@doubleKO

Oh I am pretty sure it could have been done.

But there would have been no sense of scale.

It would have just been 20 extras dressed up as wookies.(and in some ways ...it would have bore too much of a resemblance to Planet Of The Apes.

As an example, look at the making of Lord of the rings.

In the battle of the pelenor fields.

They filmed Viggo Mortensen(Aragorn) killing a bunch of extras of orcs(men in rubber suits) against a blue screen.

It looks lame.

But in the finished film with a CGI filled backdrop of 1000's of digital orcs it looks awesome!That is what gives this scene a sense of scale.

That technology was not there in 83'.

+ I don't recall any of us back in 83' clamouring for a Wookie finale.

That vibe to the best of my knowledge has only surfaced in the post CGI 90's/2000's were audiences/fans are so used to seeing digital armies on huge scales that they fantasize what Return Of The Jedi would have been like with a huge wookie army.