V
IV
VI (tie)
III (tie)
II
I
Reason for a tie for third...
RoTJ - Weak points: Backdrop paintings, heavy use of matte paintings (VERY obvious budget cuts), Ewoks.
Strong points: the entire Luke/Vader dynamic (especially the 20 seconds following "perhaps she will...")
Summary - Marquand did the best with what he had to work with.
RoTS - Weak points: rushed ending, weak turn to the Dark Side. Still some use of bad dialog to cover weak plot points (lost the will to live)
Strong points: Ewan McGregor's Obi-Wan, Palpatine (yeah! excepted). Visually stunning and more use of lightsabers.
Summary - if GL had let somebody else direct, could have ranked with "Empire".
While I'm a fan of the OT primarily (I've seen every film in the theater since '77), I'm not blinded by hatred for the PT, nor do I think GL "raped my childhood" with his "tweaking" of the OT. I think there are good possibilities with "good" CGI making the OT a different experience (think a better looking hangar bay sequence in front of the Falcon for one), but I also agree that the ORIGINAL versions, warts and all should be available as well.
For those who complain about the "cheesy" dialog in the OT, I'll grant some of that, but remember the time frame...ANH came out in 1977 (a dark time to be sure, disco was all the rage..yuck!). ESB stands out, not only for the dark tone of the film in general, but also it was a collaboration... GL primarily wrote it, and had a CO-writer for the screenplay (Leigh Brackett) and had somebody else direct (Irvin Kershner). Had he done this with "Sith", the result IMO would have been a tie for best film of the series. In any event, you'll never convince the fanboys of either series to change their very narrow views. Life's too short to sweat this kind of stuff.
