What The Final Days On The Set Of Return Of The Jedi Were Like

Return of the Jedi has a lot of action scenes, and the last two filming locations were all about getting them right.

In some cases, the crew could work on the choreography by taking the actors out entirely. For the speeder bike chase, as visual effects artist Dennis Muren explained in an interview with StarWars.com, "We ended up building smaller bikes for most of the shots that were like a foot and a half long or so, about a foot tall, with puppets on them, that we could shoot from a distance. So I could get the long shots and make the choreography look good." The actors would be visible in close-ups, but the smoothness of the action sequence would be sold by the puppets, which were undeniably easier to move around.

But sometimes there was no way around using the actors and stunt artists themselves. In The Making of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, J.W. Rinzler talked about how spending so much time on fight scenes could get wearying and frustrating for the actors. They were especially hard on Carrie Fisher, who longed for more peaceful, emotionally nuanced scenes.

Finally, after weeks of action choreography, she got to go out on a high note: One of her last scenes on location was the conversation on Endor where Luke reveals they're brother and sister. It was like a sweet respite at the end of some very hectic days.