I've just watched The Empire Strikes Back for the first time in a while and noticed two things at the end of the movie that don't really make sense to me. (I mean, of course there are unrealistic things in Star Wars, but these for some reason stick out to me) At the end when Luke gets his hand repaired at a location that's supposed to be near the very outer rim of the galaxy, he and Leia and C-3PO and R2-D2 look out the window. There is a galaxy shown, and even though it is big and bright, it seems that where they are, they'd be well beyond the outer rim of the galaxy...like basically outside the galaxy entirely. Was this just a naive mistake of the generation of the galaxy image? And then we see the Millennium Falcon (Lando and Chewy) taking off to go back inward towards the galaxy, but we see the ship fly totally above the galaxy and out of the top left hand corner of the screen. I know that the scale of the galaxy is obviously huge and this could just be a perspective issue, but still it just seems weird...you think they'd show the Millennium Falcon flying in to the bright part of the galaxy and then disappearing... Any answers for these?
I think the old EU rationalised the galaxy as being the Rishi Maze, just a unique stellar object. That would the second part not an issue, as they were still in the galaxy, and so they don't need to fly towards or away from the maze.
I remember hearing that before, too, but Canon on Wookieepedia states that the Rishi Maze's only appearance is in Attack of the Clones (map). So it does not seem that the object seen at the end of ESB is the Rishi Maze. http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Rishi_Maze Unless I misunderstand and you are saying that Luke and Leia actually went into the Rishi Maze, meaning they were looking back at the Star Wars galaxy? Perhaps that's a possibility
I've looked up the details on Wookieepedia's Legends tab. It seems that a companion CD-ROM released for AOTC established the bright object as the Rishi Maze. Leland Chee however debunked this, and stated that it was indeed the galaxy at the end of ESB. Yes, I suppose they could be in the maze at the end of ESB too.
I always took it as a companion or even a neighboring galaxy that it only appeared as if it was being flown to and about. You couldn't observe a ship going those actual distances because they require hyperspace.
I'd go with "this particular galaxy has very dim spiral arms" - perhaps a lot of dust obscuring the outer arms, which is why it looks small but bright.
Originally the VFX shot was supposed to show a colorful nebula at the end (IIRC, the ESB Storybook featured that particular image) but ultimately the shot we know got used. Here is the quote from the screenplay: He gets up and walks over to Leia. There is a new bond between them, a new understanding. Leia is thinking about Han; Luke is thinking about his uncertain and newly complicated future. Together they stand at the large window of the medical center looking out on the Rebel Star Cruiser and a dense, luminous galaxy swirling in space. Luke puts his arm around Leia. The droids stand next to them, and Threepio moves closer to Artoo putting his arm on him. The group watches as the Millennium Falcon moves into view, makes a turn, and zooms away into space. However, the screenplay from October 24, 1978 suggests we are looking at a sun (apparently in its state of infancy). Given the fact that we shouldn't be able to see any movement of this particular celestial object, I believe this one would be a rather realistic description of what we see (and a star being born would be a nice allusion to the idea of "hope" or "new beginnings"): 435. INT BRIDGE - STAR CRUISER - VIEW PORT - POV - SPACE POV of distant sun. The Falcon does a spectacular flip and flyby, and banks off into the stars.
