You know why I love the Sarlacc Pit scene so much…

Because it’s the first time we truly saw what a Jedi could do in battle. We’d heard they were “guardians” of the Old Republic, we’d seen some of their powers, seen a couple of old Jedi’s mental powers, seen an old Sith toy with a young apprentice… but only with this scene do you realise exactly why the Empire would want to wipe them out.

As a Jedi, Luke gives Jabba every chance and warning he can to avoid violence…

“I’m sure that we can work out an arrangement which will be mutually beneficial and enable us to avoid any unpleasant confrontation”
“You can either profit by this… or be destroyed! It’s your choice. But I warn you not to underestimate my powers.”
“You should have bargained, Jabba. That’s the last mistake you’ll ever make.”
“Jabba, this is your last chance. Free us, or die.”

…but Jabba and his minions just laugh it all off. This is to be expected (Forgetting the small prequel time gap) it’s easy to imagine that most of these people have never seen a Jedi, or even heard of what they are capable of.

Then with all peaceful options exhausted Luke gives a gesture and R2 throws him the Sabre. Minutes later, everybody has been massacred by one Jedi and his laser sword. A Jedi’s ability to turn the tide of a battle and defeat whole armies is the kind of stuff that made them legendary warriors. Another mistake of the prequels was filling the screen with wall-to-wall Jedis, it diminished the power they had in this one scene from ROTJ. The PT had them protecting the galaxy with force of numbers… instead of just protecting it with THE FORCE.

Or in short, that scene is frickin’ awesome 😉