[grecy]

> IIRC one of the initial animations had a landing second stage

Of Falcon 9?

Yes, they were aiming for that, and put significant engineering effort towards it before it was deemed too difficult, and instead to focus on Starship, which is a second stage design for re-use from the ground up.

(Same story for catching faring halves in a net on a ship.. they tried and tried, and ended up just making them a little tougher and letting them land in the ocean before fishing them out.