Lit Jedi Temple measurements and the Imperial Palace expansion

Ok we know the Jedi Temple on Coruscant is over 1km high, but how wide is its square base? how wide are the spires at their thickest on top?

I ask especially that since the retcon that it is the Imperial Palace, of which we know its entrance hall can "fit a Stardestroyer easily" I do wonder how that would work for the Jedi Temple. Given its height I doubt that can work at all, its crosssection in Incredible Locations certainly can't. And even if it has that huge entrance hall we see in AOTC AND ROTS, does that interior fit the exterior? Yeah nitpicky and same question that bugs many ship interior debates.

So, can anything here made workeable or do we have to assume this old Legends lore a goner? How large would the entrance hall be approximately by measuring visuals and comparing that to the outside of the temple?

 

Not sure about it. On one side they kept the same throne room from Legends but on the other side the Imperial Palace looks exactly like the Jedi Temple from the outside, beside a few cosmetical changes.

 

Perhaps there are many exaggerations to the Imperial Palace, depending on whatever Palpatine did to make everyone forget the Palace was once the Jedi Temple. Perhaps the interior was torn out and rebuilt, perhaps there are illusions. Who knows...

 

I would say that Legends lore is no longer a thing in canon. Tarkin tells us the Palace has a landing field that could accommodate Venator-class destroyers, but fitting one within the building itself seems highly unlikely based on the Imperial-era visual interpretations of the building we've seen to date.

 

What makes this even more complicated is the thing that there wasn't just one depiction of the Legends version of the Imperial Palace in the comics, for example. The building looked very different, depending on which artist was responsible.

 

But on the other side, could it be that there was more than one Imperial Palace on Coruscant?

 

I too think the many iterations of the Imperial Palace stem from the fact that there are multiple in a Palace district so to speak. But not all of them can contain the same throne rooms or interior so it gets complicated. My favourite is probably the McQuarrie Gothic cathedral like ziggurat version. I also have a couple of theories on how to reconsile at least some versions into the same Jedi Temple:

If you remember, there was an ROTS concept art with a crashed Venator that tore a dent through Coruscants topmost "surface" level and also cut through the Jedi Temple. It was never done and used though. I'd say, re-use it for an Imperial Era attack/accident that ruined a huge part of the Jedi Temple leading to it needing reconstruction. This allows for three neat tricks.
The first is, for the time being under construction the Jedi Temple Palace is emptied into a nearly other palace, an older building like the Palace of the Republic or such which later post ROTJ accounts for 1 alternate look. Maybe have it be closer to the Manarai Mountain range like the Zahn trilogy comic version of the Palace which had it sown unique look different from ziggurats and Jedi Temples!
Second trick, for reconstruction the Imperial Palace will have to loose its outer shell and hull revealing below the McQuarrie Ziggurat version with lots of towers and older structures that are gothic and even reach farther down below the current surface level due to having existed since old times and having been overgrown with the rising cityscape in parts so that the current Jedi Temple is only the topmost of the older Ziggurat Temple.
Third trick, in order to massively expand and enlarge the former Jedi Temple under construction, they use a construction trick that is not unknown to other Coruscant structures like the Senate itself. Instead of building on top, they elevate the entire structure up and fill in new levels below! So through lots of heavy works and technology, the Temple buried in the city around it is broken out of the surface and elevated artificially and construction droids fill in the lower levels. This leaves a much larger ziggurat Temple on top for a while.
Later only upon finishing reconstruction, a new outer hull layer is added and tower spires on top again, so it looks like the old Jedi Temple once more for ROTJ, while in fact being much larger, elevated and refurbished only into the old look upon completion again!

This retcon proposal gives us...
... original Jedi Temple turned Palace


... Jedi Temple heavily expanded with on top structures replacing towers and alterations to the side walls and entrance too give us then this Imperial Palace from Tie-Fighter, which looks like the base is the Jedi Temple with expansions:


This concept art reused to wreck the palace partially initiating a rebuild:


...Meanwhile from TPM on, other Palaces existed in the district that can be used interim:


... de-shelled Jedi Temple size Ziggurat "Jedi City" of old Palace or Palace district with the encased Jedi Temple having been a small city of various temples and buildings actually as per Crosssection Locations book!


...expanding the de-shelled temple into a spire-some, awein-spire-ing Palace in the Imperial era (image is 3BBY!):


... much larger elevated Ziggurat of which only the tip of the iceberg so to speak is the former Jedi Temple and de-shelled version, with lots of side spires and buildings akin to McQuarrie


... separate structure for construction interim as a second Palace (Zahn version)

... ROTJ version with a new shell to look like the old self and celebrate Palpatines final victory over the last Jedi one day, if only:


...This Dark Forces: Jedi Knight version again looks like the Jedi Temple base and entrance with added top structures and towers, thus likely a post ROTJ expansion to the Jedi Temple Palace seen in ROTJ! Like Tie-Fighter version it got added structures but in a different style now that resembles in color and shape more the Zahn version later on instead of the giant column add on Tie-Fighter had:


...this cover shows the Imperial Palace Zahn version actually below on the right. Only part of it as most of the comic does not show it in full but shapewise and colorwise it fits the Dark Forces Jedi Knight version's top seen from the side or another angle.


...After Dark Empire wrecked it to the ground the NR reconstructed it into this beauty apparently as per NJO: Invasion and before the Union comic showing it being under reconstruction and Jedi reclaiming their temple of old! The mountainside it is built into could well be the Jedi Mountain and what is left of it after Dark Empire and some old structures rebuild could be from old Jedi cities around it that got elevated with the reconstruction by the Empire to the new surface level. Some structures probably are used by the NJO while others are NR government Imperial Palace sections given Legends did not have the Temple/Palace merger in mind that was a later retcon only but still works for both continuities. The small glass pyramid on the lower left looks like the Union Jedi Temple part with a shell to protect reconstruction perhaps.


...Legacy era newly encased and expanded New Jedi Order Jedi Temple, separate from the freshly elsewhere constracted NEW Imperial Palace of the Felperor and Darth Krayt.


PS: Other versions from games and comics that I attribute to the various Palace District side-spires or buildings only:



Does that work for you? It gives a nice visual progression that works I think, but sadly some versions only can be made sense of outside their original timeline placement. Like the Tie-Fighter version does not work during the OT and the Mara Jade comic version also has the same problem. We can always assume multiple buildings to make it work, but I think a visual progression is, at least to me, more workeable than loosing any design at all over timeline issues. The Mara Jade gothic Mcquarrie esque ziggurate version can work actually if it is not the Jedi Temple palace but the Republic Palace from the TPM image above. The Tie-Fighter version might work if between ANH and ROTJ the palace saw another topside expansion that got removed by ROTJ for some reason or another or if the Cathedral version got slowly built out into the Tie-Fighter version before being encased and only the top reworked into the Jedi Temple style of ROTJ. Mara Jades gothic version post ROTJ also may work if the reconstruction into the Dark Forces and Zahn version actually required another de-shelling to once more show the gothic interior during Mara's comic time before getting covered in different colored hull and towers of the post ROTJ versions. Hence I could shuffle the order of the images to account for this.

How do you prefer it?

 

Wonderful post!

Especially the Tie Fighter version looks kinda similar to the Jedi Temple in retrospect.

After the reveal in Tarkin, i was directly reminded on the Jedi Temple, when i saw a picture of it, a relatively short time later, before the exterior of the "new" Imperial Palace was finally shown in a comic.

By the way, i would really love to have your input on my thread about the Kumumgah in the EU forum

https://boards.theforce.net/threads...culture-of-the-kumumgah-on-tatooine.50057079/

 

Agreed! That was an amazing post Cole, really blended the different interpretations in a most plausible and interesting manor.