As a 34 year old, I used to lay it out to people like this:

On a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being best)

Star Wars: 11
Empire Strikes Back: 12
Return of the Jedi: 9

For Star Wars, you had to be there at that age at the beginning to truly know what we went through. Seriously.

For Empire, it was more of the same but better... more, eh, realistic? Better character development, better director, better writer. And darker... darker was good.

For Jedi. Parts were great. Parts were shite. Parts were weird and disappointing to me at the age that I was. But, Ewoks aside, the redemption of Anakin and the triumph of Luke made it for me and I went away happy enough.