Superb Film. Excellently made for its time.

Rating: 10/10 (18 February 2014)

I was watching the Siskel & Ebert special as to why Star Wars is considered so successful, and no one said it right better than these two late critics. What better way to innovate storytelling, along with filmmaking, than to mix the elements of old mythologies with new technologies. This film is a pure example of that blend. To have such large scale planetary visages in shots, the hundreds of ships zigzagging through space, the montage of creatures in the lair of Jabba the Hutt, and the excellently choreographed hand-to-hand fights. While some people claim this film is not as good as the previous two entries, I disagree. This film brought the whole series full circle, and ended it on a note that's not seen with most trilogies.
Did you know that they constructed the interior of the death star entirely out of fishing rods and pieces of metal pipes? Such craftsmanship is indeed unrecognizable. The matte paintings are visibly inherent in some scenes, most notably in the hangar onboard the "Home One" frigate, but such small negative details don't detract from the whole picture. How they managed to capture the space battle scenes with so many different ships is still beyond me, and I've seen firsthand the many wonders of ILM, but back in the day when they just had bluescreens and models, this surely took some fantastic talent, and it is still the best space battle sequence I've ever seen depicted in a movie.
I will say though that after viewing the deleted scenes, it is a shame that they left so much out of this film, just like with 'Empire,' but the completed project is still a great movie. With some of the rewrites the script is a bit shaky in certain scenes, the ewok elements were no doubt toned down for the younger audiences that were now flocking to see these films, but Mark Hamill delivers his best performance as an actor to date in this film.
The first movie showcased Grand Moff Tarkin, who's sophistication and ruthlessness were rivaled only by his charm and ferocity, and the dreaded vader appeared only secondary, he became the main villain for 'Empire,' but in this film, we have an even better performance by Ian McDiarmid as the Emperor, the ruler of the tyrannical regime that controls most of the galaxy. I remember people in the theater we're cheering and applauding when Vader, the most ultimate film villain seen to date, turned the tables on an even more evil villain and came back to the light side. This is a tale of redemption, and the best one I've seen so far.
10/10. This is one of the defining moments of my childhood and many others, and though I haven't watched it in a long time, I will still remember going to the theater in the spring as a 6 year old boy never knowing how blown away I'd be.