Star Wars: Episode VI—Return Of The Jedi

In Star Wars: Episode VI—Return Of The Jedi, Han Solo (Ford) is rescued from certain death at the hands of slimy slug crime lord Jabba The Hutt, and Luke Skywalker (Hamill) completes his Jedi training by successfully confronting Darth Vader. (Gary Reber)

Special features include commentary with George Lucas, Carrie Fisher, Ben Burtt, and Dennis Muren and commentary from archival interviews with cast and crew, including Kenny Baker, Jim Bloom, Jeremy Bulloch, Ben Burtt, Anthony Daniels, Warwich Davis, Peter Diamond, Richard Edlund, Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford, Stuart Freeborn, Steve Gawley, Mark Hamill, Paul Huston, Lawrence Kasdan, Howard Kazanjian, George Lucas, Ian McDiarmid, Ralph McQuarrie, Dennis Muren, Frank Oz, Ken Ralston, Norman Reynolds, Phil Tippett, Robert Watts, Billy Dee Williams, and John Williams.

With A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back setting the bar for picture quality in this set, Return Of The Jedi also looks great. However, the 2.35:1 picture tends to have a little bit more softness to it. While some scenes exhibit excellent texture and clarity, others seem a bit "plugged up" and lacking in definition (many times in some darker scenes that exhibit limited shadow delineation). Still, color fidelity is quite good, with well-balanced fleshtones, natural hues, and deep blacks. Overall, this is significant in the picture-quality experience that is sure to please fans. (Gary Reber)

The DTS-HD Master Audio™ Surround ES™ soundtrack on this Blu-ray employs the same excellent audio characteristics as the soundtrack found on The Empire Strikes Back. The soundtrack for Return Of The Jedi is an aggressive one at times, with detailed sonics coming from all 6.1-channels. This is an aggressive, prominent film soundtrack that can be loud and possibly bright at times, even with Re-EQ engaged. Dialogue is tonally accurate, with great placement of voices within the listening space. This movie has its fair share of excellent action/battle sequences, which sounds just as detailed and exceptional as Empire. The ultimate and final battle is a proper conclusion to the superbly mixed Surround ES soundtracks. Everything combines—from the Rebels' last attack on the new Death Star, to Luke's and Darth Vader's mythic climactic lightsaber duel, to the Millennium Falcon's final approach to destroy the Death Star—for a tremendous sonic experience. The various climactic battle scenes are cut between each other with tremendous precision, and the listener is left breathless with the sheer amount of action scenes, which exude excellence, as many sonic qualities, like spatial integration and dimensionality, dialogue intelligibility among loud SPL sequences, localized and distributed sound effects, and horizontal and vertical panning are superlatively reproduced. John Williams' original score is another tremendous effort, especially in the sequences where Luke and Vader finally settle their conflict. The multi-layered orchestral score adds some amazing substance in musically defining this epic battle between good and evil. This soundtrack ranks behind Empire and ahead of A New Hope in overall soundtrack performance and overall effectiveness. (Jeffrey Kern/Gary Reber)