Janskeet said:
I never really thought the whole Jabba the Hut sequence through, but I thought it was meant to be ambigious. The movie didn't spell out the whole strategy because it wanted the audience to interpret it themselves. I don't think Luke had respect for Jabba's right, he was going to do whatever necessary to get everything he wanted from him even if he had to kill everybody. That's one thing that I like about the perception they gave the jedi in the OT. They were tough protectors fighting for peace and wouldn't take no bullshit even if they ended up being a little uncivilized. In the PT they were a bunch of niave whimps.

If I'm not mistaken, in the novelization, Luke gets some flack from Yoda after the rescue for his actions in Jabba's palace, especially for the force choke.

I'm sure Luke didn't really expect Jabba to give them up easily. Hence why he was really focusing when he tried the mind trick the second time. And you see Jabba's reaction. It's quite obvious at that point that Luke didn't know how resilient Hutt's were to mind tricks (to the point that it doesn't work). Of course, if he had been able to do that, it would have been a walk in the park.

I doubt that Luke would have killed everybody willy nilly. That would have truly been something of the dark side. No, Luke was only going to kill the people that were attacking them. If you notice on the sail barge, I believe Luke lets a few of them run away because they aren't attacking anymore. If he were hell bent on killing everyone, why let those few run away?