Mithrandir said:
As long as I was reading your post Bingo, the same idea you posted came to mind!
You could make Coruscant be the target of the new DS, so we all would know what its destruction would imply, but with no need of including brand new scenes to the movie. The Rebels would be desperate to save the old republic's capital.
However, you would still have to find a reason for the Empire to destroy its core. And what's more, the idea of a planet in danger of being blown up would make ROTJ even more similar to ANH (Yavin)
It might make the endgame structurally more like ANH (with the space battle) but it would shift the stakes from a small band of freedom fighters on the edge of nowhere under attack, to the Imperial capital openly rioting and the massed fleets of the Empire and the Alliance fighting out in space fighting their final battle with the threat of total defeat for either side in the balance.
Imagine the Capital is already having it's own insurrection and the Imperials want to sterilise it (and luring the Rebel's in would kill two birds with one superweapon).
Ady noticed that if you took the celebration scene on Coruscant from the SE and put a different soundtrack on it it could come across as a riot.
You have the crowds openly molesting a stormtrooper, you have statues of Palpatine being torn down.
If Coruscant was having it's own insurrection it would be an ideal situation for the Empire to set an example and flex it's muscles.
It would give make the story more of a conclusion.
The Empire in it's hubris (much like it's leader) hands the Rebels a chance for final victory but to achieve it they have to put themselves in the worst kind of peril.
God knows how it could be done though.