Mark Hamill holds a light saber in ‘Return of the Jedi’

Mark Hamill (as Luke Skywalker) in "Star Wars: Return of the Jedi." This 1983 film is where the whole Star Wars franchise began its dramatic turn for the worse, like an enormous Imperial star cruiser slowly turning in space and then crashing into a second enormous Imperial star cruiser and exploding into flame. Why, oh why, did George Lucas have to make Darth Vader into Luke's father? That pointless and harmful reveal happened at the end of "The Empire Strikes Back," and "Return of the Jedi" is the bitter and even putrid fruit of that choice. We wanted a *space* opera, not a dumb family soap opera that was the equivalent of the Kardashians In Space. Vader is the villain, get it? We don't want to feel sorry for him, like him, know him better or see what he was like as a boy. He's just one of cinema's greatest villains, that's all. Or *was* one of cinema's greatest villains until this film turned him into a cross between Caspar Milquetoast and Ray Milland in "The Lost Weekend." Ugh.