Yeah I really enjoyed the space battle but this is a valid point.
Yeah, because you guys are so invested in Nien Nunb and unnamed pilots 34 and 87 screaming into their comlinks for 3 seconds in Return of the Jedi
Those are the faces of pure investment, right there.
The space battles aren't awesome because you actually give a fuck about the (mostly unnamed) people rocking back and forth on a gimbal. They're awesome because of the way they're shot, cut, and scored.
Rogue One's battle is planned out better, shot better, executed better. It's the best space battle in the series. There are obvious objectives, they all make visual sense, you can see them happening, track the action
as it's happening even across cuts back down to the planet—and also, the way the ground battle feeds the air battle and vice-versa is
also done better in Rogue One than it is Jedi—and that's not even getting into the fact the VFX work is fucking flawless, as is the sound design and score.
You fuckin' kids and your hard on for Jedi's climax has become this recursive feedback loop of overinflated importance to the point where even attempting to speak to it critically causes you to curl up like pillbugs (or droidekas) and nope out.
"where is the tension"
Yeah, Jedi's space battle was loaded chock full of "tension." Sure. I don't know what movie you're talking about, but it's not Return of the Jedi. That space battle is pure spectacle. Nothing more. GREAT spectacle, sure. And on the strength of that spectacle alone, it
used to be the best space battle in that series.
It isn't now.