I like the partially destroyed Death Star idea. It could even be established in ANH that Yavin is actually Endor (just change the one line in the film establishing this), and it makes sense that the damaged Death Star would remain in orbit around the moon.
There is the issue of Yavin 4 being more tropical than the Sanctuary Moon, but you could even fix this by making the matte paintings more deciduous. Being incredibly bold, you could film one or two people in Ewok costumes and have their shadowy forms peeking out of the woods at this point:
So now there’s a reason for the Rebels to protect the planet rather than immediately evacuate, as there’s a native sentient species, and there’s a reason for the Ewoks to treat Leia as royalty, since she may have been known to the Ewoks as a leader of the Rebellion.
I think that is pretty amazing! But yeah jungle vs forest and universe shrinkage goes agaist it.
Very cool idea I must admit and how you developed it…
Last year before christmas i fooled around with the battle of Yavin Revisited and I provided Ady with a link and i am not sure he took a look at it. It was unfinished rough edit but I did really want him to atleast see some of the ideas I had even if he might have agreed with them but wanted to do them slightly differently or did not agree with them and did not like the ideas…
I am going to post some gifs of some of these ideas as I never intended to edit the whole film but i offered my take on colors already but it was fun for some ideas i had and let’s remember this is about having fun together. I will share a few gifs tonight it is mostly new or edited shots spliced in and I think you might find them interesting or I hope you do…