how can you compare ESB to ROTJ? ESB is a much darker movie, the rebels are on the run, Luke gets his a$$ handed to him while fighting, Han gets frozen, and C-3P0 gets ripped apart.
Compared to a full on Jedi knight Luke, who when given the choice turns down the dark side, beats the previous "master of lightsabers" Vader, turns a sith lord back to the light, Rescues the gang from the sarlac pit, Ewoks kicking Storm Trooper tail, etc...
don't get me wrong ESB is a great movie and is probably my second favorite but Return of the Jedi is the best Star Wars movie released to date.
one word: ewoks.
We could have had wookiees, but there weren't enough breakthroughs in effects. So what do we get?
Ewoks.
Mini-wookiees. Why couldn't we have 100 full wookiees rather than 200 mini-wookiees?
Not to mention the whole battle with Jabba that really had nothing to do with anything (i'm glad they got Han back and all but that whole storyline sorta feels like the Bruce Willis segment in Pulp Fiction-good, fun, well written, but not important in the grand scheme of things, 'sepcially since GL keeps harping on the Saga being Anakin's story). I'm gonna get it for this comment aren't I? I just crossed a line... But seriously, as far as being important to the Saga as a whole, Rotj doesn't matter until the last 45 minutes. And since I'm very interested in the overall story, ESB is still my fav movie.
There's this guy in my local paper named Mr. Cranky. He does movie ratings based on how bad they are, instead of how good they are. He gives them ratings with bombs instead of stars. Soooooooooo.. Here's my "Mr Cranky" movie rating (Oh, and just to clarify, I don't really hate either movie. In fact, I think that they are two of the greatest acheivements of modern filmaking. I just like to make myself think about both sides of things.):
ESB sucked because of the really corny scene right before Han gets put into carbonite. And because of the... the.. well, I'll be damned.. I can't think of anything else.. That's a first..
ROTJ sucked because there seemed to be something wrong with Carrie Fisher's voice throughout the entire movie, which was culminating into the pinacle of her voice-messed up-ness at the very end, on Endor. The scene on Jabba's Sail barge was quite pointless. . I mean, why didn't she just take the whole slab of carbonite and unfreeze him somewhere else? That was really stupid on her part. Then, the lightsaber thing on the sail barge was really corny. There is a delay of about 5 seconds before Luke actually catches the lightsaber. Boba Fett is supposed to be a bounty hunter, not an idiot!! Luke would have got shot!! (not that he should have..) and then he goes around slashing wildly with his lightsaber and everyone is just STANDING THERE, WAITING TO GET CUT IN HALF!!!!!! The bridge scene on Endor is almost worse. I can no longer bear to watch it. The Ewoks are cool, but the battle of Endor is really, really dumb and put-together looking. The best part is where Luke is on the Death Star at the end and rejects the dark side. That was a cool scene. And where Anakin dies. Not that I wanted him to die, but *sniff* that was just beautiful man!!!
Sorry for bashing ROTJ so bad. It was a great movie. I find stuff like that in almost everything I watch.
Jedi is kind of weak but has the potential to be second best (compared with my expectations for ep 3) if lucas does something about the ending when he finishes his changes for the ultimate edition dvds. forgive me, but for an end to an epic saga the ending to ROJ just plain sucks in its current form. look at the 4-6 dvd forum to see my dream version of it