Hi all heres my view,
Empire is by far my favourite, mainly because its the only film in the series that doesn’t conclude something lol, set in the middle of the GCW leaving an ending open to interpretation (within reason). By far empire was the best written and directed.
-
My second favourite would be Attack of the Clones, i know, i know... Its my second favourite because its the first star wars that i saw in the cinema (i was about 14 at time of release), with the exception of the supposed love scenes with padme and anikin as there no way anyone on any planet would marry someone they met (ignoring there prior meeting where they were both too young) without insane amounts of alcohol and a quickie divorce.
Ive always thought that attack of the clones portrayed the star wars universe well, showing the galaxy during the height of the republic, leading up to the clone wars.
-
Shockingly ROTJ is my least favourite, and also the first of the originals i ever saw when i was around 13 (my parents were anti-sci-fi shocker i grew up a geek lol), at the time i didn’t get how this massive military force with literately thousands of mile long warships, and millions of troops could be beaten so utterly in 1 battle like that especially with the Ewoks leading the charge on the ground. (if you read the books or the comics you learn that the the empire wasn't destroyed simply crippled, the empire was just pushed out of power with no political leaders and a large chunk of its fleet crippled).
-
While i can clearly understand why many people dislike the prequels i would like to make the point that without the narrative and setting from them KOTOR and TOR would not have such a rich background story as the galaxies political systems and Jedi ranks were clearly defined in the prequel series, if anything those films did help to define what the galaxy is truly like lol.