Originally posted by: Adamwankenobi
IMHO, ROTJ is on the level of TPM and AOTC, while ROTS is on the level of ANH and ESB.

So, there are three excellent films (ROTS, ANH, ESB), and three OK films (TPM, AOTC, and ROTJ).

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You are partly right about the quality of the SW films, but I classify them this way

Classics - Star Wars, ESB

Very good, but problems- ROTJ, ROTS

Average - AOTC

Waste of 2 hours - TPM

But as I said earlier here is why ROTJ is better than ROTS, ROTJ got the scenes it needed to dead on, and the big scenes in ROTS are awful.

ROTJ needed two scenes to make the movie really good: The throne room scene and the space battle with Lando. Both are awesome and rank up there with SW & ESB quality in those parts. The ewoks are alright, the jabba scene goes on too long, but the sail barge scene and the death of Yoda are very well done, and the ending (Pre-Hayden Ghost) is very emotional cause it brings closure to the OT.

ROTS got the two key scenes wrong that really hurts a good SW movie. The turn & Padme's death. The turn is so badly executed, in fact the whole scene is so badly done, to me that was the key to the whole PT. And I back it up because as I showed in another post, Lucas was changing this scene after shooting a whole different way. First Palps fries his face, and doesn't stop? Then Anakin turns, but it is so underwhelming, "What have I done?" and then 5 seconds later, BAM, he's Darth Vader! First Palps tell him he knows the secret to cheat death, and then the next scene he tells him we can learn this secret together. Now Anakin is in idiot!

Then Padme losing the will to live, and Leia remembering her and not Luke, it is such an anticlimatic scene. First Padme spits out twins, then says, "There is still good in him, ObiWan." Then she loses the will to live? That doesn't make sense for the character arc for the past three movies? Then how does Leia remember Padme, and Luke doesn't? Luke was born first, Padme looks at Luke but never looks at Leia, but it is all because of force memories baloney that Lucas started trotting out after he wasn't going to go with the original story in 1983 that Padme survives and goes into hiding, thus making the ROTJ talk between Luke/Leia totally confusing to a new viewer.

ROTS had a chance to be a classic, and it did have those moments: Anakin alone in the jedi council with the eerie music playing, ObiWan yelling at a burning Anakin on Mustafar, really good stuff. But if Lucas can't sell to the fans why Anakin turned, or if the fans don't buy the whole turn scene in general, how can we think it is a great movie?