The final scenes of Return Of The Jedi are imprinted on the consciousness of millions of Star Wars fans. After bidding farewell to his dead father in an emotional cremation sequence, Luke Skywalker rushes off to an Ewok party, where everybody hugs and dances and some Ewoks play the bongos. The end.
But it could have all been so different. Speaking before last weekend's Star Wars Celebration V conference in Florida, producer Gary Kurtz has revealed that if it wasn't for the wild popularity of Star Wars merchandise, Return of the Jedi would have had a much bleaker ending. "The original idea was that they would recover Han Solo in the early part of the story and that he would then die in the middle part of the film in a raid on an Imperial base," Kurtz told the LA Times.
"George [Lucas] then decided he didn't want any of the principals killed. By that time there were really big toy sales and that was a reason."
What's more, the film would have shown Princess Leia struggling to cope with her new-found responsibilities, and would have ended with Luke Skywalker walking off into the distance as an embittered, Clint Eastwood-style loner.
Blanket of misery
In the end, though, George Lucas opted for the happy Ewok bongo version. Maybe he was right to avoid such a depressing conclusion — for all anyone knows, Star Wars might not have become the fiercely beloved series that it is today by ending on such an outright bummer. Then again, maybe he was wrong. After all, The Empire Strikes Back is widely regarded as the best Star Wars film, and the fact that it ended in the most downbeat fashion imaginable can't be a coincidence. Maybe wrapping up the whole trilogy in a blanket of death and misery would have further enhanced the franchise.
It's certainly braver to risk alienating your audience with a bleak ending, but it's a risk that pays off time and time again. Hilary Swank probably wouldn't have won that Oscar if her character in Million Dollar Baby fully recovered in the final scene. David Fincher would currently be out of work if, during the final scene of Seven, Brad Pitt opened the box to discover a fresh batch of delicious fairy cakes that Kevin Spacey had baked for him by way of an apology. Don't Look Now would have been a gigantic flop if Donald Sutherland, having run himself ragged across Venice looking for his daughter, had caught up with the dwarf, shouted "Kiss me, you fool", and taken her on a lovely all-expenses trip around the Mediterranean.
Then again, not every film should have a sad ending. Imagine if Field of Dreams ended with Kevin Costner sitting in an empty baseball field for a week, realising that nobody was actually going to turn up, and killing himself. Or if Tim Robbins got stuck in the sewage pipe during his escape from Shawshank and ended up suffocating in human effluent. Or if Sleepless in Seattle ended with Meg Ryan being graphically mauled to death by an escaped tiger.
The mythical glum finale of Return of the Jedi will have to remain a subject for countless pub conversations and nothing else.
