The Blood Of A Jedi
With the help of the Ewoks, the Rebels overrun the shield generator, but they’re too late to help their own fleet – the Millennium Falcon and its fighter wings emerge from hyperspace into the waiting arms of the Imperial Fleet, as part of an elaborate plan by Palpatine. But the Empire hasn’t counted on the presence of the Ewoks, and the shield generator is destroyed by Solo and his commando group. Lando makes some desperate alterations to the battle plan, and still manages to lead the Rebels into the heart of the Death Star – but aboard that station, Luke Skywalker is fighting his own battle against the power of the dark side of the Force. He may destroy the Empire, save the Rebellion, free the galaxy and become the last of the Jedi – but Luke still may not be able to save his father in the process.
written by Brian Daley
additional material by John Whitman
based on the screenplay Return Of The Jedi by Lawrence Kasdan and George Lucas
directed by John Madden
music by John WilliamsSee the first episode for cast information.
Notes: Produced many years after the two original NPR Star Wars adaptations, Return Of The Jedi was funded by Highbridge Audio primarily to produce a set of shows to fill out a planned CD box set; it was later offered to NPR. But the project’s for-profit nature precluded Mark Hamill’s involvement (Hamill had volunteered his time to act in the first two Star Wars radio shows), and the original CD-buying audience of already-indoctrinated fans envisioned for the project meant a slimming down of the number of episodes, and an assumption that certain elements – such as Jabba’s Huttese language – could be left intact from the films with no explanation or translation. Sadly, writer Brian Daley died of pancreatic cancer during the recording sessions.
On Sullun, one of the moons of Sullust, a Rebel uprising is violently put down by Captain Thrawn’s Imperial platoons. But Thrawn’s superior, a dark Jedi named Lord Jerec, has a mission of a more personal nature as he searches for a Rebel named Morgan Katarn. Katarn’s latent ability with the Force – and his steadfast refusal to use it for fear of misusing the power – has earned him the label of a coward in Jerec’s eyes, and when Katarn refuses to give up any information about the Rebellion, Jerec murders him in cold blood.
Dark side novices Satal and Aleema, fresh from discovering secrets of the dark side in the tomb of Sith Lord Freedon Nadd on Onderon, return to their home world, where they depose their father as ruler and hold the populace in the thrall of their evil powers. Word of the takeover reaches the Jedi, who dispatch Ulic Qel-Droma and Nomi Sunrider to lead a Republic battle fleet to restore freedom. Meanwhile, another Jedi arrives on Onderon to investigate Lord Nadd’s tomb, a young Jedi named Exar Kun who has become a little too fixated on learning the secrets of the dark side. Defying his Jedi mentor’s wishes and lying about his credentials, Exar Kun learns that the spirit of Freedon Nadd is very much intact – and capable of teaching him everything he wants to know about the dark side of the Force.
Five years after the fall of the Empire at Endor, Kyle Katarn slips away on an unauthorized personal mission to Nar Shadaa, and quickly draws the wrong kind of attention – bounty hunters have been hired by Lord Jerec to literally bring Kyle’s head to the dark Jedi. In this case, they’re hired by a droid dispatched by Jerec to ensure that the job gets done. The droid has tried to enlist the best of the best, including Boba Fett himself, but when he turns the job down, less experienced mercenaries try to take Kyle out. Jerec’s droid taunts Kyle with a disc containing an encoded message from his father. Kyle takes reckless, death-defying risks to shake off or dispose of his attackers and reach the disc, but at a high cost. Fortunately, Jan Ors has taken on an equally unauthorized mission to follow Kyle in case he winds up in trouble. Remnants of the Empire quickly converge to capture Kyle, and even when Jan rescues him, he has suffered critical injuries.
Lord Jerec, the Dark Jedi following Morgan Katarn’s map to find the lost Valley of the Jedi, sends an Imperial probe droid to the planet where the Valley is located – and it is promptly destroyed by one of the Rebels who was evacuated from Sulon by Morgan. Jerec dispatches his Dark Jedi to survey the nearest settlement to the probe droid’s final location – and then to lead an attack to flatten it. But Rebel help is already on the way, in the form of an Alliance capital ship, the Millennium Falcon, and eventually Luke’s X-wing and Kyle Katarn’s ship, the Moldy Crow. After a pitched battle in orbit, Kyle and Jan Ors go to the planet so Kyle can continue his own search for the Valley – and an inevitable meeting with the man who killed his father. But first, Kyle encounters his father’s fellow settlers, whose allegiances lie firmly with the Rebel Alliance – and the last time any of them saw Kyle, he was on the fast track through the Imperial Academy.
