Well if he did leave it it still doesn't collide with the EU. I doubt he would let all the Jedi Archives and Artifacts be, so he removed and/or destroyed it. When we see it in RotJ it is only the same building, not the same inside. That's how I like to see it, and no one might even know what it was before the Empire.
Perhaps he was actually thinking financially?
Why tear apart a perfectly fine building which can be used for many things and build a new one instead? So by keeping i there and removing the inside he saved a lot of money. And it seems like he likes to save money as he produces TIE's which are very cheap to build, and therefore are easily taken down in combat.
Seeing the Jedi Temple still standing, brought tears to my eyes.
For those of you wrongly saying that it was destroyed - Obi-Wan and Yoda go walking through parts of it in Ep3 and find the bodies of the dead Jedi.
A battle took place in the temple, hence the smoke, but it wasn't destroyed. Why Palpatine didn't have it torn down is another question and something that will probably come up in the E.U.
Hello, Yerssot.
This place has changed a bit.
My thinking behind why Palpatine wouldn't destroy the temple is that we know in ANH that the Senate is still there to 'keep the local systems in line'. So it's obvious that people in the Senate are still fighting against Palpatine and trying to bring back the democracy.
So even though Palpatine is Emperor, he's still got problems and he's still playing games with people.
He probably keeps the Jedi Temple standing to appease the Mon Mothma's and Bail Organa's who would use the destruction of the Temple to further their cause and bring more systems into the rebellion.
In ANH when the Imperial Senate is disbanded, you might think that he would destroy the Temple then. But he has bigger problems by that point like farmboys destroying his Death Star.
It seems like I saw a screenshot of Anakin and some clone troopers laying waste to the Jedi Archives. Maybe this scene will show up in the deleted scenes on the DVD edition of ep3? I doubt the temple was actually in usable condition on the inside, and why spend funds destroying something that no longer matters to begin with?
Originally posted by beedubaya
It seems like I saw a screenshot of Anakin and some clone troopers laying waste to the Jedi Archives. Maybe this scene will show up in the deleted scenes on the DVD edition of ep3? I doubt the temple was actually in usable condition on the inside, and why spend funds destroying something that no longer matters to begin with?
Exactly my thoughts.