Why Return of the Jedi's Last Scene is Darker Than It Seems

Slashdot reader alaskana98 writes: You may remember it - at the end of Return of the Jedi: Special Edition, a rare glimpse of Coruscant - the seat of the galactic empire - is shown in a celebratory state as news of the empire's defeat at Endor reverberated throughout the patchwork of worlds that make up the Star Wars universe. One might imagine that most viewers at that time might have thought - "Oh, cool, so that's what Coruscant looks like" - then went on with their lives rarely to think about that scene ever again. In a recent ScreenRant article ,they take a deeper dive into what happened on Coruscant... Yes, it turns out that both the later movies and licensed books revealed that Darth Vader's Galactic Empire survived:[C]itizens who set off fireworks, toppled statues of the Empire, and attacked stormtroopers were met with violent retaliation from Imperial forces, resulting in numerous extrajudicial killings and executions of civilians. Coruscant continued to serve as an Imperial stronghold until its liberation by the New Republic, which happened a year later in canon and two years later in Legends.... [T]he X-Wing novels mention that the Empire brutally quelled this initial uprising, and the Star Wars: Mara Jade - By the Emperor's Hand comic series showed Stormtroopers executing civilians via firing squad. Aftermath similarly describes civilians fighting against Imperial security forces after toppling a statue of Palpatine....

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