return of the jedi

Chris Knight's avatar

The sad news is coming out today that Kenneth Colley, the British actor who portrayed Admiral Firmus Piett across two Star Wars films, has passed away at the age of 87.

Colley had enjoyed having many roles in his six decades as an actor.  He did some work with Monty Python (that’s him playing Jesus in the opening of Life of Brian) and he appeared in Clint Eastwood’s 1982 sci-fi Cold War thriller Firefox.  Colley was also among the amazing cast of the sweeping television epic War and Remembrance.

But it is his portrayal of Captain… and then Admiral… Piett that is most remembered in the annals of pop culture.

Piett first appeared in 1980’s Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back as the captain of Executor, Darth Vader’s flagship Super Star Destroyer.  Following the deployment of thousands of probe droids across the galaxy, ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

For as long as we’ve been watching Star Wars movies, I can’t recall anyone drawing attention to this one fleeting but horrifying image from Episode VI: Return of the Jedi…

Ewoks. With blaster rifles.

For the good of the galaxy, let us hope the triumphant Rebels never allow them to leave Endor....

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Chris Knight's avatar

There’s apparently starting to be some interest in the stating of my intentions a few days ago that I would address the Rockingham County Board of Education at its July 9th meeting… fully costumed as a Jedi Knight. The only thing that I am leaving off the ensemble is my lightsaber. For one thing, I am being extremely cautious in adhering to the school system’s weapons policy: even though this is not a functional weapon by any means, I’m not taking chances. For all intents and purposes, this is simply a “different” mode of attire than what you usually see at a school board meeting. As it is, I don’t see this being construed as a special circumstance, and I’m not going to intentionally make it one, either.

Besides, I have something much better than a lightsaber that I intend to take with me. You could say that I will ...

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Chris Knight's avatar


Turns out that it was ten years ago today that Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi Special Edition came out in theaters. It was originally supposed to have opened on March 7th, but the Special Editions of A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back were performing so awesomely well at the box office that 20th Century Fox decided to let them play an extra week before introducing the next one. I remember it well: it was a cold, rainy day that it opened. “Weird” Ed, Gary and I caught it that afternoon at the West End Cinema in Burlington. Of the Special Editions, this was the one that I think I’d been waiting for the most because several months earlier word came that in the final moments of the movie we would see the capital planet Coruscant for the first time ever. The Special Edition of Return ...

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