Sure, I could be overstating the case here. The main issue is we know that the script was originally written with Vader not being Luke’s father, and very explicitly trying to kill Luke on Hoth. Later, during subsequent rewrites, Vader was turned into Luke’s father, but he still seems to want to kill Luke on Hoth. It’s pretty hard to interpret the dialogue between Vader and Piett any other way than that Vader had planned on killing all the rebels via orbital bombardment, and only resorted to a ground invasion because of the shield. I guess you’re right that the dialogue leaves some wiggle room here, but not much in my opinion. (I mean the entire first movie was about blowing up a secret rebel base from orbit - so the audience would naturally assume the same idea in ESB.)
Consider - I never had the impression that Vader’s plan was to just blow the base up. Before they’re even on their way to Hoth, Vader specifically tells General Veers (General being an army or marine rank) “prepare your men,” which right off the bat has me envisioning an occupation. Later, Veers brings up a hypothetical “orbital bombardment” unprompted, in the context of the shield’s strength - his message is “Hey, the Rebels already have a big ass shield up and it’s REALLY strong, we won’t be able to battering ram our way through it.” And finally, when they actually do bring the shield down, Vader follows up by landing there himself. True, circumstances have changed by that point, but it feels incongruous if the ultimate goal was to simply wipe the base out.
Well, I’m almost certain the original intention of the script writers was that Vader wanted an orbital bombardment, but was forced to deploy ground troops when he discovered the shield was up. I can prove this with a little “script archeology”. In the Fourth Draft of the script (the second to last draft), the conversation between Vader and Veers goes like this:
VEERS: My Lord, the fleet has moved out of light speed. Com-Scan has
detected an energy field protecting an area on the sixth planet
in the Hoth System. The field is strong enough to deflect any
bombardment.
VADER: (angry) The rebel scum is alerted to our presence. I told Admiral Ozzel
not to go out of light speed so close to the system.
VEERS: He felt surprise was a wiser…
VADER: He’s as clumsy as he is stupid. A clean bombardment is impossible
with that energy shield up. Prepare your troops for a surface
attack.
The bolded part is what I want to emphasize here. I think it’s pretty much impossible to deny that the writers expected the audience to understand that Vader wanted an orbital bombardment, but changed plans due to Ozzel’s incompetence. There’s very little wiggle room here.
Now, in the Final Draft or actual shooting script, the dialogue is tightened up a bit and some lines are removed. This happens all throughout the script, but here they specifically removed Vader’s line where he says “A clean bombardment is impossible with that energy shield up.” It’s possible Kasdan or someone specifically removed this because it doesn’t fit with the ending twist, or it’s possible the line was removed coincidentally as part of an overall effort to tighten up the dialogue.
Either way, I think this more or less proves the original intention of the writers, was for Vader to want to kill everyone on Hoth. Of course, I fully concede that the final shooting script is the only thing that matters in terms of how we interpret the film. But my argument here is simply that, in my opinion, the efforts the script writers made to modify Vader’s motivations (in light of the new ending twist) are not really sufficient to dissuade the audience from believing that Vader’s original plan was to kill everyone on Hoth via orbital bombardment. (Especially since that’s exactly what Tarkin/Vader tried to do in ANH.)
Now, I understand that you (and probably many other audience members) did not come away with the impression that Vader definitively wanted an orbital bombardment. So in that sense, the script writers successfully did their job by leaving things vague or open to interpretation. But I guess we just have a difference of opinion in how well they did this. I always thought Vader wanted an orbital bombardment, even before the Internet existed and I had access to earlier drafts. So it seems the earlier, original intentions of the writers have leaked into the final script.
And finally, I suppose you could argue that even in the earlier Fourth Draft, Vader’s line about a “clean bombardment” could be interpreted to mean something like a strategic bombardment of defenses/power-grid as a prelude to a ground invasion. (Much like how in real life, the US bombarded Iraq to destroy infrastructure before the ground invasion.) But (A), this is not in the spirit of the “evil moustache-twirling Empire” that we saw in ANH, where Tarkin blows up entire planets without a second thought. And (B), it doesn’t account for the fact that Vader specifically tells Veers to prepare for a surface invasion only AFTER Vader learns about the shield.
(Also, this might just be me, but it’s a space opera convention that space weapons are flashy but puny, in order to facilitate lengthy and spectacular pew-pew battle scenes, so I tend not to presume anyone can just nuke-the-site-from-orbit-it’s-the-only-way-to-be-sure unless they specifically tell us, even if logically you’d think they should be able to!)
I agree with this sentiment, but only for Star Wars material created during or after 1999 when the Prequels came out. In the OT, beginning with A New Hope, they were always trying to blow up Rebel bases from orbit. Yes, I know ANH was unique because of the Death Star, but this helped set audience expectations about what sort of firepower the Empire had and how they usually wielded it. In the Prequels, George Lucas wanted to have grandiose ground battles, so the writers pretend that orbital bombardments don’t exist. (The most hilarious example of this is in A Phantom Menace where the Gungans gather out in an open field like a Napoleonic era army. I always think, why doesn’t the Trade Federation just obliterate them all from orbit?)