'Star Wars: Return of the Jedi - The Radio Drama' Episode Review: 'Tatooine Haunts'

(C) 1996 HighBridge Audio and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL)

Tatooine Haunts

Cast 

• See-Threepio (C-3PO): Anthony Daniels
• Luke Skywalker: Joshua Fardon
• Darth Vader: Brock Peters
• Emperor Palpatine: Paul Hecht
• Bib Fortuna: David Dukes
• Jabba the Hutt: Edward (Ed) Asner
• Ninedenine (9D9) Yeardley Smith
• Arica (Mara Jade):Samantha Bennett
• Oola (actor not listed)
• Boussh (Leia): Ann Sachs
• Han Solo: Perry King
• Narrator: Ken Hiller 

Sound/FX Roles

• Artoo-Detoo (R2-D2)
• Gamorrean #1
• Gamorrean #2
• Max Rebo's Band
• Salacious Crumb: Ian Gomez
• Power Droid
• Rancor
• Chewbacca

Reviewer's Note:

All quoted material is from the 1996 book Star Wars: Return of the Jedi - The National Public Radio Dramatization.  This edition contains Brian Daley's complete radio play, which differs slightly from the version of the Radio Drama which aired on National Public Radio in 1996 and the original 1990s HighBridge Audio cassette and compact disc editions. The version in Daley's script was recorded, but as with the original 1981 Star Wars Radio Drama and its 1983 sequel, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back – The Radio Drama, edits were made at the request of NPR due to the needs of the radio format. The longer version of this episode is available in HighBridge Audio's more expensive Limited Edition CD collection of Star Wars: The Complete Radio Drama Trilogy.

Announcer: OPENING CREDITS

Music: Opening theme.

Narrator: A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away there came a time of revolution, when Rebels united to challenge a tyrannical Empire. Since its defeats at Hoth and elsewhere, the Rebel Alliance has rallied to press the Empire hard. Interstellar war hangs in the balance, and all combatants feel that final, decisive battle draws near. Preparing himself for this moment, Luke Skywalker has trained tenaciously and undergone many trials in his efforts to become a Jedi Knight and learn the ways of the Force.

Sound: The sand-winds of Tatooine in the background.

Narrator:  Now he has returned to the desert planet Tatooine, where he was raised. It is here that Luke means to stake his life on an attempt to rescue his friend Han Solo from the clutches of the vile, sluglike gangster Jabba the Hutt. But before he is ready to take that challenge, or the greater perils that lie beyond, he must finish one last task. So it is that the morning light of the planet's twin suns finds him in a hermit's dwelling, hard by the Western Dune Sea. 

SCENE 1-1 TATOOINE EXTERIOR

Sound: Luke tinkering with tools. Click of metal on metal, fitting plugs into sockets, small whir of a handheld drill, turning screw, etc.

Sound: Page turn. 

Luke: Let's see... (READING TO HIMSELF) "The crystal alignment must be precise if the energy beam is to maintain its density..." 

Artoo: WHISTLES A QUERY OVER THE END OF THE ABOVE.

Luke: (WORKING DISTRACTEDLY) Hmmm? No, Artoo, I don't need you. I was just reading put loud. Talking to myself, I guess. It's what old Ben used to do, too, sometimes. That's one of the reasons all the kids around Anchorhead thought he was a sunstruck hermit. Must be something about being back on Tatooine, back in his house. (WORKING ON) Brings out the crazy old wizard in me, too. 

Artoo: ANIMATED, ALMOST INDIGNANT BEEPS.

Luke: (LAUGHING) If you're saying I can talk to you, Artoo, thanks. But at the moment I need to work on this little project. The sooner I get it done, the better. If Threepio were here, I think he'd call this "mindless tedium."

Artoo: A DECLARATIVE STREAM OF WHOOPS AND BEEPS.

Luke: Yeah, well, don't worry, we'll meet up with Threepio and the others soon enough. I had to come back to Ben's house to do this. I needed his tools and books. And it completes the circle somehow. 

Concept art by Ralph McQuarrie. (C) 1983 Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL)

In the fall of 1996, 13 years after National Public Radio (NPR) aired the final episode of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back - The Radio Drama, long-time fans of Brian Daley's adaptations of the Star Wars Trilogy finally heard Tatooine Haunts.

Written by Daley and directed by John Madden, Tatooine Haunts is the first of the six episodes that comprise Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, a radio drama based on the 1983 film written by Lawrence Kasdan and George Lucas. Most of the original actors from the previous Radio Dramas - including Anthony Daniels, Ann Sachs, Perry King, and Brock Peters - returned, as well as post-production wizard Tom Voegeli, who was now also the series' principal producer. The only veteran actor not returning was Mark Hamill; he was replaced by voice actor/musician/playwright Joshua Fardon.

Tatooine Haunts opens the Radio Drama with Daley's take on a scene that was written, filmed, but eventually deleted from director Richard Marquand's 1983 Star Wars - Episode VI: Return of the Jedi.  In Scene 1-1, the Radio Drama depicts the moment when Luke (Fardon) completes a delicate and seemingly impossible task - the making of his new lightsaber. 

In the deleted scene Lucas and Kasdan envisioned, we see a quiet and confident Luke Skywalker finish assembling the replacement for Anakin Skywalker's blue-bladed laser sword - the one he lost in his fateful duel with Darth Vader on Cloud City in the last act of The Empire Strikes Back. There's no dialogue, just a short sequence in which Luke puts the saber together, test-ignites it, then gestures to a waiting Artoo-Detoo. 

Daley improves on this by giving listeners a look at just how difficult this task is for Luke. 

After reassuring Artoo that they'll meet up with See-Threepio (Daniels) and the others soon, Luke tries to insert the kyber crystal into the half assembled lightsaber, only to see the cylinder and everything else fall to the ground. 

At first, Luke is upset and impatient, and at one point he tells his faithful droid companion, "I don't know, Artoo, maybe this can't be done." 

Artoo: ONE SAD, REMONSTRATIVE WHOOP.

Sound: Tinkering resumes.

Luke: (READING ALOUD) "The concave surface of the focal lens must rest within a two-degree arc of..." (STOPS SUDDENLY) What am I doing? I've read the instructions a dozen times. And a dozen times I have failed. "Always with you it cannot be done." Master Yoda, can I forget so soon? I don't need this.

Sound: Tosses the book aside. He begins to feel the Force guiding him. More tinkering timed to next lines. The tinkering is smooth and steady. 

Luke: Artoo, hand me the superconductor. 

Artoo: BLEEPS IN COMPLIANCE.

Luke: ...and now the power cell...

Artoo: BLEEPS AGAIN.

Luke: ...and the crystals.

Sound: Tinkering accelerates with smooth confidence, there is a final 'click' of things snapping into place, and all sound stops abruptly.

Luke:  There! It's done.

Artoo: WHISTLES AND CLICKS A QUERY.

Luke: "Try not. Do or do not. There is no try."  Here goes.

Sound: Flick of a switch. Suddenly we hear the unmistakable sound of a lightsaber igniting! It dopplers as Luke whirls it around.

Sound: Lightsaber being extinguished.

Luke: All right. I'm ready.

Concept art by Ralph McQuarrie. This depicts a scene that occurs later in Return of the Jedi, but I thought I'd put it here even though I doubt that the Emperor would have a Lambda-class shuttle in his throne room on Coruscant. (C) 1983 Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL)

Daley cuts away from the desert wastes of Tatooine to the dark, sinister confines of Emperor Palpatine's (Paul Hecht) throne room in the Imperial Palace on Coruscant. Here, he imagines that the Emperor and Darth Vader (Brock Peters) have sensed a disturbance in the Force caused by Luke's completion of his new lightsaber. 

SCENE 1-2  INTERIOR EMPEROR'S THRONE ROOM

Sound: Hiss of an automatic door opening. It has a particularly violent quality. This hiss blends into the rasping of Darth Vader's mask as a single pair of heavy booted feet strike across a metal grill. The feet stop, and clothes rustle as Vader kneels. A pause here filled only by the breath mask. We, and Vader, are waiting.

Emperor: He grows strong.

Vader: Yes, my master. I have felt it.

Emperor: Perhaps he should have been destroyed on Bespin. It is unlike you to fail in such matters, Lord Vader.

Vader: He will not escape again. He can still be turned. I need only one more opportunity to -

Emperor: I have other work for you, my friend. Our efforts near the moon of Endor have fallen behind schedule. Use your particular talents to encourage the engineers to make haste. Impress upon them the importance of meeting my every expectation. You have my permission to make examples.

Vader: I shall leave at once, my master. As for Skywalker -

Emperor: He is not your concern. He could be a powerful tool, Lord Vader. My tool. But only if he serves my purpose.

Vader: As you wish, my master.

Emperor: Those who do not serve my ends, no matter how powerful they are, must be eliminated. Are we clear on this matter, Lord Vader?

Vader: We are clear.

Emperor: Excellent. Leave at once for Endor, and wait for me there.

Our efforts near the moon of Endor have fallen behind schedule. Photo credit: starwars.com. (C) 1983 Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) 

After this two-pronged prologue, Tatooine Haunts takes up the narrative at the proper starting point of Return of the Jedi, on Tatooine as See-Threepio and Artoo-Detoo arrive at Jabba's Palace somewhere in the Dune Sea. Because Brian Daley only had six episodes in which to tell his version of Episode VI, his script had to eschew a lot of "backstory" material and follow the Kasdan-Lucas screenplay without adding an episode or two of his own devising as he had done in the previous two Star Wars radio dramas. Maybe it was due to the tight budget HighBridge Audio had allotted to the production, or perhaps it was because Brian Daley was terminally ill, but with the exception of the two scenes that set it up, Tatooine Haunts jumps into the story told on film by the late Richard Marquand 13 years earlier.

As a result, most of the major characters - Luke, Vader, the Emperor, Princess Leia (disguised as Boussh), Chewbacca, the droids, Han, and Jabba the Hutt (Ed Asner) - appear prominently in this nearly 34-minute-long episode. 

Tatooine Haunts also includes the following scenes:

• The droids' first meeting with Jabba's Twi'lek majordomo, Bib Fortuna (David Dukes)
• Artoo's delivery of Luke's message to Jabba the Hutt, in which the young Jedi seeks an audience with the vile gangster to negotiate for Han Solo's (Perry King) life
• The arrival of "Boussh the bounty hunter" with a captive Chewbacca at Jabba's Palace
• Threepio's chance encounter with Arica (Samantha Bennett), one of Jabba's dancing girls who, in reality, is Mara Jade, one of Emperor Palpatine's covert agents
• The "reveal" of Boussh's real identity as Princess Leia Organa (Ann Sachs) and the "thawing" of Han from his carbonite slab

My Take

Star Wars: Return of the Jedi is the shortest - with a running time of just over three hours - of the three Radio Dramas that aired on NPR between 1981 and 1996. There are several reasons for this, including the fact that producer Tom Voegeli and the rest of the crew had a smaller budget to work  with to make the series. The Jedi radio adaptation was originally slated for production in late 1983 or early 1984, but Reagan era Congressional cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (which runs the Public Broadcasting System television network as well as National Public Radio) put those plans on hold...for 13 years! 

Chances are that if HighBridge Audio (which is now a division of Recorded Books), a Minnesota recording company which manufactured and sold tapes and compact discs of various NPR shows, including the first two Star Wars radio dramas, had not decided to fund the Jedi series, it would not have been made at all. 

Another reason, I think, for the brevity of Return of the Jedi in comparison to its two precursors was Brian Daley's poor health. In 1996, the 47-year-old novelist was sick; he had been fighting cancer for some time and the news from his doctors was not good; the disease was terminal. He turned in the six scripts, including the one for Tatooine Haunts, in the nick of time; Brian Daley passed away on the same day that the actors completed the recording sessions at LA Theater Works in California. 

Even knowing that a second writer, John Whitman, was brought in to make some adjustments to add a few details from such Legends works as Steve Perry's Shadows of the Empire and Timothy Zahn's Heir to the Empire, it is not hyperbole to say that Tatooine Haunts is a testament to good storytelling and fine writing. Daley cleverly found a way to take an already familiar tale told in another, more visual medium and still make it interesting and suspenseful.

Of course, Daley did not do this on his own. Director John Madden, who returned for a third Star Wars radio drama, got outstanding performances from Radio Drama veterans Ann Sachs, Brock Peters, Paul Hecht, Perry King, and, of course, Anthony Daniels, who reprised his iconic role of the always-nervous protocol droid See-Threepio from the Star Wars films. In addition, Madden was able to get Joshua Fardon to step into the role of Luke Skywalker as a replacement for Mark Hamill, who was unavailable for a third go-around as the Radio Dramas' Jedi hero. 

As in the previous NPR-produced Star Wars radio adaptations, Lucasfilm Ltd. collaborated in the creation of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi - The Radio Drama. The company not only granted the producers at HighBridge and Tom Voegeli Productions the license rights, but it provided Ben Burtt's library of sound effects and John Williams' 1983 score from Episode VI. This would mark the final appearance of Williams' original "Ewok Celebration and End Titles" track in a Lucasfilm-sanctioned work; in 1997, the Special Edition re-release of Return of the Jedi would feature a new track titled "Victory Celebration and End Titles" composed by Maestro Williams for the "definitive" version of the Classic Trilogy's final chapter. 

All in all, the Force is strong with this Radio Drama.