Last night I saw Star Wars: Return of the Jedi on the big screen while the Utah Symphony performed the iconic score by John Williams live (I also saw Star Wars: A New Hope and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back in this format so it was fun to complete the original trilogy). I really love the Utah Symphony's Films in Concert series (I subscribed this season) because hearing the music performed live while watching the movie is such an immersive experience! In this installment, Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Lando Calrissian, Chewbacca, C-3PO, and R2-D2 rescue Han Solo from the clutches of Jabba the Hut before joining once again with the Rebel Alliance to stop the Emperor from rebuilding the Death Star. There is an epic battle on Endor (with some adorable Ewoks) and a thrilling final confrontation between Luke and Darth Vader! The music during these scenes, "The Forest Battle" and "The Return of the Jedi," is incredibly stirring filled with lots of brass and percussion and these were my favorite themes. I also got goosebumps every time "The Imperial March" played because it reminded me of how scared I was of Darth Vader when I first saw these movies! It was so fun to see this with a large and rowdy crowd (it was the biggest crowd I've seen at Abravanel Hall since the pandemic started). There was a lot of enthusiastic audience participation and the applause was especially loud when the the "Main Theme" played during the opening crawl, when Princess Leia defeated Jabba the Hut, when Luke reunited with Yoda on Dagobah, when the Ewoks defeated all of the stormtroopers, when Han Solo told Leia that he loved her, when Darth Vader rescued Luke from the Emperor, and when Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Yoda appeared as force ghosts at the celebration. I really enjoyed this performance and I highly recommend seeing one of the films in concert coming up this season (Back to the Future, Home Alone, and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince).
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