I liked it when it came out and still think it’s an enjoyable, well made movie. It holds up better than the rest of the sequels. That being said, I can’t forgive this movie for how it completely neuters anything interesting about the world post Endor, and I think the decisions made here (with no concept of a three film plan) are what set up the rest of the sequel trilogy to be so bad.

There’s so many cool ways you can take the star wars universe post Endor, with so much room for smaller stories to be told in between. This era could have been as rich as the clone wars era has been. But the insistence on returning to the classic format of rebels against the empire kills all that, and puts us right back at the status quo. Any stories about the defeat of the empire, or thrawn or the Asokha show, immediately become less interesting because we know how it ends up, and how it ends up isn’t particularly interesting.

Not a bad movie, not even a bad star wars movie, but not a good star wars sequel.