Most of the Star Wars films are known and loved for their action packed, multi-threaded, climactic ending sequences. In Return of the Jedi, there was a large space attack happening above the forest moon of Endor, along with an epic duel between Father and Son with lightsabers and taunting by an evil menace. The battle above Endor was paired with a battle on the surface of the planet that succeeded due to the brave actions of the Rebel Alliance soldiers (and those pesky Ewoks.) Had any one of these battles gone in favor of the Empire, the galaxy might have been a very different place in the following years.
Tag: battle
The Battle Above Endor
The Battle of Endor was the final fight in a long war of Rebellion against a tyrannical Empire. The Rebellion struck while the iron was hot and cast a fateful blow to the Emperor and his minions. In the end, good prevailed, but not without a really great space battle!
Echo Base & The Battle of Hoth
Three years after the destruction of the Death Star, and proving themselves a force to be reckoned with, the Rebel Alliance found themselves using the ice planet of Hoth as their base of operations. They thought they’d be safe on the near-uninhabitable world. They thought wrong. Between Darth Vader’s intuition and the Empire’s probe droids scouring the galaxy, it was just a matter of time before they were tracked down. The Rebels soon found themselves fighting for their lives and on the run. The scenes that take place on Hoth are quite breathtaking, especially the battle with the walkers. Of course, there are plenty of deleted scenes to be examined as well, most noticeably the ones that deal with the Wampa ice creatures.
The Battle of Yavin
Yavin IV is a small moon orbiting the gas giant Yavin. It’s also where the Rebel Alliance decided to set up camp. Most of the battle preparation scenes took place in the hangar, briefing room, and throne room, not counting the few exterior shots. The battle obviously took place in space and there were a few changes made from script to film. Let’s take a look.
Rescuing Palpatine
You have to hand it to Palpatine. Organizing his own capture and rescue to reinforce his cover as a phantom menace to the galaxy was a stroke of pure evil genius. Poor Dooku probably thought so too until he had two lightsabers criss-crossing his neckline. I’m not sure that even Palpatine foresaw what a troublesome rescue it would be, however. What we saw in the finished film was a trimmed down version. Let’s take a look at some of the deleted/altered bits from the opening space battle to the big crash landing.
The Battle of Geonosis
The Battle of Geonosis was quite a historic event when you think about it. It was technically the first big battle of what would be known as The Clone Wars. This was the first big test of the clone army, created specifically to fight wars and serve as the Grand Army of the Republic. If the clones failed their first big military test, the war might have ended right there. There were many changes from script to screen, so let’s just take a look at some of the major things that were deleted or altered during the Battle of Geonosis.