Before 1999, I expected Alderaan to be a beautiful place with dewey meadows. I thought that because the only real clue was in the "Return of the Jedi" novelization, when Vader is dying and he dreams about a meadow and "his beloved wife."
I had assumed Mrs. Vader would have been born on Alderaan, and the two of them fell in love there. Then Vader turns to the Dark Side, and then helps blow up the planet he fell in love on in Ep IV. The irony.
Then Ep I comes out and all we hear of is another Bail who is up for Supreme Chancellor at the same time Palpatine is, (re-vote, anyone?), and nothing in Ep. II. Although the meadow scene in AOTC reminded me of the "Jedi" novelization.
Alderaan in Ep III is gorgeous. I liked the snowy mountains again, (hadn't seen snow since Ep IV). Then Bail bring Leia up to the Queen in the Organa Castle, (great water view, contrasting Luke's no-water view).
Although I would have liked to have seen more, Lucas didn't make the planet central to the story, so showing Alderaan just for the sake of Alderaan would have been pointless. I think a sub-point of showing Leia's arrival was to contrast Luke's upbringing, but we finally saw Alderaan mostly for an ending filled with hope.
I always expected Alderaan to be more clean & crisp in a way.. lots of blues & whites.. the shot we got had lots of grey tones.. from the view of the planet in ANH (before it was blown up cry ) it just seemed like it would be almost like a cross between Hoth & Kamino.. it wasnt what I was expecting but it was ok
Other than that, I thought Alderaan looked pretty cool. And that's just the part of Alderaan where Bail Organa and the royalty lives. In the Illustrated Guide to the Star Wars Galaxy, Alderaan is visited with Ralph McQuarrie's concept art. There are many meadows and valleys and strange alien mounds and cities carved into the planet from the ancient Killiks of Alderaan, an insectoid species that lived there with the Alderaanians before becoming extinct.
Alderaan was one of the founding planets of the Republic, along with Coruscant and Corellia and many others.
Originally posted by Canadadude
Alderaan will be put in some new special edition that Lucas will add to A New Hope. I figure it will show the people screaming in fear as the Death Star blows it away
If they do that I wouldn't mind seeing the death star in the sky charging up so we can see it from their eyes.