[georgelucas4greedo]

Do you guys think ROTJ was a parody of the first two? Was it a "fuck you" from Lucas to all his fans? It seems like a very sly, Bob Dylan-esque thing to do.

[Despondent]

Nope. It was one of those star systems slipping through his fingers, as Princess Leia talked about, in STAR WARS.

however,

Release of the OOT is a FU response to a billion voices crying out at once.

[miladyblue]

Release of the OOT is a FU response to a billion voices crying out at once.

I think you're right, Despondent. I remember being at a TOTAL loss as to why there were "improvements" to begin with. Yeah, removing that string that showed on such and such a model was a good idea, but why the added stuff? It's nothing more than eye candy. I got into a heated battle with an apologist friend, who said that the added stuff WAS an improvement, that it made the movie better. I said it was the equivalent of an extremely tacky beautician giving the Mona Lisa a makeover, "Starting with more flattering colors, and a modern upswept 'do."

[Jedi_1138]

Oh, well, yes.
Most of the "improvements" don't add anything to the narrative arc whatsoever. They're eye candy, and the few parts where Lucas added new scenes - guys in helmets, 'cause nothing else would work - make it usually worse.

However, I don't think that RotJ was supposed to be a parody. There where enough parodies - or bad Star Wars rip-offs that where unwillig parodies - at that time to make one. Jedi has a good opening, I think. But the rest tries to sell you cute life-sized Ewok figures and otherwise just comes down to the Luke-Vader confrontation while the rest of the characters doesn't have any development.