“This is the end of that era for me, my good old days.”

Four decades have passed since a Star Wars film was officially awarded Hollywood’s iconic golden statuette. Though each theatrical entry of the saga has been nominated in at least one category since, the continued Oscar dry spell gives all the more weight to Richard Edlund’s words as he and his Industrial Light & Magic cohort accepted a Special Achievement Award for Return of the Jedi’s visual effects.

Jedi represented the end of an era in many respects, so this will serve as a customary (and concluding) retrospective entry on the Original Trilogy’s connections to the Academy Awards.

Just as Jedi cinematically returned to some of the traits of the original Star Wars, so did the Awards Season campaign from 20th Century-Fox leading up to the April 9th, 1984 ceremony. Below is a roughly chronological sampling of trade ads that can be found in various combinations of publication, color scheme and printing date.

The above trade foldout insert announced Fox's January 1984 slate of “For Your Consideration” screenings for Academy members, including seven showings of Return of the Jedi (to which members’ children were also welcome).

An initial run of FYC ads utilized black-and-white production stills framed by blue text on a white background. The trio of single-pagers for Best Picture, Best Original Score, and a group of technical/craft categories below ran in January issues of Variety, with the latter two appearing on consecutive days. ABC-TV’s Nancy Gould aptly described Jedi as “…as intricate and and elaborate a production as you’re ever going to see.”

The following two-page spread advocating for Jedi’s leading and supporting performances called upon Nancy once again for some superlatives. Gould deemed the film “spectacular, it’s phantasmagorical.”

A push for recognition across the board constituted the traditional “publicity barrage,” but the focus would narrow once Mickey Rooney and Academy President Gene Allen revealed the Oscar Nominations to “a record number of media representatives” on February 16th.

At that point with four nominations secured, Jedi’s campaign brought back the blue & white color scheme seen in the first movie’s Awards push.

Above is an ad from 20th Century-Fox which ran in the February 28th edition of The Hollywood Reporter thanking the Academy and congratulating the studio’s Oscar Nominees (including Return of the Jedi’s).

Art Direction - Norman Reynolds, Fred Hole, James Schoppe and Michael Ford

Bib Fortuna, Salacious B. Crumb, Max Rebo and Droopy McCool certainly can and should be defined as “absolutely state of the art design.” Meanwhile, Nancy Gould’s poetic waxing was repurposed and paired with a production still of the Imperial might awaiting their Emperor.

Original Score - John Williams

*The Hollywood Reporter* - March 20, 1984

Return of the Jedi’s score was merely John Williams’ 19th Academy Award nomination. The ad above fittingly depicts a scene that was as “grand” and “sweeping” musically as it was in picture and story.

Sound Effects Editing - Ben Burtt

The above pair of ads honoring Ben Burtt’s solo nomination for Sound Effects Editing perfectly capture two of his greatest contributions to Jedi’s soundscape: the cheese casserole augmented Quechua-esque vocals of Jabba the Hutt and genderless mix of Tibetan, Chinese, and Mongolian languages and animal sounds that comprised Ewokese.

Sound - Ben Burtt, Tony Dawe, Randy Thom and Gary Summers

Luke and Han, along with the same “brilliant…just plain fun” quote from CBS-TV’s Jeffrey Lyons were used for ads backing Jedi’s team of Sound Nominees. Randy Thom was competing against himself that year with additional Nominations for Never Cry Wolf and The Right Stuff (spoiler alert: one of those two would net him his first of two career golden statuettes). Gary Summers went on to win Sound Oscars for Terminator 2, Jurassic Park, Titanic and Saving Private Ryan. Tony Dawe would remain empty-handed, but did receive Nominations for Empire of the Sun, Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Congratulatory ads for the Nominees appeared in the trades in the weeks ahead of the show. Above left is an example from F.P.C. (Film Processing Corporation) saluting the Best Sound Nominees, with Return of the Jedi at the top of the list. Sound “making a difference” in Jedi’s 70mm Dolby 6-track presentations could be partially attributed to the company’s specialized magnetic striping for large format prints. Talent Agencies such as Smith/Gosnell applauded their clients, one of which being Jedi Art Director James Schoppe (eagle eyes will spot the classic Revenge of the Jedi Yoda crew patch on the vest completing Schoppe’s stylish vibe).

Special Achievement Award (Visual Effects) - Richard Edlund, Dennis Muren, Ken Ralston and Phil Tippett

Like The Empire Strikes Back three years prior, Return of the Jedi’s visual effects were recognized by the Academy with a Special Achievement Award. 20th Century-Fox ran an appropriately Oscar gold trade ad commending the quartet of recipients.

Lucasfilm ran a two-page spread in the March 20th, 1984 edition of Variety congratulating Edlund, Muren, Ralston and Tippett, and expanded the accolades to “all the talented people at ILM whose contribution made it all possible.”

LFL’s ad featured a great group photo captured by the late ILM still photographer Terry Chostner, who had joined the company in 1979 on Empire’s miniatures unit and worked as a supervising still photographer on Jedi.

Oscar Night arrived on April 9th as the stars once again descending upon downtown L.A.’s Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. The show opened with Quincy Jones leading the orchestra in a suite of the evening’s nominated scores, with the first few notes of John Williams’ main Star Wars theme coupled with Jedi’s “Parade of the Ewoks” kicking everything off.

Art director and Academy President Gene Allen followed with introductory remarks, mentioning that 500 million viewers were tuning into the ceremony. Allen then touched on the significance of moviegoing memories, rattling off famous pairings from Laurel & Hardy to “Skywalker & R2-D2.”

The 56th’s program has a black, felt-like cover and offers a traditional and affordable memento from the event for collectors to track down.

Return of the Jedi’s Nominees are listed alongside their competitors.

And the Nominees are…

The Jedi’s return unfortunately didn’t bring the return of competitive Oscars to the franchise. Return of the Jedi was topped by Fanny & Alexander for Art Direction and The Right Stuff for Original Score, Sound, and Sound Effects Editing.

However, Jedi would not end the evening Oscar-less. Mr. Thomas Chong and Mr. Richard Merrin were introduced by Master of Ceremonies Johnny Carson as fellow “purveyors of dreams and fantasies” to present the Special Achievement Award for Visual Effects.

The bit begins with Cheech mistakenly thinking that the four honorary Oscars were for them, then the duo attributing the Special Visual Effects to Daryl Hannah for “most” / “best tail” (Splash had just hit theaters a month before and Hannah had presented for Sound Effects Editing earlier in the show). Chong clarifies that it’s for Return of the Jedi, to which Cheech replies “Oh that’s a good movie. We should see it, man” and that he was going to wait until it came to a $2 show.

A clip package seems to have run, then Cheech comments that he “likes the part where they blow them up” (presumably the second Death Star’s destruction?). The crew of ILMers then come on stage to the tune of “Parade of the Ewoks” performed by the house orchestra, with each giving their thanks to colleagues, mentors and family. Phil Tippett gives nods to familiar names like visual effects art director Joe Johnston, ILM general manager Tom Smith and production supervisor Rose Duignan. Ken Ralston then closes it out by paying tribute to the 120 artists at ILM who worked on Jedi, as well as “the force behind the Force: George Lucas.” Phil emphatically reiterates the praise for The Maker with an emphatic “GEORGE!” as the gang exits with their Oscars.

Embed from Getty Images

As the above photos indicate, the good times continued backstage as the curtains closed on the Oscar dreams and fantasies realized by the Star Wars Trilogy.

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