I only suffered once through Return of the Jedi (although I’ve watched pieces of it since on laser disc and DVD), but I remember the finale pretty clearly, and I’ll bet at least $1000 that the version I saw at Loew’s Astor Plaza in June 1983 didn’t have Darth Vader going “noooo!…no!” when the Emperor is zapping Luke at the climax.
I haven’t seen the forthcoming Jedi Bluray, and for all I know the clip below (a portion of the original mixed with an alleged audio recording from the Bluray Jedi ) is a phony. So let’s hold off for now. But if the Bluray does have the “noooo!,” watch out.
“It’s hard to believe this because Vader crying ‘Noooo!’ was one of the most widely derided aspects of Revenge of the Sith,” explains Badass Digest‘s Devin Faraci . “It’s easy to believe because George Lucas is so out of touch and loves the idea of on-the-nose symmetry between the two trilogies.
“What is purported to be an audio recording of the scene has hit the web, and someone has timed it to the original scene in Jedi so that you can get a sense of how this supposedly works. I’ve embedded that below. It’s actually two ‘No’s, and it doesn’t sound exactly like the one from Sith, but similar.”