C3PX said:
In other words, it was just like an Obama supporter's "Yes We Did!" victory party. The next day they wake up, take a look around, down a few pills for their hang over, and say, "What the fu... the stock market is still down? I don't get it? What went wrong?" Only in this case, they wake up next morning, down a few pills for there hang over, and realize, "My goodness, seems the Empire is still around! What do ya have to do to get rid of a damn Empire around here?"
I wouldn't be so sure it was like Obama's party. I wasn't at Obama's party, so I wouldn't know. But let's look at your comparision: Obama's party was the celebration of Obama's victory in the election and that victory was in A WAY absolute in effect because Obama became president -he was totally president, not partially, and he didn't have to split it with McCain. Similarly, the rebellion's victory went all the way and destroyed the empire. Obama's success DID get rid of McCain's presidential bid. Totally. By the same token the rebel victory did get rid of the empire. And just as Obama would have challenges to deal with after that, the rebels would have the challenge of building a new government and mopping up bits of imperial forces. But the empire overall was gone, just as McCain's presidential bid was gone. But frankly I think the comparison is not a very useful one. Because Star Wars is a fairy tale and in fairy tales when they have a happily ever after they have a happily ever after all the way. Totally different from the real world and American politics. In a happily ever after ending you don't wake up the next day and find the empire is still around, unlike in the real world.
Either way, this argument is going on for a humorously long period of time. Since nobody Vaderisnohayden knew back in the eighties felt that there was a slim possibility of the Empire surviving such a loss, the rest of us who were around in the eighties are obviously wrong. Besides, Marvel comics and the guy they commissioned to write the novel say so too.
That's misrepresenting my stated opinion. The fact that I never knew anybody who thought the empire didn't end was never represented by me as the primary piece of evidence with which I support my view that the empire did end. My primary evidence has always been the nature of the ending of the film itself, supported by 80s licensed official Star Wars material. And the novelization's view is very unlikely to be just that of the guy who wrote the novel. On something so big as the empire ending the novel would not likely be allowed to go off on its own route and do something that didn't fit with Lucas's intention and the official interpretation. The novel probably said the empire ended because the empire was intended by Lucas to be ended and the novel writer knew that. And we have Lucas in the SE showing a view in keeping with that supposition. So it's hardly just a matter of the novel writer's opinion. In light of that and the SE, the Marvel comics' take is relevant as another piece of the puzzle and another piece of the consistent picture that suggests that the official view until the 90s EU was that the empire ended in ROTJ. And yes when all those pieces fit together they do make up a picture that suggests the opposing view is mistaken.
And it's so easy to see why the 90s EU would do the revisionist take it did. They wanted to continue the story and they were aiming their wares at an older age group than the Marvel comics or the primary audience of the films. An older age group would want a more realistic approach and a more realistic approach dictated the empire continue past ROTJ.
Essentially, Star Wars had the same, "good guys win, bad guys lose, and they all live happily ever after kind of ending to it. At the time it was filmed, a sequel was uncertain, had that been the first and last Star Wars film, we very well could be having the exact same argument now. They threw all their forces into it, a do or die last ditch effort, had they lost the Rebellion would have been finished and the Empire unstoppable. They destroy the Death Star along with the great Grand Moff Tarkin, the Empire is no doubt in a great deal of trouble, in the supposedly illogical and overly simplistic universe of Star Wars, it is very likely that it couldn't possibly go on after such a defeat...
No, Star Wars did not have the same sort of ending. The ending did not have anything like the same degree of fairytale ending finality to it. Everything did NOT feel wrapped up the same way. Darth Vader was very conspicuously not dead, nor was the emperor. Star Wars did NOT have a totally happily ever after feeling to it. It felt like they'd made significant progress toward a final victory, not like they'd had their final victory and ended the war. If Star Wars was the only Star Wars film I would certainly not be here arguing that the empire ended with the film. Notably, the novelization doesn't argue that either.
Furthermore, on another thread you yourself argued that ROTJ was more illogical and simplistic than previous Star Wars films (re the ewoks killing imperial troopers with sticks and stones). ROTJ was more kid-oriented and made less attempt to be logical and realistic than Star Wars. A totally happily ever after ending fit ROTJ more than ANH. ROTJ was made in 83, but Star Wars was made in the 70s, which was a decade of edgy filmmaking. Working by ANH's standards, it's very clear that the empire could and would continue after the destruction of the first death star. And judging by ROTJ's different standards, it's clear that the empire was over after the destruction of the second death star.
ANH did NOT give a totally happily ever after all-is-wrapped message at the end. ROTJ did.
I am not saying the end of ROTJ was beyond a doubt not the end of the Empire, I am just saying it was left open enough where it could have gone either way, it never felt like it was written in stone. Obviously, with the SE, George indicates that he intended it to be the immediate end of the Empire, but George intended a lot of faggy things. He also approved and made lots money off of many books that contradicted his intentions of a magical spontaniously ending Empire.
The question of whether the empire was destroyed was only left open if you based your reading of the film's ending on logic and realism. But if you read it emotionally and took into consideration that this was a film in which teddy bears armed with sticks and stones killed trained soldiers in advanced armor, then it was not so open -then the definite ending of the empire was clearly implied. And I don't see the justification in ignoring Lucas's intentions with regard to this. It's one thing to ignore his intentions with regard to stuff that didn't make it into the films, or to ignore his intentions from a later time past his creative prime. But this intention of his was expressed and communicated in the film by the nature of the ending scenes. Lucas's intent is thus the intent with which that ending was created. It is correct to interpret the scene the way the artist intended and read into it the message he intended it to convey.
And while we can disapprove of him making money off an EU the stories of which he doesn't seem to feel bound to, the fact that he does so is irrelevant to the question at hand. Lucas has made it clear he considers the EU a separate universe and he's let the EU creators go off and do their thing. In doing their thing they went in a direction at odds with his intent for the film. That certainly does not in any way lessen the standing of his intent for the film.
Personally, I'd prefer to go with the more reasonable idea that it didn't end there, just as I personally like to remember a Sarlacc that looked like a giant snatch rather than a Venus fly trap, a Luke who falls to his presumed death without screaming like a pansy, a Threepio that was part of an assembly line rathet than build by a nine year old, and a wise old sage-like Yoda who doesn't spaz out and do crazy acrobatics and fight with a half length lightsaber.
But all those other things you list are later revisionist takes. None of that stuff was in the original films. Whereas ROTJ's totally happily ever after ending (with its implication of the empire being over) WAS in the original films and it's clear that it was Lucas's original intent. We don't know that any of the other things were Lucas's original intent and if they were, well, had they been done back in the 80s or 70s they probably would have been done very differently from the way they ended up in the SE and PT (in other words I very much doubt his original intent envisioned precisely what we ended up with in those things). Whereas ROTJ's empire-is-ended implication WAS done in the 80s and was spelled out in the official novelization for good measure. It's not in the same category as those other things. Indeed, the revisionist intent in that case was the 90s EU's continuation of the empire, as revisionist and invalid as any SE/PT garbage.
I hope I'm not annoying anybody by arguing my view on this. I just believe the point I'm arguing is an essential part of the story of Star Wars. And also I can remember being annoyed in the early 90s when I read Zahn's books and found he had the empire still a major force so many years after the battle of Endor. Mostly I was ok with Zahn's books, but that bit struck me as a perversion of the story.
