I often wonder about when an idea or story beat goes from being similar to something done decades earlier, to when it becomes directly appropriated from it. In the case of ROTJ I would argue the similarities are more superficial, since there are shared locations like Tatooine and a Death Star, but what they do with those places is entirely different.

Contrast this to the sequel trilogy, which quite clearly contains many scenes that are similar not only on a superficial level, but directly reference earlier plot points, sometimes with similar events and even dialogue, all to elicit an emotional reaction like: “OMG DO YOU REMEMBER THAT SCENE WHERE ___ HAPPENED IN EPISODE ___?! THEY JUST REFERENCED IT OMG!! OMG!!!” Meanwhile I’m like “I’d rather watch the original version of that scene instead of someone else’s version that doesn’t do anything new”. And that’s just it: I want them to do something different that doesn’t rely on events that already happened. To do otherwise is IMO a poor attempt at fan-service, and just incredibly lazy writing in general. I get it’s hard to come up with ideas in Hollywood films that differ from something else done 40-50 years ago, but please don’t also bring attention and make a big deal of the fact that you are “borrowing” the idea in the first place.

Star Wars isn’t the only franchise with this problem BTW.