10 Weirdest Decisions In Star Wars History
3. The Empire Builds A Second Death Star
Return of the Jedi's big hook is that the Empire is in the middle of building a second Death Star in order to take out the Rebels once and for all.
Though the Empire did at least make the second Death Star larger and removed some of the original's flaws, it was still susceptible to intrusion, enough that Lando (Billy Dee Williams) and Wedge (Denis Lawson) were able to destroy its main reactor at the end.
Both narratively and in terms of the Empire's own logic, it's an odd choice, to build a new superweapon that's just a beefed-up version of the original, albeit with many of the same structural weaknesses.
Ever since Return of the Jedi's release, many fans have dubbed Death Star 2 a feat of lazy writing, that George Lucas and Lawrence Kasdan seemingly realised the struggle to replicate the Death Star's success with a new weapon, and so basically didn't even bother.
Palpatine really should've known better than to repeat past mistakes, honestly, and it might be the single daftest thing he's ever done - which is saying a lot.