Will Return of the Jedi Be Rendered Meaningless?

We are a little over two months away from The Force Awakens. Given that it has been months since we've seen any new footage, six months since the last trailer, and an awfully long time since any real news, I actually haven't been thinking about it all that much. I'm not spending any time worrying or looking over web sites searching for news. I would guess we will get a new trailer in the very near future, and surely that will ignite my interest once again and cause another wave of excitement. But for now, mostly I'm just kind of sitting here noticing it getting colder and colder outside and realizing that December 18th (or 17th now I guess) actually isn't all that far away anymore.

That said, of course I do think about it sometimes, and I only caught a piece of an article that sparked this question in my mind. Let's remember first that I am not reading spoilers, I would prefer not to discuss them, but like most of us I have at least been trying to piece together some things about this movie based on the official information we have been given, and of course in spite of not reading spoilers, I still speculate in my own head. One of the things I've been speculating on of course is Han and Leia's relationship. Now, when this whole thing was first announced, them being together seemed like a given. The more time that passes, the less sure I am of that, to the point where basically I'm just expecting them not to be. What happened, and for how long they have or haven't been together, I really have no idea. I just have a bad feeling that they will not be together when this movie takes place.

That is bad enough, of course. But another thing that seems inevitable based on what we've been seeing, is that things aren't going so well for our heroes, whether they are the Rebels or Resistance or whatever the not-Empire people are calling themselves these days. Clearly, things are not good there. That of course brings another question, being how bad is it, and how long has it been bad? And has it basically been this bad all along? Did destroying the second Death Star do nothing?

Which brings me to the point of my post. If, in fact, destroying the second Death Star did not actually defeat the Empire, or even come close to it, doesn't that basically mean that the entire movie Return of the Jedi is completely meaningless? I mean, seriously. Think about it. 80% of the movie focuses on this big epic battle and the destruction of the Death Star. At the end of the movie, we're looking at them all smiling and happy, like they truly accomplished something and this long nightmare is over. But what if it isn't? What if they're just going to tell us that everything still sucked and the Empire was still basically in control of the galaxy? Then we just spent a whole movie focusing on a minor battle but then failing to tell us that they lost the war. It'd be like doing a sports movie and focusing on one mid-season game that was ultimately meaningless, but treating it like the win was a HUGE deal, but then coming back later and telling us that that team didn't even wind up making it to the playoffs.

It'd really make me sad if they render that movie meaningless. I mean, it is not completely without purpose. Luke goes through a lot, Anakin comes back to the light in the end, Leia learns of her parentage and connection to Luke, Han and Leia are finally truly together (or are they? I guess this is another thing that might become meaningless.)  But, still. Can you ever watch that movie the same way again if you knew that the "win" meant nothing? That the morning after the above photo they all woke up and things still sucked? If the prequels had come first, and we came back to Episode IV after the end of Episode III and after seeing the bad guys win and the Empire being in control and most of the Jedi dead it wouldn't make any sense to come back and suddenly have the Republic be in power and the Jedi be totally fine, would it?

I guess I'm just worrying more and more that they are going to further destroy the original trilogy. Even more annoying is that there is simply no reason to. I can almost guarantee you that whatever craziness they have going on in the universe when we get back to Episode VII could've been accomplished equally successfully without rendering Return of the Jedi meaningless. These movies are set thirty years apart. That is a very long time during which an awful lot can happen. And there would seem to me to be no reason why they couldn't have enjoyed several years or more of "winning" after that whole Death Star battle and everything, before things turned back around.

It has been nearly three years since they announced we'd be getting this movie. I just need to see it already and stop wondering and worrying and knowing for sure what I have to be enraged over!