Unlike the previous two publications, The Making of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi relies on over 30 contemporary interviews conducted by the author. “In some ways when you’re dealing with archival material if they didn’t ask the good questions you were doomed,” observes J.W. Rinzler. “But even with Empire and Star Wars, I always had a long talk with George [Lucas]. Conducting the interviews made it more interesting but at the same time they took a lot more time because you had to set-up, do, and have them transcribed. It took more work. Personally, I got a lot out of it. It was fun to talk to everybody and talk to a few people who might have not been interviewed back in the day but with a decade since they have had a really interesting career.”
“George originally was going to call it Return of the Jedi and Howard Kazanjian thought it was a weak title so he changed it to Revenge,” reveals J.W. Rinzler. “At one point Yoda and Obi-Wan came back in their spiritual form and Luke fought the Emperor and Darth Vader; it was three Jedi against two Sith so the script did have a Revenge of a Jedi [tone]. But then the revised second draft was called Return of the Jedi and by that time the spirits weren’t involved in the final battle. It was just Luke.” The Emperor portrayed by Ian McDiarmid (Gorky Park) was a point of concern. “A number of people during the story conference and even up to the making of the film talked about the continuity break between the Emperor and Darth Vader as a Jedi. If you watch Jedi closely there is that great scene where the Emperor asks if he is sure about his feelings about Luke and Darth Vader says basically, ‘Don’t worry I’m on your side.’ It all comes down to that one exchange. I think it’s there in Jedi to be honest. Rinzler believes, “You have to have that thing on the horizon people want to know about. The Emperor did that to perfection in Return of the Jedi.”