I still remember the review in Cinescape magazine by Mark Altman where he said that Return of the Jedi was a rehash of star wars. He also in the same film review said The Last Crusade was a rehash of raiders of the lost ark.
Basically Empire Strikes Back was an original film that stood on its own, and was as much for adults as for kids. As a grown up man jedi does not engage me like it did as a child, there are a couple fine scenes in the movie and a few fun ones too. Just not as original as star wars, or As Epic as Empire strikes back. Jedi Failed to build upon what Kershner, Kurtz and Kasden, and Lucas had created as a collaborative effort.
You had an awesome and daring dark second half of the trilogy with good character drama, and then you end it all with a film where Han Solo basically stands around for a whole film with no story potential and end it with a teddy bear picnic,lol.
Jedi succeeds like star wars as a swashbuckling adventure, but empire basically makes those films look silly.
A reason why i am sure Lucas hates empire, as he has said it is the worst film in the saga.
When it is obvious to all critics whose opinions matter that The Empire Strikes Back is the finest of all six films.
Jedi might be the least of the original trilogy but it is a hundred times better than the lackluster prequels.
On Jedi is where the yes men thing started and George was going to do things his own way. Kasden told him having another death star was a bad idea and not original, lucas did not listen.
I guess we should be glad the 2 death stars idea was dropped early on.
The third film basically tied everything up, lucas took 4 films and compressed them into one. The emperor and luke becoming a jedi would have had been in the later films. as well as him discovering his sister who was not leia. The third film would have had Luke confront vader and defeat him, of course at this time it was already decided that Vader was indeed Lukes father. Luke would confront the emperor later on in another film. Leia became the sister in jedi out of necessity to tie everything up. Han Solo ends up with her of course, but in 1978 it just as easily could have been Luke who was not her brother.