Yeah, it's idiotic that Greedo shot first in Star Wars aka A New Hope and that we get a full-blown musical number in Return of the Jedi, but there's also a case to be made for enhanced effects, and this movie makes it. Lucas fixed some sloppiness in the Hoth scenes that had been unavoidable in the original, and enhanced our view of cloud city.

What really makes this film work are the character interaction and the acting (including Frank Oz's). Those elements were there from the start.

Say... Did they ever fix those moments in the original Empire... where R2D2's blue panels are black?

Fact: Han and Luke split up at the same time
Fact: Luke finds Yoda and essentially completes his Jedi training during the time Hand and Leia are hanging out at Cloud City and dodging asteroids
Fact: Anakin was "too old" to be trained and so Luke is clearly WAY too old

So, how can Luke get what can't be more than a few weeks worth of Jedi training and not succumb to the dark side and go on to beat Vader and turn him to the good side?

Furthermore, you'd think Yoda and Obi-wan would learn from past mistakes and not train a Skywalker so late in life.

Fact: Anakin was "too old" to be trained and so Luke is clearly WAY too old...

What I do find sort of interesting is that it's Luke, not Anakin, who is apparently the Chosen One talked about by Yoda and Mace, the one who "will bring balance to the Force". I wonder if this will be talked about in Episode 3?

After the choosen one did his thing, there are 2 Jedis and 2 Sith.
He brought balance allright...

Now, there is an undetermined amount of time between the end of Empire and the beginning of Jedi, and given Luke's apparent rise in power in Jedi, I had always assumed he had been training for some time on his own between movies.

I used to think so too, also based on Luke's apparent growth in confidence and power, but at some point over the years I started to think the time between the two movies was actually fairly short.

According to the novels, it took six months. Landa's undercover persona had to build a reputation before getting that close to Jabba.

So, how can Luke get what can't be more than a few weeks worth of Jedi training and not succumb to the dark side and go on to beat Vader and turn him to the good side?

It was a long trip to Bespin on a ship without hyperdrive. Time dilation may have a significant impact on how long the trip seemed to Han and Leia. Luke could have experienced far more time elapse, relativistically speaking.

So, how can Luke get what can't be more than a few weeks worth of Jedi training and not succumb to the dark side and go on to beat Vader and turn him to the good side?

It was a long trip to Bespin on a ship without hyperdrive. Time dilation may have a significant impact on how long the trip seemed to Han and Leia. Luke could have experienced far more time elapse, relativistically speaking.

Of course, I don't see the problem in the first place. Luke started his training, he probably progressed well considering how little he had been taught, he aborted the training to save his friends.

but then Luke would have experienced time dilation when he traveled from Dagobah to Bespin...so it would have balanced out, still leaving only a few weeks of training... and actually the MF was travelling sub light, (cuz the hyperdrive wasn't working) so that throws the whole relativity arguement out the window...

Actually, the MF travelling sublight is why relativity works. That means they would be subjected to time dilation, while Luke's hyperdrive trip and normal, slow space training would have experienced more subjective time. In essence, Luke experienced more time than Han and Leia. If the MF kept tooling around at sublight speeds, Luke could rapidly become the oldest of the bunch.

Babbster is also correct about when dilation applies. Time dilation happens when you move relative to an inertial reference frame. Jogging regularly not only extends your life by keeping you in shape, but your regular motion means that time slows down for the jogger, and you actually live longer relative to the planet! (Note that if you job at 3m/s every second of a 100 year lifespan, you'll gain about half a nanosecond for your entire lifespan.)

If the MF kept tooling around at sublight speeds, Luke could rapidly become the oldest of the bunch.

You go the trouble to give us a little relativity education and then you use the word "rapidly" in that sentence? For shame, Fiz. ;) (Science comedy is FUN! RIP Douglas Adams.)

If the MF kept tooling around at sublight speeds, Luke could rapidly become the oldest of the bunch.

You go the trouble to give us a little relativity education and then you use the word "rapidly" in that sentence? For shame, Fiz. ;) (Science comedy is FUN! RIP Douglas Adams.)

1) Relativity is true in both our universe and the Star Wars universe, thus time dilation occurs when comparing someone at rest to someone moving at speeds approaching (or at) the speed of light in normal space.
2) In the Star Wars universe, there is a device called a hyperdrive which allows faster-than-light transit between points in space, presumably by accelerating into "hyperspace." This device also somehow evades the relativity problem, probably because the physical laws in this other dimension are different.
3) A ship without a functioning hyperdrive is limited to a fixed (though large) percentage of the speed of light because, well, you can't go faster than the speed of light without violating currently understood physical laws - again, in this respect, our two universes are the same. Ergo...
4) Luke's flights to Dagobah and then Bespin evade relativity (through the McGuffin of the hyperdrive) and the Millenium Falcon's trip to Bespin does not (because they traveled at very high sublight speeds). So, Luke's time experienced on Dagobah would be longer than the amount of time experienced by those on the Millenium Falcon.

As a sidenote (which will either complicate or simplify things depending on your perspective), remember that Darth Vader had time to go to Bespin, make the "deal" with Lando, garrison and conceal his troops, send away his Star Destroyers and get comfortable before Han and the kids got to Bespin. That's a good chunk of work, even for a Lord of the Sith.

1. Since the Falcon travelled at sublight, it took years to reach Bespin. Only a fluke time-McGuffin, to be included in the next revision, allowed them to appear young again.

2. C'mon! It's the Millenium Falcon, the ship that made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs! Our sense of "time" and "distance" just don't apply.

3. During his years in exile, Yoda prepared for Luke's arrival by developing special "hi-speed Instant Jedi" training techniques. Besides, it's all about midichlorines, isn't it?

4. Han and Leia actually lounged around Bespin for a couple of months.

5. The classic trilogy may be a channeling of myth through pop culture and an extraordinary view, but it remains a film series based on old serials, and we're really not supposed to worry too much about this sort of thing.

PS- Yes, the script muddles these points by using lightspeed and hyperdrive interchangeably. This could be considered either a weakness of the script or that the people in this galaxy far, far away - because they understand that having a Galactic Empire or Republic is impossible without FASTER-than-light travel - simply use the word "lightspeed" as a kind of slang when talking about hyperdrive travel. I'm an apologist from way back so I'll just go with the latter. :)

You go the trouble to give us a little relativity education and then you use the word "rapidly" in that sentence? For shame, Fiz. ;) (Science comedy is FUN! RIP Douglas Adams.)

Yeah, I probably should have just linked to the primer I wrote for some advanced high school physics students and called it a day. At least, until I get the whole textbook finished. :)