Unfortunately, 20 years after RotJ, pretty much everyone involved is way too old to do the Thrawn trilogy, which happens shortly after RotJ–and the roles are so tightly identified with the actors that I doubt any film following the same characters without them would have worked.
If people will buy Hayden Christiansen as Vader, they’ll buy anything. Recast with actors similar and go for it. You only need three of them, really. Everybody else is either a new character or someone buried under makeup. Given the nature of the story in the Thrawn books, it would actually help to cast new people. Then you can get, you know, people who can act.
Just don’t let George anywhere within a parsec of the production in any way and you’re golden.
So the Force is, like, radio?
There was the widespread practice of slavery. He also had a hobby of repeatedly killing people with the help of a mind transfer device and clone bodies; he had the main designer of the Death Star Bevel Lemelisk eaten alive by insects, then executed six other times during construction of the Death Star II. I recall in the EU there was a planet that as an object lesson he had all their industry and agriculture destroyed so they couldn’t support themselves, and set up a system where in order to stay alive the entire population had to go through “rituals of humiliation” before the Imperial food ships would land.
And I stopped reading a long time ago, but I’ve heard that his ultimate plan was to consume all life in the galaxy through the Dark Side. They went a little over the top in the EU. Although even in the movies there’s the destruction of Alderaan and the intent of using the Death Star to keep order; that’s like building nuclear weapons for use on your own populace. Even Stalin didn’t keep order by threatening to nuke the USSR’s own cities.
More like being assimilated by the Borg, with a greater facade of humanity.
Sorta, yeah. They explain it as also inspiring and polishing the actions of the Fleet officers. Admiral Pallaeon speculates that it was the feeling of “correctness” and “invincibility” that the Emperor provided that enabled the Imperial Fleet to do so well in battle. Without that coordination, the Fleet is much less scary. Individual Imperial commanders aren’t known for initiative.
So, the real-world imperialists at the Weekly Standard think the Empire is good, or at least are big giant trolls. This is a stunning revelation!
ETA: Seriously, *Tamurlaine *would consider Palpatine an ass.
Destroying planets to “maintain order”? Waste of a scarce resource.
Following a religion with only two members, where everyone else is chattel? Yeah, that’s brilliant. :rolleyes:
It’s more like duct tape. A light side, a dark side and it binds the universe together.
The emperor was the duct tape holding the imperials together his leadership was necessary to make the fleet work. Once he was out the Imperials had no center and were just as interested in blowing up each other in their individual quests for power as they were those pesky Rebels.
Now, THAT is the really heinous thing! 
I am sure that this was the final trigger for the Rebellion itself
“WHAT??!! No more Twi’lek hotties?? DEATH TO THE EMPIRE!!!” 
I seem to remember Thrawn commenting that the Fleet’s best commanders had been decimated by Vader’s habit of executing the top officers on a whim. When Vader and Palpatine were killed, the fleet was left being mostly run by yes-men.
But they didn’t…
Interesting article, but this bit:
is crap. Luke and Owen bought the droids, not knowing they had any Imperial connection. Luke went to see Ben, and the Empire killed his aunt and uncle. They weren’t hiding a rebel, Luke just wasn’t home (and had taken the droids with him). That’s what set him on the path of rebellion.
No, that was Tarkin’s doing. The emperor might have disapproved of blowing up Alderaan as being strategically unwise.
is one of the few times yahoo answers gives a more comprehensive answer than the SDMB
Approximately seventeen million words of crappy fanfic.
“You mean we have to go back to fake tentacle porn? This shall not stand!”
But from a certain point of view, they were traitors. Your view of things depends on your point of view. Fox News would have reported them as traitors.
Does that mean “Leia had at least three children who were killed,” or “Leia had at least three children, the third of whom died?”
I think the practice of not having shields on the fighters probably played into it as well.
Before Palpy’s death-
TIE-Fighter Pilot: I can do anything! I don’t even need shields!
After Palpy’s death-
TIE Fighter Pilot: Holy hell! I don’t even have shields on this thing!
Not quite - Pellaeon, the admiral who serves as Thrawn’s second-in-command, ruminates that the destruction of the Executor (the Super-Star Destroyer that nose-dives into the Death Star in RotJ) took out the cream of the Empire’s officer core. He cites Vader’s management technique as a reason a posting to the Executor was so sought after: serving under Vader was dangerous, but it was also a fast track to promotion, as Vader regularly opened up new positions at the top of the organization. Vader wasn’t directly responsible for the dearth of talented officers and crew, though - it was the loss of the entire ship with all hands that gutted the navy.