Star Wars is a difficult franchise to love these days. Over-saturated with bad products (and not just the prequels – the games, TV movies, endless merchandise), it seems what made Star Wars great has been forgotten about. Even the upcoming Episode VII hasn’t got general fandom excited in the way the announcement of Episode I did (ah, more innocent days). So to write an article defending a film which many people regard as where the rot set in is no easy task. Indeed, some may even be ready to dismiss my efforts as pointless, so set in their Jedi dismissing ways are they. But I really do believe Return Of The Jedi deserves a lot more love than it normally gets, and I’m going to tell you why. For purposes of the article, I’m going to use the original release as my reference point, but with discussion of the various special editions.

But first of all I’m going to recap just why many of you think so lowly of it. Apparently it was where Lucas decided to stop bothering about his epic saga, and just started caring about the commercial tie-ins. Cue the Ewoks. Many see it as a rip-off of A New Hope, complete with another attack on the Death Star. Still others can’t get over how bad Boba Fett’s death is. On a script, design, and direction level, Jedi just isn’t up to scratch, especially in comparison to A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back. Hell, some people even rank it below Revenge of the Sith when rating all the Star Wars films. A pox on them I say.

I’m going to come right out and admit it; Return Of The Jedi is my favourite Star Wars film. Always has been, always will be (unless one of VII, VIII, or VIX is the greatest film ever made). Is it the best Star Wars film? No, many of the complaints listed above are valid. But it does so much right, that it lifts itself above the bad and becomes a truly epic and magical conclusion to a three, then six, film journey.

I’ll address the Ewok issue head-on. Fully grown adults howled with rage when some cute bear creatures turned up and beat the Empire. But the Ewoks are accessible – for those who have never seen Star Wars, they quickly become one of the most memorable and iconic aliens in the whole damn thing. They epitomise the never say die attitude of the Rebellion, and prove that where’s there a will there’s a way. A low-tech solution to a high-tech tyranny? That’s the Ewoks. Yeah they were probably in there for the kids (and possibly budgetary reasons), and I know it was meant to be a planet full of Wookies. But look how that turned out in Revenge of the Sith. About a tenth as exciting as the teddy bears killing stormtroopers with rocks. Plus they got the best ‘we won! Yub Nub!’ song ever. Until Lucas stuck crappy world music over it instead.