George Lucas has made exactly one good movie in his life, and that was the first Star Wars movie. The Empire Strikes Back was better, but he didn't direct it, and someone else wrote the screenplay as well. With Return Of The Jedi, it was going to be better originally, but he intervened and made it sappier because he's just that kind of guy.
Return Of The Jedi was originally going to have Wookiees on the forest planet instead of Ewoks, and they'd rise up against the Empire that enslaved them with help from the Rebels. When the battle started to go badly for the Empire, the guy in charge of the Death Star began turning it to destroy the planet, knowing that would eliminate the Rebellion entirely (even though it would also destroy the Death Star and the Imperial fleet around it as well). So that added some time pressure to the final scenes. Lastly, the Millennium Falcon was originally supposed to be destroyed, though I've heard alternately that Lando was going to either die or somehow survive.
I'm convinced that if George Lucas had fully written and directed The Empire Strikes Back, the series would have flopped long ago.
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