Scruffy said:
The mentality of the OT, or the mentality of the OT viewers? A New Hope established what little we know of the Empire's structure in the filmed canon. And ANH was written when both Palpatine and Vader were comparatively less important than they were later conceived to be. Even after Palpatine and Vader were elevated to near-Morgoth and Sauron levels, the structure hinted at in ANH would still be in effect.
In ANH, it was established that the Imperial bureaucracy was a willful institution, only controlled by the Emperor through the Senate. With the dissolution of the Senate, the bureaucracy was bypassed or subordinated to the Regional Governors, and the RGs were given direct control of Imperial territories.The relevance of the Marvel comics take on things is that it shows people back in the 80s figuring the empire was mostly over after ROTJ. I suspect that was the assumption among most people. Certainly nobody back then gave me the impression that the empire wasn't over after ROTJ.
There is every reason to believe that these regional governors would have maintained their imperiums. Bureaucracies, almost by definition, survive regime changes unless forcefully purged. You don't need the EU to tell you that the blow against the Empire at Endor was not instantly fatal.
I think you're expecting too much consistency and overthinking it.
Why should the EU of the 80s be any more important than the EU of the 90s? After all, the Marvel era is mostly forgotten, but the modern EU has been going strong ever since Zahn. Both Marvel and Zahn worked from the same version of RotJ, both derived different versions of what happened after it, and one really caught on.
The EU from the 80s is the EU from back THEN, around the time of the movies themselves. It's a product of how people received the movies in the 80s and interpreted them then. And, that being the key Star Wars era, that is relevant.
Also, the 90s EU doesn't entirely disagree with the Marvel comics. The empire IS partially defeated after ROTJ. It fragments and loses ground and the imperials start fighting each other. It doesn't all fall in one go, but it is no longer the single unified dominant power in the galaxy.
The fact that the 90s EU caught on is of no consequence. We're not discussing here what the accepted EU estblished. We're discussing what was intended in the films. And I think most people back in the 80s knew the films' intent was the empire falling after ROTJ, hence the Mavel take on it. And I think the SE suggests that such was indeed Lucas's intent in ROTJ.
I think the tendency to believe that the Empire died at Endor is usually driven by the belief, held by some, that RotJ is the Last Star Wars Ever. If it were, of course one would want to believe that all the battles had been one and everyone lived happily ever after.
I disagree. Back in the 80s we expected a sequel trilogy and despite that we still thought ROTJ was the end of the empire.
Also, from what little we heard about ideas for the sequel trilogy, it was about the new regime, not about fighting the empire.
(I'm intentionally ignoring the handful of celebrations depicted in the SE. There's nothing remarkable about certain groups in a given population celebrating a change of regime.)
Which is a mistake. They're clearly meant to imply celebrations all over the galaxy, implying the galaxy has been freed (remember "wesa free"). And you said it there yourself -"a change of regime". Your above post is all about denying there's a change in regime. A change in regime in this case means the fall of the empire. A change from imperial regime to another regime. And with the restrictive rule of the empire you wouldn't think there'd be huge crowds gathering to celebrate the rebel victory against the empire if the empire was still ruling (right in the middle of Coruscant no less and toppling Palpatine's statue) -the imperials would be unlikely to allow it. And that Gungan in the Naboo celebration shouting "Wesa free!" says it all -clearly they have been made free of imperial rule by the victory at Endor. I would say that line may have been put in to make it clearer. Certainly it's possible those celebrations were put in to show that the empire had fallen because some might have thought otherwise.
Now, I don't generally go by the special edition. When George Lucas claims some special edition thing was his original intention I tend to be suspicious. But here I think it may show his original intention, because it fits with the impression ROTJ gave me.