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

Well that's a fair point.
But I still feel that it was better to wait for CGI to have a more astounding vision of what Coruscant and all the big buildings there were like.
It also keeps the focus of the OT on the more out-of-the-way locations, the periphery, with the PT being more focused on the "important" planets.

 

I didnt think so, I mean the second deathstar wasnt even finished.
But if I think about it now, a final fight on Coruscant in Palpatines Imperial Palace would have been cool, too.

 

IDK, Blade Runner did a pretty good job of it around the same time:

 

My point precisely! Blade Runner came out in 1982. By the summer of 1983, moviegoers would have expected something much more amazing...

 

Because the original trilogy was basically just an expanded version of the rough draft for the first movie, and the way that rough draft ended was with the Death Star being destroyed. It was the perfect climax which encapsulated all the most important themes of the series: a literal technological world of death being obliterated in a triumph of the human spirit. When he cut that rough draft down to make the first film, he used that ending because he wasn't sure if he would ever make sequels and he needed the first film to have the best climax possible.

That left a problem for the third film because now he needed a new ending. But it's hard to find something to beat that one. If you read the behind-the-scenes book you can see he tried. At one point he pondered ending it with a Rebel assault on the Emperor's palace on Coruscant, but at the end of the day blowing up a palace is a massive step down from blowing up a giant planet-destroying space station. It's not nearly as impressive, and it's not as thematically resonant. It would be an underwhelming way to signify the definitive end of a galaxy-spanning technological space empire.

So ultimately he just decided to go with the original ending, repetition be damned, because it's what makes the most sense. But he took care so that it wouldn't be exactly the same. The new Death Star would be only half-finished, giving it a creepy, spidery, skeletal look. Its role in the plot would also be different, being a deadly trap for the Rebels who in fact expected things to be the same as last time. Instead of a trench run, the Rebels would have to fly inside the treacherous superstructure of the Death Star itself and strike directly at the core. And the space battle would be of a scale and intensity that utterly dwarfed the battle in the first movie. All of this adds up to an experience that is in fact quite different from the first movie in all but the most superficial quality of there being a second Death Star.

Blade Runner's depiction of a megalopolis is stunning, without a doubt. But the prequels' Coruscant makes Blade Runner's L.A. look like Poughkeepsie.

 

I suspect the real ending for "Return of the Jedi" was Luke's confrontation with Anakin and Palpatine (until Disney spoiled it with this new movie). Destroying the second Death Star may have been the B plot.

 

I know this has been very ably answered already here but the really short version is that the Death Star in ANH IS the other Death Star. The first Death Star is the one in ROTJ.

What's so great about Lucas approach of rhyming but not repeating is that it took how many years before it was figured out that Lucas was "remaking" The Star Wars over and over again but in such a way that we generally only saw the barest surface effect for the most part not realizing how it surrounds and penetrates all aspects of the movies.

For a place that was a city on a future Earth it was terrific. It also cost almost 30 million dollars to make that movie while ROTJ around 34 million. Doing the relatively simple city in Blade Runner in comparison to what Lucas wanted for "Corusucant" (Had Abbadon at the time) would have cost many millions more to do right (not to mention they'd probably have to push the release date back).

They could have done a cut-rate version of course but that isn't Lucas.

 

I don't really think it makes sense to compartmentalize like that. It's basically that the good guys win. The Rebels win, both collectively and individually. That's it. If it had been the last movie in the saga then it would have been a fairly satisfying ending.
Nothing has been "spoiled" because if you don't think more story is needed after ROTJ then you can disregard the ST and all expanded universe material - just forget it ever happened.

 

Now, with all 9 films done, I read it as a sign of futility and that "hope", "success", and "overcoming" are all relative and don't equal "winning."

The droid army on Naboo was beaten.
The "Republic" beat the droid armies and "won" the Clone Wars.
The Rebels destroyed the Death Star.
The Rebels Blew up the 2nd DS and "beat" the Empire.
The Resistance destroyed Starkiller Base.

At the end of the day, evil had always bee present and no win was ever actually a win. Just another move on the great chessboard on which Sidious is playing.

Even when I first saw ROTJ, I felt that the Rebels' win was so unsure. It just felt like evil was still there and they hadn't won. The Second DS showed that the threat of the Evil Empire was always there and would continue to reappear, rearing its evil head.

 

With hindsight, saving the second Death Star until the sequel trilogy or something would have had more of an impact, in the same way that the Emperor was only supposed to be defeated by Episode 9 and Luke's sister was supposed to appear at a later point. If the entire trilogy was planned out, it would be huge to have the original destroyed by the end, but it was pretty crucial to make A New Hope self contained.

The original Death Star was awe inspiring, which to no fault of its own is diminished because it created a trope. The first trace is in Return of the Jedi. I think the idea that it took almost two decades to build the original Death Star is in line with how it's portrayed in A New Hope; something of this scale is unprecedented. But the Return of the Jedi Death Star would appear to only have taken a few years... had they been made back to back or simultaneously, I think that could have been touched on otherwise. We get a bit more closure that the Empire can't simply rebuild it again because of the death of the Emperor. The ending was a bit condensed due to the vast nature of Lucas' plans, but it still worked. I'm thankful that we never saw any superweapons in the prequels and the lead-up to the Death Star reveal is still intact whether you watch episodic or chronological order.

 

I do not understand that. Please explain.

 

I don't think it undermines Luke's accomplishment in SW at all. In SW it was a fully operational DS about to destroy the Rebellion and only Luke was left to stop it seconds before destroying the rebels. In RotJ, while the Rebellion was lured into a trap, the DS wasn't finished, couldn't move out of orbit, and ships could actually fly into its superstructure. No need to hit a 2 meter exhaust port.

 

I understand the sentiment that the second Death Star was built too quickly after how long the first one took but I think people don’t take this point in to enough consideration. Just because the weapon was operational doesn’t mean the station itself was anywhere near complete. And we’re not talking about luxuries like the paint job and carpet, it’s literally what allows the Rebels to destroy it. When you take that combined with the fact that the supervisor of the project complains that the deadline he’s on is “impossible” and that they have all the calculations sorted already this time I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch. And yes now that the Empire is fractured and in disarray without their leader I feel we don’t need to worry about their ability to build a 3rd so the victory isn’t undermined.

 

Diminish Luke's accomplishment? No. The Rebels are all still alive aren't they. Luke saved the day so the Rebels could go on and fight another day.

And the second Death Star serves a different purpose than the first. The orignal Death Star meant to enslave the galaxy. It was a power no star system could standup against. It was meant to be the might of the Empire.

The Second Death Star was a trap. It was bait to lure the Rebels out in one large show of force so they could be destroyed. It unclear if Palpatine meant to lure Luke Skywalker there as well. He tells Vader he did not sense Luke on Endor. If that's true then the showdown with Luke and Vader was not part of the trap.

 

Darth Sidious knew that Luke would come to Vader at some point, it's just his indulgence to the Dark Side dulled his senses, foreshadowing his inability to corrupt Luke as well as Vader's turn to the Light Side.

The whole point of the trap was not simply to destroy the Rebellion in one swift stroke but to spiritually break Luke into despair. To see that he has been outwitted by the Emperor from the very beginning and everyone he loved will die before his eyes. Once that's set up, old Sidious would then try to make Luke break the Jedi Code and murder his father in cold-blood, things that Luke has control over unlike what's happening at the Battle of Endor.

 

No! If Luke's fluke shot hadn't blown it up, what were the next steps? Blow up Yavin IV and wipe out the Rebels? By destroying the Death Star, not only were the Empire down their by a major planet destroying weapon, but the rebellion survived and demonstrated that the Empire can suffer losses.

As for the Empire building more DS, from their perspective the only flaw in their original plan was that a farmer exploited a flaw in their original design, apart from that their weapon of terror worked well - also provided an excellent bit of mobile warehousing for their vehicles and supplies no doubt!

 

It refers to the original script of The Star Wars which is essentially where the space battle ending of ROTJ comes from.

The "invincible" space fortress is destroyed by "rebels". That was the ending that Lucas then pulled forward into ANH because he thought he probably would never get a chance to do it otherwise.

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/The_Star_Wars

After escaping from Valorum by stealing an Imperial ship, the protagonists are chased through an asteroid field and forced to land on the Wookiee homeworld. There they align with the Wookiees, who are in the midst of fighting Urellians, and meet a Wookiee named Chewbacca. The group gathers at the home of a pair of anthropologists, Owen and Beru Lars, while Leia is recaptured by Imperial forces and taken to the Space Fortress.

Rushing back to Aquilae to save Leia, Annikin dons stormtrooper armor to infiltrate the Space Fortress, but is captured in the process. A largely off-screen Darth Vader orders Valorum to kill Starkiller, but Valorum has a change of heart and sets Starkiller free. Starkiller rescues Leia and escapes just in time, as Luke Skywalker leads a squadron of fighters piloted by Wookiees to destroy the Space Fortress.

Returning to Aquilae, now-Queen Leia appoints Annikin Starkiller "Lord Protector of Aquilae."

The ending of ANH aligns in some respects to the end of The Star Wars but that was also the end of the entire story before a new adventure began. Lucas often said he cut the larger script into 3 parts but that is an extremely simplified version of what actually happened done more for convenience of explanation.

 

Well I would say that the DS2 still had the purpose of enslaving the galaxy and put an end to all further thoughts of rebellion.
Palpatine wants to destroy the rebels yes but he also does not want to have to deal with uprisings every five years. So the DS2 was also meant to say "Do not resist! If you do, we will destroy you utterly."
Like the first DS.

And I think that in the eventuality that the rebels did not show on Endor then the empire still wins once the DS2 is complete.
They have their super-weapon back and this time with no exploitable weaknesses.
The only difference is that the victory would take a little more time and they would possibly need to destroy a couple of planets to make the rebels surrender.

Luke did not seem to be part of the plan. Palpatine ordered Vader to the SSD and seemed a bit annoyed that Vader violated his orders and came back. And he seemed a bit surprised that Luke was with the rebel forces on Endor. He knew the rebels were there but not that Luke was with them.

If this was the case, what was the plan? Well the rebel force on Endor is taken out by the forces guarding the bunker and the rebel fleet is then destroyed.
Did Palpatine expect Luke to be part of the fleet attacking the DS2?
If so then how did he think Luke would survive?

If Luke would not be part of the rebel attack in any fashion, what did Palpatine think Luke would do?
That Luke would be off on his own, training?
Seems a bit odd, that Luke would just let the rebels do this and not lend a hand.

Possibly he had foreseen that Luke would come to Vader on some planet and since Vader was on the SSD and not on a planet, what he had foreseen would not happen now.

Bye for now.
Blackboard Monitor

 

The point of Luke's original accomplishment isn't that something got destroyed. It's that the Rebels are safe.

 

My perspective is simple. Death Star I was used by Tarkin to destroy Alderaan. Luke destroyed that one.

Death Star II was never used to destroy a planet. It was primarily a threat to a fleet. But Lando and the Rebels deserve credit for fighting their way into the Death Star and blowing it up. The important thing to remember is that Luke's mission had changed. In ANH, he's basically more of a secular fighter. In ROTJ, he's more of a spiritual, nuanced Jedi. That's how I've always seen it. Luke was on the Death Star to try to save his father from Palpatine. I don't think Luke went in there with a plan on how to handle Sidious. But his goal probably was to convince Vader to fight with him against the Dark Lord of the Sith. The problem was found in his temper. He managed to avoid fighting him for a time, but Vader pushed him over the edge by talking about Leia. If Luke hadn't have wounded Vader and cowed him, the two of them might have joined forces against Sidious. Still, it's good that Vader decided to do the right thing in the end.

I, for one, believe that Sidious' presence gave the Imperial fleet morale. But he was not using battle meditation. He had a Force-sensitive Grand Admiral there for that. But he was much stronger in the dark side during ROTJ than he was in ROTS. I've always seen Exar Kun and Darth Sidious as two Sith Lords whose very nature corrupted their followers and bound them to their will. Kun did it with Sith and their underlings. Sidious did it with secular Imperial officers and soldiers. To me, the Death Star was Sidious' personal weapon. He wanted to use it to wipe out threats. In so doing, he would have more time to concentrate his energies on delving deeper into the secrets of the dark side. But many people, such as Thrawn, believed that developing the fleet was more important than having these super weapons, and Thrawn was not alone in that opinion.