For me, this is the second or third best movie in the entire series, behind Empire Strikes Back and maybe A New Hope. Definitely better than Return of the Jedi.
I really loved that Donnie Yen was in it, but kind of hated his mystical Tai Chi Yojimbo character (we get it, blind people’s other senses are finely attuned as hell, and Asians all have Jedi-like intuition except when driving ha fucking ha). And goddamn Star Wars weapons always piss me off – why does his sidekick with the belt-fed MG have to rack the slide like a goddamn Remington 870 after every shot at the end? Is it an over/under plasma LMG/shotty?
Aside from the usual cookie cutter Star Wars plot and minor nitpicks, the movie just worked. No fucking teddy bear creatures, no annoying CGI sidekicks, no damn jedis doing inexplicably stupid shit. The droids were fucking dope. And the final tie in to A New Hope! It was pretty goddamn satisfying. Now if Joss Whedon would just do a second season of Firefly with the same budget as the original, I’d be happy. Might as well hope for a season 2 of Freaks and Geeks, tho.
