I also felt Darth Vader’s redemption was a little too easy. It was so anti-climax compared to Empire.
I saw it in the theater when I was 9, and I thought it was a bit of a letdown overall. It seemed fairly obvious that Lucas had become disinterested by the end of the original trilogy. Perhaps had he entrusted Irvin Kershner with it, it might’ve turned out better (but I think Kershner was too wiped out after doing “Empire” to make a return).
I’m not sure how I would’ve handled the redemption differently (too much of what made him into a villain was the gross manipulation by Palpatine and obsession with Padme, and he obviously wasn’t thinking clearly, so how much he would’ve had to “pay” is a debatable point). Ideally, I’d have greatly revamped the script and silly dialogue for many of the other films and recast a lot of the roles — crap like that Jar-Jar Binks would’ve never been cast in celluloid, and I also thought Natalie Portman, who CAN act, came off quite poorly overall.
Hayden Christianson’s performance as Anakin was also not up to snuff, he just didn’t seem fully right for the role, playing it as a whiny teenager (ditto with the brat that preceeded him, an annoying kid you wanted to smack). His character, if judging by the “Egg Man” that opened up his mask in ROTJ, should’ve been at least in his late 30s or even early 40s (you had to rather overlook some of the problems of age in between the two trilogies, they shortchanged them by at least 20 years). A lot of flaws all around. Frankly, the saving grace of ROTJ and the second trilogy was the fantastic Ian McDiarmid. I’d have rather seen a lot more of him, and his rise to become the Sith Lord, as alluded to in that scene he was discussing in the theater with Anakin. Without him, they’d have been almost unwatchable and little better than kiddy fodder.