Extended Edition
Luke, R2-D2, and Ben Kenobi (who survived the first film) would travel to the rocky desert planet of Ttaz, a world of red dunes and tall stony outcroppings beneath an eerie green sky. Here Ben would instruct Luke in the ways of the Force, much as Yoda does in the 1980 version of ESB.
At one point, Ben would send Luke into a sinister cave, just as Yoda does in the final film. Luke would take his weapons in, against Ben’s advice.
Inside the cave, Luke would see a Force vision of Darth Vader approaching him with a lightsaber. Just as in the finished film, Luke would attack Vader and decapitate him, only for Vader’s helmet to shatter and reveal Luke’s own face beneath the mask.
Meanwhile, Han and Leia, with Chewbacca and C-3PO, would manage to fly the Millennium Falcon to a large asteroid, inside which was the secret base of Han’s old friend, Lando Katarn, space pirate.
Lando (who was black, and moreover a clone) was, on account of his being a clone, distrusted by the wider galaxy at large. This was why he turned to piracy, and also why Han, who had no such prejudices, hoped he could trust him.
Seeking to conceal her notoriety as a leader of the Rebels, Leia would have taken on a pseudonym. This would not avail her, however, for Lando would recognize her instantly.
As in the final film, Lando would reluctantly sell out his guests to the Empire, and Darth Vader would be revealed as being already present on the asteroid base.
Han and Leia, and Chewbacca and C-3PO, would be taken as prisoners to the Imperial capital world of Ton-Muund, with Lando as an honored guest of the Sith Lord, Darth Vader.
Han and Chewbacca would be tortured in the Emperor’s lightless dungeons. But Leia, the arch-traitor to the Empire, would be stripped and paraded down the streets of Ton-Muund, as in Roman triumphs of old.
Under the merciless eyes of the Emperor and Vader, and the horrified gaze of Lando Katarn, Leia would have her hair shorn, and be given over to the mob, to do with as they willed. In the resulting assault, Leia would be beaten so badly that she was left blind in one eye.
Afterward, in the dungeons of Ton-Muund, Darth Vader, acting as broker, would negotiate the sale of Han Solo to Jabba the Hutt, a crime lord whom Han had angered in the first film.
Vader planned for C-3PO to have his memory wiped, and be sent to the Imperial Palace to work for the Emperor. But Chewbacca was to be sold to a trapper, who would most likely skin him and sell the Wookiee’s pelt.
On Ttaz, Luke would hear his friends’ cries of pain through the Force. Despite the pleas of Ben Kenobi not to go, Luke would insist on aiding them. Just as in the final film, his compassion for his friends would play right into Vader’s hands.
On Ton-Muund, Luke and R2-D2 would be intercepted upon landing by Lando’s agents. However, Lando, knowing why Luke had come, would promptly release the young Jedi and his droid companion.
Together Luke and Lando would free Han, Chewbacca, Leia, and C-3PO from their confinement. Jabba the Hutt, attempting to make good his “purchase” of Han Solo, would be slain for his trouble.
Lando shepherded the group through the bleak and lightless underground tunnels of Ton-Muund, home of the city-planet’s laboring proletarians, and back to the Millennium Falcon. Meanwhile, though, Luke went in search of Darth Vader, for his blood ran hot at the sight of how badly Leia had been mistreated.
Upon the high pinnacles of the shining skyscrapers of Ton-Muund, capital world of the Empire, they dueled.
Luke struggled to control his rage, knowing that he could not hope to use the Dark Side of the Force to defeat Vader. But in the end Vader overpowered him by a ruse, feigning great injury when Luke merely grazed him.
Vader cut off Luke’s right hand, and with it went Annikin Starkiller’s lightsaber. As he stood at the edge of a balcony, overlooking the vast sea of buildings far below, Luke knew he had no more hope of winning the fight.
Vader offered Luke half the Empire to rule for his own. Together, he said, they could overthrow that feeble Emperor, Sate Pestage, who after all was no Force user, only a corrupt politician.
Luke refused, whereupon Vader said four words that shocked him to the core…
“I am your father.”
Rather than join his father in the Dark Side, Luke opted instead to plunge into the abyss below.
He was rescued by Lando and Leia, riding a flying air-car of the type commonly found on Ton-Muund, who caught him as he fell.
Together the heroes escaped Vader’s pursuing ships, and rendezvoused with the other Rebels at their new base, already being prepared before the loss of Yavin IV. There, Luke received a new golden prosthesis to replace his lost right arm.
In the finale, Han decided to leave. The Rebellion had become too dangerous for him, and their escape on Kashyyyk too narrow for his comfort. He would go back to his old life as a smuggler, and thus avoid the iron hand of the Empire’s executioners.
For his part, Luke said that he planned to return to Ttaz, there to finish his training under old Ben Kenobi.
Only Leia, now blind in one eye, remained steadfastly loyal to the cause of the Rebellion. Rather than replace her useless eye with a mechanical prosthesis, she would opt to keep it, as a living symbol to everyone who saw her face of the barbarity of the Empire.