Return of the Jedi (1983) was originally titled “Revenge of the Jedi”. Posters were printed with this title, and can be found on eBay. They were all pulled when George Lucas realized a Jedi doesn’t take revenge. No hero does. Rising above something like revenge is an essential part of what makes someone a hero. But sometimes, it seems, that point is negotiable.

I recently watched a bunch of superhero movies from the 80s and the Oughts as research for an essay on this site. Something stood out: killing and revenge, and how our attitude about them seems to have changed over the years. A bit. It was sort of okay then. It’s sort of not okay now.

“...when we get among masterpieces, we find that (the protagonist) tends to become no more than a function of his environment, a convenient symbol for representing and explaining that environment.” - HL Mencken