Return of the Jedi
A number of criticisms have already been leveled against what may be my favorite Star Wars film numerous times on this site. I will probably use some of them, but I will try to generally avoid too much rehash.
1. It was very wise of the Empire not to include any small shafts that led directly to the reactor so the Rebels couldn't repeat the same attack as they had on the first Death Star. Instead they made a larger shaft directly to the reactor so entire ships could fit.
2. Luke's brilliant plan the rescue Han was to get more and more of his friends captured so...what? It just made his job harder. It's not like anyone was in a more valuable position because they were captured, except perhaps R2. And the only successful and undetected infiltration (Lando) proved rather useless, as he struggled with one guard, got knocked off the skiff, and had to be rescued.
3. How was the smaller Rebel armada with smaller ships able to defeat the much larger Imperial fleet with larger ships, including the Executor, especially with the threat of the Death Star at the rear? In fact, what happened to the Imperial fleet once the Death Star was ready to explode? It's like they all just vanished!
4. How big is a legion? Apparently not as large as its terrestrial counterpart, where a Roman legion was about 5,000 soldiers. It's hard to believe that the Ewoks could defeat such a force unless they outnumbered them by at least 3:1, even with the element of surprise, given their small size and inferior technology. In fact, why don't we see very many Ewoks die in comparison to the armored stormtroopers?
5. How big is an Imperial squad? It must be pretty small as well, since three squads were sent to help in the pursuit of the "routed" Rebels, yet only twelve men emerged from the bunker.
6. Considering the bunker was the prize of the surface battle, and considering two very valuable Rebels were trying to break into that bunker, you'd think that the Imperials would have devoted more effort to trying to kill or capture Leia and Han rather than pursuing the fuzzy little bears till they fell into their traps. The Ewoks could wait. The bunker could not!
7. How did Han and Leia stay safe during that battle anyway? There was only cover from one side. From the other side they were fish in a barrel, as they were stuck against a wall.
8. What happened to all the B-wing fighters sent into the battle? They jump to hyperspace, evade the Death Star's shield, and disappear!
9. I understand that CGI was not up for the job of creature creation in 1983, so puppetry was required instead, and some of the puppetry in ROTJ is incredible IMHO (i.e. Jabba). However, puppets like Max Rebo and Droopy McCool, who look more like plush toys disrupt the illusion, and even did so for me when I was only five. Not that the CGI that later fleshed out the scene looked much better in the end anyway.
10. Why would a plan like "split up and head back to the surface" successfully distract those stupid TIE pilots? If the Rebels could tell which way was to the core and which led to the surface, surely the Imperials could too. And considering the fact that the core is where the all-important reactor is, you think they'd be more determined to protect that instead of pursuing those other fighters.
11. While I don't have a problem with its story function, I can't help but wonder if it would be economically wise to build a second Death Star at all, when the first proved to be extremely costly and ultimately wasteful.
12. Why is Lando made a general? He was never a member of the Alliance till now? And don't generals plan land-based missions? You'd think he'd be the naval equivalent: an Admiral. Except admirals command entire fleets from a flagship, sort of an objective point where they can provide more broad strategies; they don't personally guide fighters into battle. So maybe he should be a wing commander.
13. But Han becomes a general. Okay, he's leading a land force, but...that's not really an army. General's tend to lead large armies, again usually from an objective POV. Maybe a lieutenant or a captain would lead a strike force, but a general??? And though Han has certainly helped out the Alliance more than his friend, he only just officially joined since his return from Jabba's palace as well. It sort of cheapens Rebel ranks a bit.
14. Boba Fett must have been short on business to hang around with Jabba's cronies for 6 months - 1 year after he dropped off his prize. Maybe one of the SE girls and he were having a little romance that kept him around. Maybe we could get a spinoff movie centered around that exciting tale.
15. Why is it that no matter from which direction we are viewing the Death Star, it is always the same face looking at us: superlaser to the upper left, incomplete half to the right, even on Endor's surface?
16. Hey, there's an AT-AT on Endor! Why didn't they use that to fight the Ewoks?
17. The shield bunker logically must have been pretty close to the shield generating dish, the we never see the two in relationship to each other. Lines like "There's a secret entrance on the other side of the ridge," and facts like the explosion inside the bunker detonated the whole massive dish, lead me to conclude they must be quite close. That said, Han hardly got any distance from himself and the bunker before it blew, yet we see the whole dish go up in a massive display of pyrotechnics that surely would have killed him, the other commandos, taken out the nearby landing pad, and destroyed any other party that hadn't gotten at least a mile's distance from the generator.
18. "It's a trap!" So while three dimensional space offers several routes of escape, let's fly right at the Imperial fleet that is only preventing escape in one direction. Even with Endor interfering, there still were several other directions they could have fled.
19. What is Endor anyway? Is it the name of the moon, per "forest moon of Endor"? Or is it the planet, and the Death Star orbits the moon of the planet? Not very specific, but either way, I'm confused, because all moons have planets, and yet we never see anything resembling a planet!
Actually, I'll play devil's advocate for a moment. There is something that appears like a planet in a couple of shots from the film. Could this be the Endor planet? This is actually a realistic celestial distance. But why don't we ever see it again, particularly when the Rebel fleet exits hyperspace? You'd think that from at least that distance it would enter our view. In the Ewok films we see a much larger object that would also serve well as the planet. It can't be the same object because it's closer and looks very different from the other candidate. But it seems even less believable that we wouldn't have seen this when the fleet approached the moon.
Maybe we could use the ROTJ novel's explanation, where we are told that the planet was destroyed eons before. But a moon without a planet that still orbits the star on its own is a planet in its own right. My head hurts.
20. As has been noted before, an explosion the size of the Death Star, especially when so close in orbit, would rain complete destruction upon the life below. Imagine a reactor clearly using unbelievable amounts of energy (it has to fire that planet-exploding superlaser, remember), detonating 2000 km above the surface, hailing down radiation, heat, large and small fragments, and explosive force...it's untenable that without a plantary-capable shield, anything would survive.
21. While the loss of the Death Star and the Emperor would be bad for an evil regime, I find it hard to believe that the whole Empire would collapse. There were still hundreds or thousands of high ranking, ambitious, ruthless politicians wielding large military forces who could, at the least, hold sizeable portions of the Empire in their grip. But in the movie, the Empire's capital immediately overthrows the government, and it appears there are no repercussions.
Many of these were thought up by others, but I also had some original or independently identified ideas. And yet, in spite of it all, I still think that parts of me hold this as my favorite Star Wars flick!