I think the term universe shrinking can’t really be applied to Star Wars and Empire. What you criticize, is that they don’t establish a very vast universe, but universe shrinking means that the established world is retroactively made smaller. Leia being Luke’s sister has consequences for the other movies before Jedi, while not offering anything interesting to the plot.
Well, it’s not a ‘criticism’ actually, but a reduction ad absurdum, that I am applying to Star Wars and Empire.
First I agree about Leia being the sister not offering anything to the plot of ROTJ. That, for me, is the problem I have with it. Leia’s character doesn’t really change, and her character arc/role in the story seems like the way it would have been had she not been Luke’s sister.
Second, about consequences to the previous two films: so it turned out she wasn’t ‘really’ an Organa. Since Alderaan was conveniently (there I go again) destroyed in the first film, how much would we have really learned about the Organa’s in future Star Wars stories, had Lucas not pursued the sibling angle? This question of course also ties into whether this made the established universe of the first film(s) that much smaller.
The same thing applies to Vader’s character. My belief is that Vader was always (always meaning since the first film was produced) meant to have a ‘secret identity’, iow, he was going to be someone other than ‘just’ Darth Vader under the mask. Whether that identity was that of another Skywalker, a father of Luke (perhaps an illegitimate one, and not Anakin), an older brother, an uncle, or even Ben Kenobi’s estranged son, etc. I believe that Vader just being Darth Vader under the mask, was for the benefit of Star Wars as a stand-alone concern only.
The Yoda subplot is interesting enough on its own, so most people don’t care about the setup being too convenient or not.
Perhaps. And if they do, maybe only in hindsight. And certainly not as an introduction to the series (with SW and ESB being the first films produced and released from the franchise). The only ‘consequence’ that Yoda has for the previous film (that I can think of) is for the audience to wonder whether speaking in-universe was Ben/Obi-Wan going to be Luke’s teacher for the long-haul, or was he always intending to have Luke trained under Yoda (had Ben not died/sacrificed himself so early into the franchise?)