The accusations of “nostalgia bait” should also apply to the PT after Phantom Menace. That movie had such an excellent aesthetic, largely divorced from anything we’d seen in the OT.
Really? I’d say PM was the MOST like the OT. The three main setpieces are grey corridors, desert Tattooine, and forest/palace Naboo. That’s 2/3 of the aesthetic of ROTJ.
In fact, PM is like a mirror to ROTJ, right down to the climax of the silly indigenous people of the planet rising up against a technologically superior army. Lando’s army in space needs planetbound Han to kill the signal; Jar-Jar and Padme’s army on the ground needs Anakin in space to kill the signal.
I once read a long theory that Lucas deliberately made PM mirror ROTJ; that may be giving him too much credit, but who knows?