Star Wars: Return Of The Jedi, Hand annotated shooting script of Return of the Jedi

original production material

At last I have a Return of the Jedi shooting script. So I can close the sw trilogy.

But this one is special, as it is heavy annotated with breakdown notes.

The process of breaking down the script occurs after the producer reads through the screenplay once. Then he goes back and marks certain elements that need to be taken care of before production, or even before pre-production can begin. Then all of the production elements are reduced to lists in order to schedule and budget the production


The scenes with breakdown notes are all the exteriors filmed in USA, Sarlac pit battle, and Endor forest scenes.

There are several marks and elements in this breakdown script, marks that give the crew an idea of screen time, number of shots within a scene, what shots would be acomplished by first unit, by second unit, or by ILM...

Most are marks and notes that determine the extent of the VFX within a sequence, (to think about cost), crew (live action vs visual effects) location, live action vs miniature of stop motion, etc. It does indicate the first pass at how to accomplish the work on screen. Often times, a given sequence might involve live action, stop motion, matte paintings, vfx, etc. – all within one sequence. This breakdown begins the process of how to breakdown the scene into it's components.

So happy, as I never saw an annotated star wars script