'Star Wars: Return of the Jedi - The Radio Drama' Episode Review: 'Blood of a Jedi'

(C) 1997 HighBridge Audio and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL)

Blood of a Jedi

Cast

• Han Solo (Perry King)
• Princess Leia Organa (Ann Sachs)
• Major Derlin  (Tom Virtue)
• See-Threepio (Anthony Daniels)
• Lando Calrissian (Arye Gross)
• Wedge Antilles (Jon Matthews)
• Gray Leader
• Green Leader
• Admiral Ackbar (Mark Adair Rios)
• Red Two
• Red Three
• Luke Skywalker (Joshua Fardon)
• Emperor Palpatine (Paul Hecht)
• Lord Darth Vader (Brock Peters)
• Bunker Commander
• Trooper #1
• Control Room Voice
• Anakin Skywalker/Unmasked Vader (David Birney)
• Narrator (Ken Hiller) 

Sound FX Roles

• Chewbacca
• Artoo-Detoo
• Wicket
• Glider Ewok
• Nien Numb

Reviewer's Note:

All quoted material is from the 1996 Del Rey 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. Now the endgame in this cosmic struggle has come. A combined Rebel fleet is on its way to the forest moon of the planet Endor, to destroy the Empire's new Death Star. But the Rebels are flying into a trap. Aboard the battle station, Luke Skywalker has fallen captive to Darth Vader. Luke's desperate appeals to turn him from the dark side of the Force have failed to move the man who was once Anakin Skywalker, his father. Below, on the lush green Sanctuary Moon, a Rebel commando unit has penetrated the underground complex from which the Death Star's defensive shield is generated. But the Rebels do not realize that their presence there is also a part of the grand strategy hatched by their deadliest enemy, Emperor Palpatine. 

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

Blood of a Jedi is the sixth and final episode of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, a 1996 radio serial adapted from Star Wars - Episode VI: Return of the Jedi. Produced by HighBridge Audio, it aired on National Public Radio a few months before Lucasfilm and 20th Century Fox released the Special Edition of the Star Wars Trilogy...and 15 years after NPR broadcast A Wind to Shake the Stars, the first episode of Star Wars: The Radio Drama. 

Written by Brian Daley - with additional material by John Whitman - and directed by John Madden, Blood of a Jedi picks up the narrative threads where So Turns a Galaxy, So Turns a Wheel ended: in the midst of the Battle of Endor.

On the Sanctuary Moon, a team of Rebel commandos led by Han Solo (Perry King) has captured the control bunker from where Imperial technicians control the shield generator that protects the Empire's new Death Star battle station. Accompanied by Princess Leia Organa (Ann Sachs), Chewbacca, Artoo-Detoo, and See-Threepio (Anthony Daniels) Han storms the seemingly under-garrisoned bunker with little resistance. But before they can blow up the bunker, they are overwhelmed by Imperial stormtroopers supported by nimble All Terrain Scout Transports and taken prisoner. 

In space, Lando Calrissian (Arye Gross) and Nien Numb, flying in the Millennium Falcon, emerge from hyperspace and, with a wing of Rebel Starfighters in tow, approach the still incomplete Death Star, followed by an Alliance armada commanded by Admiral Ackbar (Mark Adair Rios). But, to Lando's dismay, the battle station is not as vulnerable as the Rebels were led to believe. The shield that protects the Death Star is still up, and an entire Imperial sector fleet lurks nearby!

Meanwhile, Luke Skywalker (Joshua Fardon), the last of the Jedi, faces his most perilous trial. Convinced that underneath the fearsome black armor of Lord Darth Vader (Brock Peters) there is still a trace of his father Anakin, Luke has accompanied Vader to the Death Star's Imperial throne room. There, in the presence of Emperor Palpatine (Paul Hecht), Luke attempts to bring his father back to the light side of the Force while at the same time resisting the pull of the dark side. But Palpatine reveals to young Skywalker that the Rebellion is doomed. 

Luke: You think it is your powers that have brought us to this moment. You are mistaken. It is the Force.

Emperor:  Indeed. The dark side. Isn't that so, Lord Vader?

Vader: As you say, my master.

Emperor: From here, boy, you will witness the final destruction of the Alliance, and the end of your insignificant Rebellion.

Luke: No. It won't. It can't end like this.

Emperor:  Ah, I see you looking to your lightsaber. You want it, don't you? The hate is swelling in you now. Well? Here it lies, next to my hand. Take your Jedi weapon. 

Luke: That would be your final triumph, wouldn't it?

Vader: The dark side is the ultimate power, Luke.

Emperor: Look out there! Your comrades are being exterminated. Use your lightsaber, young Jedi. I am unarmed. Strike me down with it. Give in to your anger. 

Luke: No.

Emperor: It is unavoidable. It is your destiny, young Skywalker. You, like your father, are now mine. 

Concept painting for the final Jedi duel by Ralph McQuarrie. (C) 1983 Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL)

 My Take

At three hours' worth of airtime, Star Wars: Return of the Jedi is the briefest of the three Radio Dramas that aired on National Public Radio between 1981 and 1996. There are several reasons for this, including the fact that producer Tom Voegeli, director John Madden, and the production team had less money to make the series with.

Originally, the Jedi radio adaptation was 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 produced 

Another reason 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 ill; 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 in the nick of time; Brian Daley died 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 an exaggeration to say that Blood of a Jedi  shows what good storytelling and fine writing can accomplish. 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 achieve this goal alone. Director 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 playwright/singer/actor 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. 

As HighBridge Audio's publicist writes in the booklet that comes with each Star Wars: Return of the Jedi - The Radio Drama CD set: 

Like its radio predecessors, Return of the Jedi is a remarkable fable for the mind's eye - a spellbinding story of heroes and villains, good and evil, temptation and redemption, all played out in a shimmering, almost palpable, universe of sound.