generalfrevious said:

Marcia Lucas... basically invented the SW franchise

Yeah that seems reasonable.

Anyway... Having been born a year after ESB, I grew up with all three films as one complete package in my mind. So things from ROTJ inform how see the first two parts. e.g. I always think of the Rebellion as this multi-racial, multi-species, diverse alliance of worlds united against the evil oppressive Nazi-esque Empire. That links in with the Imperial Officer in ANH looking in disgust at Chewie and calling him "...this thing".

But apart from that brief line (and Chewie himself), that's not really the case ANH and ESB, it's just white-guys versus white-guys. With the aliens just these wierd foreigners that hang around in seedy space bars, or do wicked deeds for the Empire. I much prefer the expanded inclusive view of the Rebel aliens in ROTJ.

Retrospectively, I think I tend to put the lack of that element in the first two, being down to us seeing relatively small scale engagements, that 'just happen' to not include any aliens.