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Still, if the earlier title sounded frustratingly predictable and thematically contradictory, the new one seemed cryptic. The return of what Jedi? The story had none about to return: Obi-Wan Kenobi was dead, Jedi master Yoda was decrepit and never the physical match for Darth Vader, and brash Luke Skywalker was not yet a Jedi. So where was there a Jedi to return? One possibility was that a new Jedi knight would show up to supplant the aspiring Luke, who seemed so uncertain and rash in The Empire Strikes Back.

There was the ancient Yoda's prophecy in Empire about yet another Jedi, another Skywalker, unknown to all, who possessed the potential to enter the Jedi knighthood and save the day if the immature, ill-prepared Luke should go the way of his traitorous father. The title meant, surely, that some new, old, or lost warrior, heretofore completely unknown, would emerge to take up the Jedi mantle and finally vanquish the dark Lord Vader and the vile Emperor. But others in the first two parts of the story seemed highly improbable, even preposterous for this challenge. Han Solo was still very much, as his name suggests, the posturing macho vagabond, and Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams), another handsome scoundrel, just did not seem up to it. The Wookiee Chewbacca and the droids were never serious candidates (Jedi presumably need to be human, although rather special humans, as Episode I: The Phantom Menace later made clear).

In hindsight, indeed, the matter of the title suggests that Lucas went far out of his way to encourage mistaken expectations, if only to teach viewers a lesson about hope and redemption. The truth is that nobody really got it, certainly no elite critics or reviewers, even though the revelation and the full power of surprise lay out in plain view right in the title itself, The Return of the Jedi, where Lucas told audiences all they needed to know about the likelihood of the marvelously improbable.

The most obvious candidate for a returning Jedi is the apprentice Jedi Luke Skywalker, who at the start of Return is looking and acting very much like a full-fledged Jedi, venturing into the habitat of Jabba the Hutt, the sadist monster grub and captor of Luke's sidekick, Han Solo. Luke performs impressively in this scrape, and audiences hope that he might have the right stuff after all. But then the dying Yoda tells him he has yet to pass one final test: he must face Darth Vader again before achieving full Jedi knighthood. With no one else seeming very suitable, the audience is stuck with Luke, even though he perhaps doesn't have the mettle. About halfway through The Return of the Jedi, Lucas complicates the story once again by making known the identity of the other potential Jedi foretold by Yoda: Princess Leia, the mysterious one whose identity comes as much as a surprise to her as to anyone. She is the "other Skywalker" and stands ready but unschooled in the Jedi knight-craft and wisdom necessary to joust with Vader. It says something unfavorable about audience attitudes concerning women that no one imagined that Leia would be a candidate for Jedi-hood or that a woman would be a galaxy savior, despite many early hints, especially at the end of The Empire Strikes Back, when she senses Luke's distress and initiates his rescue. Indeed, Leia has from the beginning seemed a far more suitable candidate than her impetuous brother.

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Star Wars Spirituality: Part 1	Printer view
In his book,Catching Light: Looking for God in the Movies, author Roy M. Anker writes about finding meaning and morality in the intergalactic saga. Part 1 of 4.

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Star Wars Spirituality: Part 2	Printer view
In his book, Catching Light: Looking for God in the Movies, author Roy M. Anker writes about finding meaning and morality in the intergalactic saga.Part 2 of 4.

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Star Wars Spirituality: Part 4	Printer view
In his book, Catching Light: Looking for God in the Movies, author Roy M. Anker writes about finding meaning and morality in the intergalactic saga. Part 4 of 4.