Bingowings said:

I remember some kid in the playground saying that the new Star Wars film would have a big battle near the wreck of the Death Star.

Naturally I didn't believe it because the explosion in the first film turned the thing to glitter.

Then I picked up this in WHSmith.

and it had this on the first double page spread.

and for a moment I actually thought it was rather cool.

But if the explosion in an ANH edit could be toned down, the new station could be the burned out husk of the old station thus making the Death Star in the first film more impressive because it was easier to try and patch up the large chunk that survived that inferno than start from scratch.

New models and mattes could show the interior as a melted ash filled version of the sterile corridors and internal canyons of the first film.

It could underline just how much the Empire has already fallen into chaos making the final victory more plausible.

The same kid said that the Emperor was guarded by two red Boba Fetts...

This is a really cool idea actually.... the Empire in the process of restoring their ultimate weapon as a final hope to wrangle things in... it could be explained in the opening crawl and it would limit how much tweaking would need to be done.

also explains why Death Star 1 took 20 years to build while DS2 took a fraction of the time. (without making up lame EU excuses)