Originally posted by: jack Spencer Jr
It's not a seemless fit, natch, and I would hate to lose the third act of ANH, but it does show that a good deal of the trilogy's chips were cashed in a little too early, which left the final chapter a tad weak via the law of diminishing returns.

True, but I wouldn't give up part of the original SW ever. That is what makes the OT way much better than the PT, every movie had to sell themselves, or there wouldn't be a sequel. Lucas had to make SW '77 a standalone movie, or that would be it. ESB had to be great, or the series wouldn't continue. I think he ran out of ideas by ROTJ, hence why there is so much repititive plot points used from the first two movies.

The problem with the PT, and many movie series today, is they usually know there will be sequels, so they hold back on certain things, to keep the movies balanced. And what happens is you get a series of average/ above average movies, that all could have been better. TPM holds back older Anakin, so them movie is handcuffed with a 9 year old boy. AOTC is held back cause Anakin couldn't turn yet, so the movie seems like another setup movie. ROTS has everything thrown into it, and has to cover the every plot point missed in TPM & AOTC, thus feeling rushed.

I know ROTJ is inferior to SW & ESB, but I will take great movies anyday of a good trilogy where no movie really sticks out as great. The OT is a rare trilogy with 2 great movies, I'm thankful that it happened to be the one movie trilogy I truly love.

TPM = Sucks
AOTC= Average
ROTS = Good

ANH = Classic
ESB = Classic
ROTJ = Good

The results speak for themselves.