I 100% agree - I only love between 1/2 and 2/3 of ROTJ. Acting-wise and to some degree dramatically, the rest is anywhere from kinda weak to flat-out awful. But ROTJ also has a LOT of stellar costume/set design (everything from spacecraft like TIE interceptors/B-Wings to costumes like Biker Scouts/Royal Guards to all things Jabba's Palace), some of the best JW music of the OT, and intros several iconic SW giants that are 100% cool - Palps and Jabba.
It has a lot of 2nd tier characters that became SW classics - eg Ackbar, Nien Numb and Bib Fortuna. Hell, even ROTJ's 3rd tier are cool and borderline classic - Gamorreans, Ree Yees, Rancor, Amanaman etc., even if that's as much about Kenner as it is the film.
It has the heroes in some of their coolest outfits of the OT - Luke Jedi (Jabba Palace and duel looks,) Leia Boussh, Leia Slave, Lando Skiff - and has battle visuals that often easily match anything in SW and ESB: ATSTs in the forest battle, speeder bike chase and final space battle. And the face-off between Luke and Palps - dramatically, not necessarily as a saber battle - to me is often up there with anything OT.
While I loved seeing Palps back for TROS and enjoyed a few sequences (a first for me in the ST) I really can't see how anyone could say "eh, TROS and ROTJ both have strengths and weaknesses and so are kinda equal."
I think people overlook what was intro'ed in ROTJ and just generically assign them to "the OT." It's beyond me how anyone could equate that meh TROS desert chase with the speeder bike chase, or that dull/silly Exogol "space" battle with the ROTJ space battle, or the face-off between Rey and Papls with the Luke/Palps face off.
Yes, all three ROTJ leads were in poor form (both acting and physically) and often had pure cheese to work with, and some sequences or ideas show simultaneous cockiness and laziness (Ewoks) or utter silliness ("point of view" scene) in "loose ends" moments, but ROTJ still has a LOT to love, even though it's become a favorite target as the lowest hanging fruit of the OT.
