CT Did having another Death Star diminish Luke’s accomplishment?

With all this talk of the new movies negating Anakins sacrifice, I wonder if anyone felt in 1983 or even now if ROTJ having another Death Star kinda undermines the climatic ending of ANH where Luke in a million to one shot blows up the Death Star. That scene in the original Star Wars was historic but then two movies later it’s basically undone.

 

Yes to all of that. The second Death Star in ROTJ was the worst part of that movie. The Ewoks were merely the second worst part.

Truth to tell, I do not like superweapons at all. They are rather preposterous (even in the first movie, but much more so in ROTJ and the others).

 

I'd say that TESB diminishes Luke's accomplishment even before the second Death Star. The destruction of the DS was, in a way, the definitive triumph of goodness against the evil Empire. Yet, in the next movie, the Rebels are back in square one (they don't seem to have any more resources than before) and the Empire is as powerful as ever.
Probably, if the trilogy was planned from the beginning, it would've been wiser to save the destruction of the Death Star for the third movie (something Lucas sort of admits in the commentaries, saying that he had to use it as the climax of the first movie because he didn't know if he would be able to make more movies).

On the other hand, in ROTJ the focus is clearly on Luke's personal victory against the Dark Side, so he would never be involved in the destruction of the DS (which is treated as something secondary).

 

Well, we definitely don't want anything that's preposterous in a movie about space wizards, bickering droids, and ships that can fly faster than light and make sounds in space.

 

Does creating a brand new Death Star change the fact that Luke destroyed the original one? No.

Does revealing that Luke didn’t actually destroy the original Death Star and it’s just been hidden diminish Luke’s accomplishment? I’d say so.

 

Strange, I don't remember the Empire being able to just blow up Hoth in TESB.

 

No and the reason why is because the second Death Star is incomplete. And it's incomplete state means that the Rebels can destroy it without the need of a Force-user. It hasn't destroy any planet yet and the fact the Emperor has come to personally oversee the final stage of the construction means that the Rebels have a chance to decapitate the head of the Empire.

And really, one should expect the Empire to rebuild the Death Star since they wasted twenty years of resources on this costly project and it was supposed to be the replacement for the Imperial Senate that the Emperor dissolved. Without a Death Star, the Galactic Empire cannot keep the local systems in line. Of course, investing in a second Death Star would be a costly gamble. If it's complete and goes on a planet killing tour, then Luke's efforts were for naught. But if it gets destroyed again, then the Empire would be permanently crippled and possibly go bankrupt considering how much resources used to build a Death Star would have been used for an Imperial Starfleet.

In fact, that's the reason why the Empire was dismantled within a year according to the Disney EU (or why Lucas showcased the celebration on Coruscant).

 

Just as a side note - it is meant to look incomplete, but at the same time it is a "fully armed and operational battle station" - and the bait being used to lure the whole Rebel fleet, of course.

Without Han's resourcefulness in destroying the shield generator, the rebels really might have been decimated, regardless of what happened with Luke in the throne room. So one could argue that the rebels' ultimate victory in the Battle of Endor is more due to Han and Chewie (who commandeered the AT-ST) than to any Force users.

 

Kind of?

I think more than anything it just shows the hubris of the Empire and the Emperor. They thought they had this perfect piece of weaponry and it is destroyed by a "one in a million" shot by some random farm boy. In ROTJ the Emperor reveals it was his plan all along to have the rebel fleet attack a Death Star that they don't realize is fully operational (he also decides to use that plan once again in TROS). He's determined to make his plan work rather than focus on the mistakes of the first DS. It's the Emperor's lust for the ultimate power as he looks to create a weapon that can destroy a planet at the "push of a button". And with the station not even fully built, he knows it has its flaws, but he pushes on with it anyways.

I do think the trench run in ANH is still fantastic and still holds up for me even with the knowledge that they build a DSII. To me the destruction of the first DS made it possible for the rebellion to grow and take on fleets of the Empire while also defeating a new weaponized space station.

 

Luke called it.

 

But there's a reason why the Shield Deflector is needed. Without it, the Death Star can be destroyed, this time without a lucky one to a million shot. And thus the second Death Star cannot travel to every Rebel Alliance planet and blow it up. Thus galaxy was never truly threatened by the second Death Star unlike the first.

 

It's all part of the ruse. Mon Mothma explained that "with the Imperial fleet spread throughout the galaxy, this new Death Star is relatively unprotected". But it turned out it was all a trap and the Imperial fleet was ready to pounce on the rebel fleet. So even without a shield, it could still have been protected by a fleet of Star Destroyers.

 

Dunno, once the shield went down, the Rebels immediately dived into the core of the Death Star and blew it up. The fleet of Star Destroyers couldn't hope to stop them entering into the Death Star's gaping holes.

 

And again, without Lando and Wedge, we can't know for sure how things would have turned out. It's possible there was a one-in-a-million chance the attack would be successful.

 

The point is that Luke's victory was not undone but rather at best on the verge of being undone but the Rebels managed to clamp it down before the Death Star truly became a threat to the galaxy.

 

OK I'll buy that for a Republic credit.

 

No, because when you think about it, it's a big galaxy. Far too big for just one Death Star to patrol. I always saw the second one as the Empire building a fleet of them in order to better keep the galaxy in line. The one Luke destroyed was just the first one that was finished.

 

No. I really liked the idea that they made another Death Star. I mean why wouldn't they? Luke was still the hero.

 

I admit that I didn't care that another Death Star was included in the narrative for "Return of the Jedi". I found it unoriginal. Did this second Death Star negate Luke's accomplishment of destroying the first one? Uh . . . I don't think so. If he hadn't, the Rebel Alliance would have suffered a major, major setback. I don't see a second Death Star being constructed in the same light as Palpatine surviving the events of "Return of the Jedi". It wasn't implausible for the Empire to build a new Death Star within four years. But Palpatine surviving electrocution, being tossed into shaft before exploding and surviving the destruction of the second Death Star is just ridiculous beyond belief to me.

 

Luke set them back. That’s a victory.

 

Although it does seem lazy to me (IMHO), I don't see it diminishing Luke's accomplishment, if for no other reason that destroying DS-1 was an urgent MUST in terms of the Rebellion's survival. Like, down to a handful of seconds, eh.

However, there were many other elements within ROTJ that diminished George Lucas' accomplishment, for sure. I swear the list grows still, with every viewing.

 

However, there were many other elements within ROTJ that diminished George Lucas' accomplishment, for sure. I swear the list grows still, with every viewing.

WTG, turning a thread that's focused on Luke into yet another pointless Lucas-bashing....

 

The thing I've never understood is why Lucas felt the need to have another Death Star. Like with the Wookiees, it was something he'd already used, so you'd think he would've tried something else. Why not attack the Emperor's headquarters on Coruscant (i.e. Had Abaddon)? That planet was in an early script, and Blade Runner showed us that it was possible with early 80s technology.

 

And I've never understood why so many among us in the fandom are constantly second-guessing something that happened decades ago and isn't going to change. When one's head canon is more important to oneself than the real GL canon, then just pretend that objective reality isn't real and replace it with what you want it to be in your mind.

With ROTJ specifically, Lucas knew all moviegoers expect the same basic thing from sequels: "the same, but different". You have to tinker with the original formula and bring back some of the things from before, but make them different somehow.
In terms of an in-universe explanation, it makes all the sense in the world that Palpatine, planning to rule forever thanks to knowing how to cheat death, wasn't going to accept a setback and would have a backup plan ready to go - except this time he'd also use it as Rebel bait, 'cause he's a sneaky evil Sith Lord.
To me both in-universe and real-world explanations make perfect sense. It might be fun to speculate what other things could have been done, but it is purely an act of imagination (and not necessarily a bad thing).

 

Part of the fun of being a SW fan is debating the behind-the-scenes decisions. In this case, it's not about head canon: Coruscant/Had Abaddon was seriously considered for the film at one point.

It went on to have quite an influence, given the many superweapons in the EU, the droid control ship in TPM, Starkiller Base in TFA, and the Sith fleet in TROS. At this point, it's almost like you can't have Star Wars without involving a superweapon.