In honor of Star Wars: The Force Awakens' release, we're rerunning our series from 2012 when I watched the Star Wars movies for the first time. You can read my intro/explanation here, as well as my reviews of Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back.

Before the scroll started (and by the way, what a great thing that scroll is -- such a simple way to convey backstory exposition, yet you never see it used elsewhere) there should have been a line that said "… and now for something completely different!"

I want to say upfront that I really enjoyed Return of the Jedi, even though for the first time it felt like a movie in a clearly family-oriented franchise, and not one just for the fanboys (and girls).  It had a more direct story trajectory than Empire Strikes Back, but still found time for side-bar narratives, like bringing back Lando in a redemptive arc and introducing Ewoks (which I loved, series infantilization aside). It also had a number of great small victories that all led up to that final standoff between Luke and Darth Vader.