Are You Ready Star Wars Geeks?

Here's something I wasn't expecting that kind of gives a whole new perspective as to what George Lucas was originally thinking vis a vis the opening ROTJ scene. Or at least where he wanted things to start from for episode six (episode three originally=don't ask, it'll just give you a headache)

It's only 56 seconds, but that's enough I'm sure, to make any true STAR WARS geek wet himself:



“We had an outline and George changed everything in it,” Executive Producer, Howard Kurtz said. “Instead of bittersweet and poignant he wanted a euphoric ending with everybody happy. The original idea was that they would recover [the kidnapped] Han Solo in the early part of the story and that he would then die in the middle part of the film in a raid on an Imperial base. George then decided he didn’t want any of the principals killed. By that time there were really big toy sales and that was a reason.”
The discussed ending of the film that Kurtz favored presented the rebel forces in tatters, Leia grappling with her new duties as queen and Luke walking off alone “like Clint Eastwood in the spaghetti westerns,” as Kurtz put it.
Kurtz said that ending would have been a more emotionally nuanced finale to an epic adventure than the forest celebration of the Ewoks that essentially ended the trilogy with a teddy bear luau.

I only hope this isn't the catalyst for changing what seemd to me like a nice way to begin things and perhaps to show that little forshadowing on how things could have turned out for our hero.
Still, it's amazing to some (myself included) how something under a minute long, made over 27 years ago still captures the magic and imagination that was the SW franchise.