Favorite Star Wars film of The Original Trilogy

Which of the Original three Star Wars films gets your vote?

As much as I love Empire, I'm gonna settle on the original Star Wars. Jedi is fun but to sound predictable, it is the weakest of the tree.

I love the craftiness and slow worldbuilding of A New Hope, but Empire Strikes Back is such a improvement over A New Hope in terms of direction, action and character drama. As for Return of The Jedi, it's decent, but I'm not fond of the Ewok scenes as I feel it drags the structure down, and I have personal issues for the movie attempting to redeem what is essentially a Space Nazi despite him destroying multiple planets and murdering species of all ages. It's controversial to say but I think Revenge of the Sith and The Clone Wars did a better job of slowly turning Darth Vader into a irredeemable monster.

Return of the Jedi is probably the one I've rewatched and enjoyed most often. A New Hope has a bit more punch to it though. Technically Empire Strikes Back is the best of the three, but it's not the one I tend to reach for.

I think I'll go with A New Hope, but I am tempted to give Jedi some love.

SomeCallMeEnglishGiraffe wrote:I have personal issues for the movie attempting to redeem what is essentially a Space Nazi despite him destroying multiple planets

Well to be fair, he was never the one who destroyed any planets. He was complicit in the background on the Death Star, but he was never the one who actually pressed the button. It was usually one of his superiors who did that.

If he had, then it would be harder for me to buy his redemption.

Though I suppose you could say he was instrumental in ensuring the Empire became that powerful and unopposed.

Return is my personal favourite, Ewoks and all. I just find that for all the drama in Empire that Return does the best job in balancing so much gripping action across the different storylines, and has a wonderful finale. The series should've ended there.

Surprised to see all the love (i.e., more votes than ANH) for Jedi. I shall share in that love.

Empire is breathtaking. Hard to believe Irvin Kershner went on to direct Never Say Never Again and RoboCop 2, two of my least favourite films.

Star Wars. It's the only one that can stand on it's own. Empire really leaves you hanging at the end, and part of the reason Jedi is so exciting is because of what happened before. Sometimes I just watch Star Wars, but if I'm going to watch Empire or Jedi, I'll watch the whole trilogy.

I'd choose The Empire Strikes Back.   Star Wars comes a close second and while I generally enjoy Return Of The Jedi, I remember watching it at the cinema and thinking 'Another Death Star - couldn't they think of something different?' It seemed like a lack of imagination - or the need to try and replicate the exact same thrills/peril of the first film (which was done again in The Force Awakens with the very Death Star-like Starkiller Base).

When I was very young and stupid I actually thought it was the same Death Star as the one in Star Wars. I assumed it looked like that because Luke had only destroyed a bit of it