12 Depressing Alternate Endings That Were Way Better Than The Originals

4. Return Of The Jedi

Return Of The Jedi is a phenomenally successful film, and the ending is a nice little full-stop on the series, even if Darth Vader's ultimate defection feels a bit misplaced and somewhat dilutes the impact of the character, but it could have been even better.

A lot more depressing, yes, but still better.

Apparently the first draft was a lot grimmer, as Han Solo was killed while attempting to destroy the shield generator - at the request of Harrison Ford - and Luke is mentally destroyed by his encounter with Vader to the extent that he leaves Leia to finish off the Alliance herself. That downer ending would have been far more dramatically affecting, and we would have been spared the awkward Endor celebrations sequence.

Luckily for Solo fans, Lucas wimped out and we got a much more happy ending than the film's predecessor. However, George Lucas decided not to go with this ending, taking a firm stance against killing off any of the trilogy's heroes. Not because of how depressing it would make the movie, mind you, but because he was worried about how it would affect toy sales. Both Kurtz and Ford have confirmed this, claiming that Lucas "didn't see much of a future in 'dead Han toys'."

The Problem

Killing off a hero was much less fashionable back then, and despite lots of suggestions to the contrary, George Lucas isn't actually an idiot, and foresaw a dip in potential Han Solo toys if he was dead by the end of the movie. Because George could never have done without those extra merchandise dollars, since he was so famously frugal about giving out the rights to his property...