 | THE DRAMA But has this radio Jedi |
Return of the Jedi - The Original Radio Drama
as heard on National Public Radio
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, National Public Radio did a radio adaptation of Star Wars. And it was good. Utilizing portions of George Lucas' original script that never got filmed, as well as additional original scenes from the late, great Brian Daley (also author of the "Han Solo/Corporate Sector" Trilogy), NPR SW was ten hours long and never got boring. The excited listener got to hear four thrilling half-hour episodes that set up the Star Wars backstory before Episode Five brought the story full circle and started in on what we know as the opening shot in Star Wars: the film -- and yet, it was all solid, exciting stuff that added immensely to the original movie and yet never flagged.
Spurred by the success of NPR SW, NPR did -- what else? The Empire Strikes Back. This adaptation was only six hours long and wasn't quite as good as the original NPR SW; this time, there weren't any unfilmed scenes or unknown background material to be tossed in. Daley returned as scriptwriter, but some scenes seemed artificially padded and others seemed just plain out of character: Han and Luke start bickering with each other in the survival tent on Hoth before the rescuing snowspeeder shows up, for example. But for all of that, NPR TESB was still straight, excellent drama, and another high mark in NPR Radio.
And now we come to the NPR Return of the Jedi adaptation. This version was truly long-awaited; in fact, news of its actual production came as a suprise to many a Star Wars fan. This wait led to an unfortunate raising of expectations, some of which were even foreseeable.
Any ROTJ adaptation would have several things working against it even before it began, not the least of which was the source material Return Of The Jedi is, in many circles, acknowledged as the weakest movie in the Star Wars trilogy. And, of course, there are the Ewoks; not much of a presence visually on screen, and even more difficult to bring to a non-visual production.
On top of these problems going in, ROTJ NPR had use of only one original actor from the films; Mark Hamill, who had lent his considerable voice talents to the first two, opted out of the third due to schedule conflicts. This left only Anthony Daniels from the original film cast (who, surprisingly, had time on his hands) to reprise his role as See-Threepio.
What we end up with is more or less a straight four-hour adaptation of the movie done by other actors: and it feels light. Aside from brief character scenes, there's nothing here you haven't seen (or heard) before, so there are no surprises or revelations in what is presented as the plot. Worse, some of the action scenes are dreadfully truncated; the entire forest chase scene, for example, eats up less than five minutes of air time. So what do we have left? The characters?
The characters are interesting, if only because you get to see another actor's interpretation of how they might have played Star Wars, but this turns the NPR ROTJ into a kind of Shakespeare in the Park -- you know you've seen it done before, and you find yourself spending much too much time on the actor/character comparisons between the movie and radio drama. Do any of the actors manage to add anything new with the lines they've been given? Some do, some don't.
Joshua Farden's interpretation of Luke is altogether too whiny for Return Of The Jedi. Don't get me wrong -- he's a dead ringer for Mark Hamill, and he would have been absolutely perfect for the infamous "But I was gonna go to Tosche station!" whine on Tatooine at the beginning of the ANH Radio Drama. But this is Return of The Jedi, and Luke is supposed to have changed too much to have the same inflections and emotions as he did back then. Farden plays Luke like Ritchie having a bad day on "Happy Days".
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An example: One of the nice things about ROTJ (the movie) was the quiet confidence that Luke showed in Jabba's palace while Jabba threatened him; not arrogant, yet not afraid, either. It was a small indication that something major had changed Luke between the end of TESB and ROTJ; the first sign that Luke had taken the first steps on his road to become a true Jedi. But Farden's Luke whines throughout the entire thing, and it does not sound like he knows what he's doing at all- which is crucial to the plot. While the interpretive performance improves slightly near the end of the tapes, he's always just a shade too whiny.
Meanwhile, Brock Peters' Darth Vader is always just a shade too strident, too brash; much more so than James Earl Jones' vocal portrayal in the film. For example: In the original film, Vader tells Jejerrod that he hopes Jejerrod can increase production on the Death Star II - for his sake- and he says it with such an absolute LACK of feeling that it's chilling. Vader literally does not care whether Jejerrod lives or dies; it's completely unimportant to him.
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Peters uses a sledgehammer when a small chisel is needed. His readings are pure ham, with emotions in ALL the wrong places, and it completely throws the dramatic balance out of whack; how can Vader reconcile all of these conflicting emotions with each other the way Brock plays them? He makes Vader sound intensely regretful when Luke tries to turn him immediately after his capture, then desperately eager for Luke's blood when stalking him throughout the Death Star, and then sorrowful again when the Emperor is deposed. Huh? This is a role that needs a subtlety that Peters, unfortunately, cannot give - and since Vader is the central character in ROTJ, this is a crucial failure.
And another suck-o-rama character is Lando. I was embarrassed when I read the credit on the back of the box that said that Billy Dee Williams had reprised his film role as Lando Calrissian. But then I listened to the tapes again and was convinced that Billy Dee could not have essayed that bad of a performance as Lando, even with his attention split by his Psychic Network. So I paid careful attention to the end credits on the tape and the radio role was in fact performed by a second-stringer named Ari Gross who butchers Lando's lines with an awfulness unsurpassed anywhere else in any of the radio dramas. A note: I did get a preview copy of NPR ROTJ so the mis-credit may have just been an error on my box, but be warned that the star power is much less than advertised.
However, I'm pleased to say that Anthony Daniels changes the inflections on some of his lines, softening them, and that works. It makes Jabba's palace seem that much more frightening when the obliviously hyperactive Threepio feels obliged to calm down, and the hush in his voice when everyone's leading the attack on the Death Star is chilling.
And not surprisingly John Lithgow, the only name actor in the entire troupe (outside of a completely unrecognizable, electronically altered Ed Asner as the hefty-sized ROTJ version of Jabba), radically changes Yoda's character, giving a better reading than that from Frank Oz in the original film; Lithgow has Yoda laughing and cackling madly as he contemplates his own death, which at first makes him sound like an utter lunatic; then you realize that it's simply because Lithgow's Yoda doesn't consider death to be a big problem. It's just another item in the scheme of things, which in my mind is a lot better than Yoda's original saddened reading. Lithgow's Yoda is both wise and tremendously confusing all at the same time.
Perry King as Han Solo is very good at the dramatic roles, but his sense of timing is all wrong for humor. He speaks the lines too fast, almost afraid of pauses; humor requires a moment or two to let the joke sink in. Even casual viewers of the movie can't help but to notice how King fails to get a laugh when Harrison Ford does. And humor is a big part of Star Wars. Having half of his lines fall flat is problematic, but the script is strong enough that it saves Perry when he falls.
But the real treasure of the show is Ann Sachs as Princess Leia Organa, quite possibly the most undercredited member of the cast. She reads her lines perfectly, with dignity and humor when necessary, not necessarily expanding on Carrie Fisher's role, but recreating it with uncanny skill.
Plotwise, if you liked ROTJ the movie, you'll probably enjoy this. If not, you'll hate it. It's still got plenty of Ewoks, and they're as annoyingly cute as they were in the movie. It's still got the scenes in Jabba's palace. It's still got the Death Star II attack. What would have gotten my blood churning (this is a good thing) is if they'd gone with the original script and had Wookiees replace the Ewoks (I can hear the enraged growls of tribal Wookiees as they tear down AT-STs and rip their way inside) and had Lando and the Millennium Falcon go down in flames along with the explosion of Death Star II. These changes would have added something new and given this radio show a vitality which it desperately lacks.
The simultaneous strength and weakness of this radio
adaptation is that it is a perfectly serviceable recreation of the movie; but nothing more. The
merits of the NPR ROTJ drama are pretty much mitigated by the flaws, producing
Star Wars mediocrity. This set won't blow you away like NPR TESB or NPR
SW did, but if you've got the money and the time, it's not completely painful. 
(Not one to mince words, our main man Ferrett can be will offer YOU a piece of his mind, too, at via 76252.3460@compuserve.com)
