Return of the Jedi's Ending Was Originally On Coruscant: Why Lucas Changed It
The action-packed finale of Return of the Jedi originally took place on Coruscant, but George Lucas and Richard Marquand ultimately changed it. The concept of a planet-wide city was initially planned for Return of the Jedi, but the world that would become Coruscant didn’t debut until the 1991 Expanded Universe (now Legends) novel, Heir to the Empire, and would later make its first on-screen appearance in the 1997 special edition of Return of the Jedi. Coruscant became a key location in the Star Wars prequel trilogy. As the capital of the Galactic Republic in a trilogy that showed its transformation into the Galactic Empire, Coruscant had a strong presence in each prequel film. Coruscant’s original name, Had Abbadon, was repurposed in the Legends continuity, as is often the case for unused concepts in the Star Wars franchise.
In addition to being the capital of both the Republic and the Empire, Coruscant also housed the headquarters of the old Jedi Order. To visually symbolize that the order had lost its way in the era of the prequel trilogy, the Jedi Temple was a massive ivory tower in a city that encompassed a whole planet. The Jedi and the Force represent nature while the dark side of the Force and the Sith Order are typically associated with advanced technology and unnatural abilities, so the former’s sheltered location showed how far they strayed from their connection to the Force. The Legends-era New Jedi Order began on the jungle moon of Yavin IV and later the forested planet Ossus. When the Jedi Order was restored in canon, its minimalist academy was built on an unidentified forested planet.
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