierce outside the shield generator, and Lando is injured. Han wraps himself in bombs.
<Wookiee noises>
“You take Lando and get back to the Falcon.”
<Wookiee noises>
“You just shut up and let me do this, dammit!”
<Wookiee noises>
“Take good care of her, Chewie.”
Han rushes into the shield generator facilities, and a moment later the building explodes. Leia is in Thule’s flagship with Admiral Ackbar, repeatedly calling Han over the radio. Lando replies to he’s gone. Lei crumbles to the floor in despair.
Luke and the Rebel commandos attack the Imperial Pyramid. We see them advance and engage Imperial Stormtroopers, with a birds eye view. Luke’s X-wing is shoot down and he guides it down into the palace near the center of the pyramid.The size of the palace is huge, with giant columns and lots of space. Luke enters into a dramatic and dazzlingly choreographed fight against two red Royal Guards, ultimately defeating them. Darth Vader comes up from an elevator.
“Luke, we’ve been expecting you. The Emperor would like to see you.”
Luke travels down, telling Vader that when they met before he was an apprentice, but now he is a Jedi Knight, like his father before him. Once in the throne room, the Emperor tells Luke to join him, to become his apprentice in the Dark Side. Luke refuses, saying he’ll never give into the Dark Side. The Emperor tells Vader to destroy him. They enter into a duel, sparring back and forth. All the while the Emperor is shouting insults, belittling Vader and Skywalker both. Use your anger, he tells them. The Emperor laughs as they struggle. Finally, Luke beats Vader down. The Emperor shouting, finish him, finish him, join me. But Luke turns off his lightsaber, saying he will not strike down his father. That he can feel the Light still within him. Buried deep but there.
The Emperor unleashes lightning from his finder tips onto him, wave after wave. The age old adage: if you don’t join me, you are my enemy. Walking down from his throne, his shoots wave upon wave. Luke pleads to his father to help him. The Emperor says his pet won’t bite its master. Seeing Luke crumble, Vader stands and puts his lightsaber between Luke and the lightning, causing some of it redirect back onto the Emperor, and the rest moving right up the lightsaber and into Vader. The Emperor is stuck and beings to wither away from the lightning before he collapses from exhaustion.
Vader lumbers over to him, his steps slow but steady. The Emperor demands Vader destroy Luke Skywalker. Destroy him like he once destroyed Anniken. Instead, Vader lifts the Emperor atop his head, screaming never, and throws him into the river of lava. Vader then collapses to the floor. Luke rushes to his side.
“Remove my helmet.”
“But you’ll die, won’t you? We’ve got to get you help.”
“I’m dying already, son.”
So Luke does, and holds Vader in his arms.
“Do you know where my sister is?”
“Your sister, your sister…”
Vader expires.
Luke makes his way to the top of the Emperor Pyramid, and watches below as regiments of Rebel soldiers march in the city, capturing the city from the Empire. In the sky above, destroyed Star Destroyers hanging limply. On Rebel worlds we see scenes of celebrations, and there’s a grand parade through the capitol square.
Sometime later, a shirtless Luke is looking out on the capital square from a balcony, where Rebel Alliance banners have replaced Imperial ones. What are you going to do next, he asks Leia. She’s wrapped up in a blanket. She tells him she will stay here a for a while and help the rebellion, but survivors from Alderaan have gathered on Dantooine, and she needs to be with them. She asks him the same question. He says that somewhere out in the galaxy he has a sister, and he’s going to find her. Maybe she’ll be like him.
Cut to a very pregnant Leia being crowned queen.
Cut to Luke with R2 in tow, hiking up to the Jedi Temple, his mission only just begun…
Roll credits.
