Easily the best movie in the Star Wars-saga

Rating: 9/10 (4 April 2007)

I have seen the first three movies evolve from their VHS-releases to their newest DVD-releases. Of the three movies of the "ancient era", this really sticks out as the best of them all.
I was very young the first time I saw this, and it captured me with its fantastic creatures, the action, the whole universe was so convincing to me, and the characters were really good and left a good impression on me. Seeing it again more than 15 years later, still makes me feel like I did back then.
This movie is obviously very influenced by 2001: A space odyssey, as seen in the interior design of the rebel space ship in the opening scene, and the docking scenes with the Death Star. Not that it's a bad thing, it is something I felt added a lot to this movie.
Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi both fail to keep up with the goodness of this movie in terms of consistency and use of scenes. In particular, there is this new CG-enhanced music scene in Return of the jedi that is so embarrassing to watch it almost destroyed the movie, and the coming of the Ewoks just goes from bad to worse. Luckily, Star Wars does not have this sort of bumpy-ride feel to it, and one that had the most graceful evolution of the three movies with the new releases, except for the "Han shot first"-scene treatment.
9/10