My whole life, I have never been a fan of ranking the Star Wars movies above/below each other when it comes to episodes 4, 5, and 6. I have always placed all 3 of them on my highest rank for movies. So I would be hesitant to call RoTJ the "best" movie in the trilogy like the title of this discussion thread does, but that's not because I like ANH or TESB any better.

Having said that, I must admit that the perspective which considers Return of the Jedi to be a significantly inferior achievement to ANH and TESB is a very common one, and many of the reasons given for this perspective are very compelling to me. But it's a perspective that never occurred to me before I read other people expressing it. Which leads me to my next point:

Something just seems really wrong to me about the following scenario: I hold my top level of movie love for Return of the Jedi my whole life into my 30's, and then suddenly I read what people say about it on the internet and it's no longer one of my favorite films. I'm not advocating closed-mindedness, but no matter how much sense people's criticisms of RoTJ make, that scenario doesn't feel right.

I don't have a reasoned-out counter argument for many of the criticisms people level against Jedi. All I know is this: when I sit down to watch it, I have as good an experience as I can expect from a movie. If I read people's criticisms and feel one way, but then watch the movie and feel another way, I think I'll go with the way I feel from actually watching the movie.

I don't appreciate people feeling the need to "explain away" how I feel about Jedi by assuming that I must just be blinded by nostalgia or some other factor, as though the critical opinion of Jedi is the "correct" one and mine is the "biased" one. If we're honest, we can admit that all of our opinions are subjective.

And for those who insist that it makes no sense to love Jedi but hate the prequels, get ready for this: I think the prequels are a suckfest from episode I all the way through episode 3.