Either way, you kind of just end the series with an old man’s face getting melted.
To be fair, the old man who was getting melted was the most evil person in the galaxy, so I don’t have much sympathy for him.
In general, I’m kind of glad TROS chose to eschew the whole “kill him and you’ll be just like him” trope. I get that it’s “part of the fabric of Star Wars” or whatever, but I’ve always thought it was stupid: Luke kills millions of underpaid, abused foot soldiers while everyone around him cheers, but the instant he meets someone who committed mass genocide it somehow becomes wrong to kill him? Despite all of TROS’s flaws, JJ realizing that idea is stupid is probably the best decision he ever made.