Yeah, I had the same thought. I think my first ever post on OT.com was basically this idea. The main difference to A New Hope, like Nev said, is just to have the Death Star blow up into large chunks rather than it just disappearing in one big explosion. Luke stills blows up the Death Star, but you’re basically just changing the way the Death Star blows up a little. It’s still a big explosion either way.

And regardless of the level of destruction the Death Star takes, the Rebels will still flee Yavin when the Imperial fleet eventually shows up. And yeah, after they leave, they probably could just haul the usable remains to a secret location (Endor). So I don’t think that is an issue.

You could do a few extra things to help with this idea as well. In the ESB opening crawl, you can change the word “destroyed” to “devastated” regarding the Death Star. The first scene with Darth Vader, when he is looking out the window of the Executor, we could see the damaged Death Star being repaired, maybe a little smaller than the ROTJ Death Star.

Then in ROTJ, you would just want to change the opening call to refer to this Death Star as being “reconstructed”. During the rebel briefing, you also might need to alter some dialogue to get that idea across.

I think there are cool ideas about making it the same, single Death Star, but if you think about it, if a ship or vehicle is damaged enough, then it is basically totaled. You can scrap it for parts, but you’re most likely better replacing your car or whatever with a brand new one, rather than making the severely damaged one work. But this is Star Wars, so story comes before science.