Nanner Split said:
In regards to the "Tatooine being under the Empire's control" discussion, I always thought that it was outside of Imperial control, and the only reason the stormtroopers were there was because they were sent to hunt for the droids. Because ANH is the only film where we actually see any sort of Republic/Imperial troops on the planet, isn't it?

It's inside imperial control, because in the screenplay (and deleted scenes I think) Biggs suggests that the empire might take over the Lars farm. Biggs points out that the empire is nationalizing commerce in the core systems and says it won't be long before Owen is just a tenant slaving for the empire. This implies Tatooine is in the empire's area of control. If they were outside imperial territory they would be saying "Those poor fuckers in the empire will be all tenants soon, lucky for us that we're not in the empire." Luke says the empire won't bother with "this rock", meaning Tatooine is an insignificant planet (and on the outer rim) so the empire doesn't bother with it, hence the lack of significant imperial presence.

If the Hutts or some other government had an independent government going, independent of the empire, they wouldn't let imperial soldiers go around doing whatever they liked there.

There's no opportunity to show imperial troops on Tatooine in ROTJ, it's just Jabba's place that's shown. There's not going to be imperials there. And Tatooine isn't in ESB. Tatooine is outside the republic in the prequels, but that doesn't mean it's outside the empire in the OT. The empire is not bound to stick to the republic's boundaries. It can expand. Plus we don't know that Lucas envisioned the planet as being outside the republic when he was making the OT.