[KurganX]

Here's a new nitpick from me, now that I own the ROTS DVD as of two days ago.

Having watched the film again (for the fifth time by my count) and the deleted scenes twice, I think everyone thus far has gotten it wrong.

These deleted scenes (three of them), do NOT show the "beginning of the Rebel Alliance."

Rather, they merely show some Senators forming the "Delegation of 2,000" protesting some actions of Palpatine and agreeing to try to oppose his anti-democratic measures through political channels.

If not for the fact that we have a young Mon Mothma and Bail Organa in here, there'd be no reason to think that this had any connection to the "Rebel Alliance" of Episodes IV-VI at all. Mon Mothma appears briefly in the middle of ROTJ as a Rebel leader, and Princess Leia's "father" is mentioned as struggling against the Empire in Episode IV (he officially dies when the planet is destroyed).

The Rebel Alliance (as opposed to this "Delegation of 2,000") fights to free itself from Imperial control via armed resistance. They win their first battle against the Empire shortly before Episode IV, according to that opening crawl. It's possible they fought but didn't win all those years before, but still.

What people have said about these scenes is somewhat misleading. Okay, so some people who LATER became leaders in a movement called the Rebel Alliance at one time were part of the government and tried diplomatic means to halt Palpatine's crushing of individual liberty, but that's a far cry from saying that THIS is the beginning of the Alliance.

In one of the scenes Mothma even says that they're not wishing to leave the Republic like the Seperatists did (and yet, that seems to be precisely what the Rebels were doing... Leia even gloated over the fact that more star systems would leave the Empire thanks to Tarkin's cruelty).

Personally I think it would have been far more interesting to have had the Rebellion merely be a continuation of the Seperatist movement (which became the CIS, according to the EU), but that's impossible now thanks to those loose ends being sealed off.

I agree with CE that the acting in the deleted scenes is pretty awful and/or boring. So now we finally get to see the "feminine" android and the Mon Calamari that were promised! Some mention of these dissenting senators might have been nice and Yoda's trip to Dagobah wasn't bad, but yeah, I can see why these were left out.

PS: I listened to the audio commentary, and suffice to say Lucas made no attempt whatsoever to explain why he felt it necessary to replace Ghost Shaw with Ghost Hayden in ROTJ 2004. Can't say if he tried anywhere else in the bonus materials, but I'm thinking the answer is probably negative there too considering the opportunity missed. And those weird deformities on Palpatine's body? Apparently the strain of using all that force power in the fight did that to him. Canon!

[Jejef Thgaron]

No. It is not the formation of the Rebel Alliance. You are very correct. The Rebel Alliance started with a small group on Coruscant. One of the main characters most people know nothing about is Han Solo's first true love, Bria Tharen. When Han met Bria, she was simply named Pilgrim 921. She was a slave on the planet Ylesia and she was duped into believing she was a pilgrim in a religious colony by the t'landa Til. Han Solo saved her from the Ylesian colony and took her away from Teroenza, the high priest of Colony One, and the danger of the illegal spice factory she worked in. Years later, Bria Tharen overcame her addiction to the Exultation, a pleasurable experience brought on by the priests of Ylesia, and became an activist in an attempt to bring the t'landa Til's slavery to a halt. She rescued many "pilgrims" from Ylesia, which was secretly controlled by the Besaadi Hutts. The Hutt clan leader, Aruk, put a large price on her head and she was constantly watching her back. She also went after the newly formed Empire because they, too, were bringing slaves in to work on the Death Star's construction and in other Imperial settlements. This is when the rebellion started to form. Not during the events that take place in the films.