The Plot... If you need the plot, that means you don't understand the Star Wars universe, and there's just too much to give you. If you understand the Star Wars lore, then you don't need the plot, thereby rendering this paragraph useless.
Why Its in The Dave100... How could it not be? I'll get calls on this one, ranking it so low... then again, when one remembers the ewoks, I might get calls complaining its too high. While Return is the least satisfying of the original trilogy (though better than any that came after it), it has its moments... lots of them... the battle on Jabba's barge... Yoda's final stand... the Battle of Endor (yes, yes, even with the ewoks...)... the final duel between father and son on the Death Star...
Of course, there's something about what you know now, having seen Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, that kind of ruins what you only knew then in Return. Somehow, having seen Anakin only as a half-human, half-droid, turning from evil to good at the very end kind of takes a hit when you, through only the fault of having seen the latest three flicks, think of Jake Lloyd, mitachlorians, Hayden Christiansen and Amidala dying of... a broken heart??!!
But I would be totally remiss if I didn't say these four words... Princess. Leia. Gold. Bikini.
It seems that Carrie Fisher complained about her costumes in the previous two movies. She said they were so long, you could not tell "she was a woman". Those complaints led to the infamous gold bikini. The costume became something of a running joke among the crew, because the metal framework that held the top together meant that the costume didn't move well with her. Since Fisher didn't like the industry standard solution of using double-sided tape, it became necessary before each take to have a wardrobe person check to ensure that her breasts were still snug inside the costume top (and several scenes had to be re-shot when "wardrobe malfunctions" occurred). She's actually been quoted as saying, "When I bent over, you could see all the way to Ohio..."
The gold bikini is legend. At the Star Wars Celebration III a few years back, we ran into a number of those very costumes--some of which should have worn them, some who should not have. It does have its own cult following, as exampled by this website (note the instructions that participants must be female)
Let's be real, here... for every guy who is about 30 to about 35, you know that you discovered the fairer sex not by the cute girl with pigtails in the schoolyard, or not by Ms. Martinez, the lovely teacher teaching you 2nd grade math... no, no... you learned about women from two women... Princess Leia and Daisy Duke. We didn't know what we would do with them, we didn't know what those things even were, we didn't know what made us oooh and ahhh at 7 years old... we only knew that Princess Leia and Daisy Duke were the most beautiful girls in the world. Well, them and Misty Kimble, in my 4th grade class, my first official real crush who wasn't a celebrity.
Random Trivia... Endor is the name of a place in the Bible; it's a village found in Biblical Israel's territory of Isaachar, where king Saul went on the eve of his final battle with the Phillistines and came across "The Witch of Endor". It also the Elvish name for Middle-Earth in J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings".
The first appearance of the Death Star was originally supposed to be in this episode. Lucas changed the Death Star in this movie to the Death Star Two (also known as "Live Free or Death Star") after having been forced to introduce the Death Star in the first STAR WARS movie due to budget cuts imposed by the studio.
And in a move that somewhat laid the groundwork for the next set of movies, it was during the making of "Return of the Jedi" that George Lucas fired his friend Gary Kurtz, producer for the first two movies. It seems that Lucas completely disagreed Kurtz's assurtion that audiences cared for the story, not just for the spectacle.
I could have this poster hanging in our guest room in The Cabana. It sold on eBay in one listing for $510. I will now go drink butane and eat a lit match.
Personal Story... I was 15 years old, it was 1990, and I was in Virginia, visiting my sister and her family. I was hanging out in the Coliseum Mall, in Hampton, and they were having this big movie memorabilia sale. I spent about an hour flipping through vintage movie posters, when I stumbled upon the one that said, "Revenge of the Jedi". This, of course, was the original name of "Return of the Jedi", changed because Jedi are not supposed to be the revenge-type. Anyway, the price tag said $15.00 on it. I had it in my hand, but because I didn't know how I would get it on the plane when I flew back to Atlanta, then to Dothan, I just put it back. Instead, I paid $5 for a 1960 copy of LIFE Magazine, with Audrey Hepburn on the cover. I regret putting that poster back. I regret it quite a bit.