"because they made the prequels, we can sit here doing this" Rich with the real talk.

This version with all the new CGI added is a crime against humanity.

Rich Evans saying that he likes the prequels because they're the only reason he gets to have a job enjoying terrible movies with his friends instead of working in a toll booth is such a heartwarming moment

As a foreigner kid I never realized the forest with giant trees was actually real, I always thought that was a set made for this movie. lol

9:51 "Nothing against the elderly. I love the elderly." hearing Mike say that is one of the funniest things ever!

As a 9 year old in the cinema this film was the greatest thing ever.

I wonder what the Luke in the thumbnail is gonna say

disagree with Jay here on Vader trying to kill Luke. In empire, Vader was definitely pulling his punches, until luke got a lucky hit in.  then he got pissed and knocked luke to the ground, literally giving him a chance to surrender, then cut his hand off when Luke continued to fight.  This disarmed luke.  He was cornered.  Vader reached his hand out and tried to have a conversation.  like... Did we even watch the same movie?  Not to mention the whole point of the carbonite freezing plan was to keep luke alive.

Luke's entrance at Jabba's palace was bad ass.

For decades I incorrectly thought the half-constructed Death Star was actually a salvaged chunk of the original one from the first movie which Palpy boy was fixing up.

The whole final act of this movie with Luke, Vader and Palpy has way more weight to it than anything in the prequels.

I get that there's a lot of bad in Return of the Jedi, but as the ending to the series it does it's job. Stakes were created in the previous 2 movies and they are resolved with an amazing father-son reunion. The entire last duel between Luke and Vader is one of the most memorable moments in SW with Luke slowly succumbing to the Dark Side only to realize near the end what he was becoming and overcoming the odds through compassion towards Anakin. I love Return of the Jedi and no teddy bears or awful rescue plans can ruin it for me.

On the Endor scenery, from the perspective of a non-american:
To me the point of the trees being big thus making them exotic is a real thing. In fact I have never seen a forrest just like Endor. For context I’m Norwegian and we have a lot of forrest, however the scale and just how massive the plants and trees are is something I’ve never seen with my own eyes and thus it does work for me. I find Hoth to be more boring, due to being used to that kind of landscape of snow and mountains (We skii a lot lol and Hoth is partially filmed in Norway). So I think it’s a lot to do with what you’re used to see that makes something interesting or uninteresting on a foreign planet.

Edit: With big trees I mean chonk not tallness.

9:51 "Nothing against the elderly, I love the elderly." -Mike Stoklasa

Remember, Vader's sacrifice means nothing now.

7:51 Rich with his Salacious Crumb impression.

10:32  Jay is way off here.  In Empire, Vader is holding back against Luke in their sword fight, testing him, even toying with him.  At one point Vader hesitates for a moment before swinging when Luke is vulnerable.  Yeah he gets pissed and cuts Luke's hand off, but that's not lethal.  Vader's initial plan was to freeze Luke in carbonite, thus the whole point of testing it on Han first to make sure it wouldn't kill him.

"Nothing against the elderly. I love the elderly." -- Mike Stoklasa, a man infamous for ragging on the elderly.

There are many fair complaints to be made about ROTJ but "California's redwood forest is a boring location and they didn't do anything interesting with it" IS NOT ONE OF THEM. So far we'd seen a barren desert world, a barren ice world, a cloud world, and a muggy swamp world (that was shot entirely on a soundstage.) All of those are features present on EARTH, so why should a lush, sun-dappled forest with the world's largest trees (with the addition giant interconected treehouses) be any less interesting? And as for boring filming, the speeder bike sequences utilized cutting-edge gyroscopically stabilized camera systems built specifically for the film, so that undercranked cameras could be hand-carried through the forest to create the illusion of travelling at hundreds of miles per hour, without unwatchable levels of vibration and jitter. It looks dated now, but at the time, those were some MIND BLOWING visuals.

It’s 2015 and now we get these characters back… oh Mike, have a drink… opportunities lost