I watched the trilogy at an age where there was zero chance of me retaining anything about them, but I did manage to catch them all much later on VHS. These were the last ever printings of the non-enhanced theatrical films, which George Lucas got right the first time, and I refuse to ever watch his Enhancimicated Edition manglings and for that reason can never watch these movies again. So I don’t really have much to say other than “nice popcorn flicks, 8/10 across the board, yes, even that one”.
I will like to say that I never got all the big controversies, all of which were justifiable or at least understandable. So I’m just going to say my piece here, and you can all dissect or ignore them as you will. Okay, here goes.
The reason we start in the “middle” of the story is that the “beginning” would’ve been boring. Remember, this was an era where entertainment was limited (especially outside of big cities) and movies were only available in theaters for limited runs. Lucas had one shot at this and was not going to waste everyone’s time with trade disputes or Senate debates or philosophical musings. It’s Star Wars, so let’s get straight to the ding-dang warring.
R2-D2 and C3PO are standard droid models (astromech and protocol, respectively), and it would’ve been many years since Obi-Wan had last seen them, so it’s perfectly plausible that he would have forgotten about them, or at least not recognized them right away. Plus, it is completely true that he never owned a droid. 
Assuming that Han wasn’t just yanking Obi-Wan’s chain about the Kessel Run, the simplest explanation is that the more direct path a ship takes, the more dangers it runs into, so being able to take much shorter run without destroying the ship is a mark of skill. This exact scenario shows up in one of the Lone Wolf books (Voyage of the Moonstone).
Greedo fell victim to an old movie cliche, the Fallacy of the Talking Killer (shout out to Roger Ebert, who didn’t get nearly enough credit in life). He was going to kill Han. He had every intention of doing so. He was never going to spare his life. That he never fired was a mark of hopeless incompetence (and, in contrast, Han’s coolness and control of the situation), not a willingness to negotiate. All of this was incredibly obvious. There was no need to “justify” Han’s actions by butchering the scene to make it appear that Greedo shot first, which does nothing but make Han look like a hopeless incompetent who just happened to be incredibly lucky. (Also, it makes zero sense that Jabba would declare Han out of chances, then give him One Last Chance outside the cantina, which is another reason I’m not touching the Deluxibimmafraggatory-whatever Editions. 
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Leia kissed Luke to get Han’s goat (and it was quick and perfunctory, with zero romance; I watched it numerous times, I know this, don’t @ me) not knowing that they were related. In fact, even Lucas himself did not know at the time that they would be related. The reason he decided later on that they were related was that he did not anticipate Han developing a romance with Leia (and ultimately marrying her), which meant that the hero would not get the girl in the end, and making them family was the only justification he could think of for that.
Vader claimed to be Luke’s father, 1. with no evidence, and 2. directly contradicting what Obi-Wan…who had no established motivation for deceiving Luke…said in the previous movie. It was painfully obvious that Lucas wanted to end the movie on a real bombshell but wasn’t certain if he wanted to follow through on it. Following trends, gauging audience reaction, and making it up as he goes along. All part of moviemaking.
Boba Fett caught fire because his action figure was part of a special promotion and not available in stores, and that made the character seem special. There were never plans to give a generic bounty hunter a big role in the movies (and personally I think his inclusion in the Clone Wars was a bit heavy-handed).
It’s not a “Mind Trick”. No Jedi calls it a Mind Trick. Obi-Wan never used the term; all he said was that the Force can have a powerful effect on the weak-minded. It was only used by Jabba The Hutt (and later Watto), so it’s most likely a Tatooine-specific slang term. At least one game calls the power as Force Persuasion, but I don’t know if that’s canon.
The Ewoks made perfect sense. Aside from the marketability factor (and I realize I’m veering into subjectivity here), what made Chewbacca cool was that idea that he was not like other Wookies. There’s no way a big hairy brute who could only speak primitive sounds should be able to communicate with people, fly a ship, handle ranged weapons, or pilot an AT-ST, he could, and that’s what made him cool. If you show an entire Wookie community on the moon, either they’re also miraculous linguists, expert pilots, trained gunners etc., taking away everything that made Chewbacca special, or they really are just a bunch of noisy sasquatches and they’re neither interesting nor sympathetic. Besides, small and primitive but full of lethal cunning fits better with the Vietcong-against-the-American-military theme Lucas was going for.
Of course Force Lightning takes forever. That’s the point! The Emperor was furious at Luke’s defiance and wanted to make his end as painful as possible. If he wanted to end him quickly, a Force choke or simply throwing him down that shaft would’ve done the job nicely.
). I just reject the idea that they were absolutely needed in ROTJ and the decision for a more kid-friendly race was this humungous mistake that wrecked the movie. A confrontation between Wookies and the Empire would’ve been (in all likelihood) a conventional, straight up steel-against-steel battle, and while that would’ve worked okay, it wouldn’t have had the same impact as a resourceful little band of munchkins defying the odds.
