see you auntie said:
You know they added ropes around Han's feet in '97? *rolls eyes* It was a pretty silly situation in '83 but I guess they didn't have this 'rope' technology back then.

And as for the celebration scenes there has been discussion on the sudden uprising of the citizens on Coruscant and the significant population of Cloud City (didn't they flee?) which was also under control of the Empire (there wouldn't be much celebration if that was the case) but what about Tatooine?

Again it's been discussed that the planet is under control of the Hutts far from the reach of the Empire, why do they care? My problem is if I lived on a desert planet with two freakin' suns why would I be out partying in the middle of the street?

I liked when Mos Eisley was an under-populated backwater town reminiscent of a Sergio Leone western.

We saw in ANH that the imperials had plenty of authority on Tatooine. They acted like they owned the place. The imperial reach certainly extended there (and to space nearby -as in the Tantive IV battle). I think Lucas was thinking of them as being under the empire when he did the SE.

As for the sudden uprising of people on Coruscant, I think the thinking is that once the death star was blown up and Palpatine was killed the empire pretty much just ceased to exist everywhere. Not very realistic, but nor was teddy bears beating armored storm troopers with stones and that was the same film. Big discussion of this on another thread.

The "Wesa free!" in the Naboo celebration scene kind of underlines that idea, as does the ROTJ novelization finishing with "The empire was dead. Long live the rebellion." Pretty clearly that's the idea Lucasfilm had in 83 and Lucas had when he made the SE, despite the 90s EU continuing the empire.

I preferred the lonelier Mos Eisley too. Much more atmosphere.