ToscheStation

Frank your Majesty said:

I think the term universe shrinking can’t really be applied to Star Wars and Empire. What you criticize, is that they don’t establish a very vast universe, but universe shrinking means that the established world is retroactively made smaller. Leia being Luke’s sister has consequences for the other movies before Jedi, while not offering anything interesting to the plot.

Well, it’s not a ‘criticism’ actually, but a reduction ad absurdum, that I am applying to Star Wars and Empire.

First I agree about Leia being the sister not offering anything to the plot of ROTJ. That, for me, is the problem I have with it. Leia’s character doesn’t really change, and her character arc/role in the story seems like the way it would have been had she not been Luke’s sister.

Second, about consequences to the previous two films: so it turned out she wasn’t ‘really’ an Organa. Since Alderaan was conveniently (there I go again) destroyed in the first film, how much would we have really learned about the Organa’s in future Star Wars stories, had Lucas not pursued the sibling angle? This question of course also ties into whether this made the established universe of the first film(s) that much smaller.

The same thing applies to Vader’s character. My belief is that Vader was always (always meaning since the first film was produced) meant to have a ‘secret identity’, iow, he was going to be someone other than ‘just’ Darth Vader under the mask. Whether that identity was that of another Skywalker, a father of Luke (perhaps an illegitimate one, and not Anakin), an older brother, an uncle, or even Ben Kenobi’s estranged son, etc. I believe that Vader just being Darth Vader under the mask, was for the benefit of Star Wars as a stand-alone concern only.

Frank your Majesty said:

The Yoda subplot is interesting enough on its own, so most people don’t care about the setup being too convenient or not.

Perhaps. And if they do, maybe only in hindsight. And certainly not as an introduction to the series (with SW and ESB being the first films produced and released from the franchise). The only ‘consequence’ that Yoda has for the previous film (that I can think of) is for the audience to wonder whether speaking in-universe was Ben/Obi-Wan going to be Luke’s teacher for the long-haul, or was he always intending to have Luke trained under Yoda (had Ben not died/sacrificed himself so early into the franchise?)

Frank your Majesty said:

If Yoda and Obi-Wan didn’t know each other, how would Obi-Wan be able to tell Luke where to find him?

I said that them knowing each other was ‘convenient’ for the story/plot, not that none of the characters should know each other. Though, I wonder if it makes any difference whether Yoda was envisioned back then (when the OT was made) as having taught many Jedi, or just Ben/Obi-Wan and maybe also Annikin/Anakin (before he was ret-conned into having been Kenobi’s student)?

If we’re talking about story/plot ‘conundrums’ (the like of which you allude to above), this is in the same vein of making Leia the ‘other’ because, “otherwise, Lucas would have to bring in a totally new character that we’ve never met into the story”. Or the one about Lucas making Leia the sister only because “he couldn’t figure out how to resolve the romance of Luke/Leia or Han/Leia.” In the case of ESB, it was the conundrum of “who would take the place of Obi-Wan as Luke’s teacher”? He probably should have thought about that before he killed him off in the first one though, if you think about it. Conundrum aside, killing off Ben certainly made the first film work as a stand-alone.

The reductio-ad-absurdum of the Jedi as portrayed in SW and ESB is to illustrate why the ‘shrunken-universe’ criticism is misused when applied to Return of the Jedi (as a critique mostly used against Leia as the sister, but sometimes also against Vader being Luke’s father).

My larger point is that the ‘shrunken-universe’ criticism is sometimes erroneously applied to the later films (especially Jedi), when in fact in can be consistently applied to the first two Star Wars films.

To those that posit that that Star Wars (mostly the original film, but for some, ESB as well) had a ‘big-universe’ until ROJT shrunk it with that Leia sister nonsense: Obi-Wan being the only* Jedi alive (not counting Vader) by the time of the first Star Wars film (and best of friends with Luke’s father at that - how convenient)…would like a word with you.

*and ESB’s ‘fix’ for that? “Okay, Obi-Wan wasn’t the only survivor…there was Yoda too!” And is Yoda just some random Jedi? Nope! He was Obi-Wan’s teacher…once again: convenient

NeverarGreat said:

To answer the decade old question, yes, I can disregard Leia as Luke’s sister, for the simple reason that there’s no real proof that they’re related. Ben merely says ‘Your insight serves you well’ in response to Luke’s intuition. He’s already known to lie when it serves his purposes, so he could merely have been allowing Luke to believe that Leia was his sister to make sure that the real twin stayed ‘safely anonymous’.

The hint of Leia’s Force sensitivity only appeared after Luke basically said that she should be terrifyingly powerful with the Force, and this tracks in my mind to how the Force should really work - if you believe in it, you can become strong in it. Even The Force Awakens doesn’t ruin this idea, since she would have had 30 years to develop some real Force ability and Ben junior would have grown up believing that he was destined for greatness.

There you go. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^This.

I started a parallel universe where ESB has no story/plot structure flaws* (like it does now), and thus doesn’t require the follow-up movie to pull it’s (ESB’s) chestnuts out of the fire…

*i.e. it actually resolves plot/story arcs instead of leaving them hanging

To Anchorhead:

Well, I was there too, back in 1977. I get it. I only like the original three movies. And Splinter, and SOME of the EU. I also used to follow zombie’s thesis from 10 years ago. I no longer do so. It’s occurred to me that, while the characters from the original film not being related to each may or may not hold an appealing asthetic, it’s very possible that this ‘non-relatedness’ was only put there by Lucas as an ‘insurance policy’ to make Star Wars work as a stand-alone film, should it bomb and no sequels get made. And let’s be clear: it’s been revealed from research (that wasn’t available when zombie did his book) that Lucas was planning sequels as early as December of 1975, one of in which we would learn “who Darth Vader is”. And as I’ve said before, in this original version, Vader as Luke’s father didn’t necessarily entail him being the same person as the father character (Annikin/Anakin or “Tan” Skywalker) that Ben talked about in the first film.

Regards,
Steve “Tosche_Station”

yotsuya said:

Wow… that is some complicated nonsense. Vader is Luke’s father but not Anakin… that makes no sense at all.

Vader being Luke’s father doesn’t automatically mean he specifically used to be Anakin. Don’t get me wrong; I used to think that it did as well, until I looked into it a bit more. Vader and Anakin remaining separate people - with the former being the father of Luke rather than the latter - makes for a better explanation for why Ben and Yoda don’t warn Luke about this in ESB, and coheres with what Ben told Luke in the first film, without the whole “certain point of view” thing. And as I asked before: how can Ben be absolutely certain that his friend (Annikin/Anakin) was Luke’s (biological) father? Of course, this is predicated on Yoda and Ben - and of course, the Emperor - all assuming the Anakin was the father, and not knowing that it was actually Vader. There’s also that line of Vader’s from ESB: “Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father.” How could Vader know this? Unless…Vader knew something that Obi-Wan didn’t know.

yotsuya said:

The name Anakin hadn’t come up yet when Vader, in James Earl Jones’s voice (or in the novel if you read that first), said he was Luke’s father.

Actually, it had come up by then, but it was spelled Annikin, instead. It was in a continuity discussion between Carol Titleman and SW director or marketing Charles Lippincott dated July/August of 1977. For whatever reason, Lucas wasn’t using it in his ESB notes. Another name, that of “Tan Skywalker” was used in some licensing material from 1979 (the Russ Manning Sunday Comic strip authorized by Black Falcon LTD, an LFL subsidiary). Otherwise, he kept Luke’s father as a nameless character, until ROTJ, when he finally decided upon Anakin.

yotsuya said:

We have no idea when Lucas decided that was going to be the story, but script hints at it with the consistent lack of any line at that location (referring instead to inserted dialog). We only know that sometime between the dated first draft in Feb 78 and the completion of filming in Sept 79 that Vader was Luke’s father. It could have been earlier (and not included in what he gave Leigh Brackett on the story), but we really don’t know. It was almost certainly in the script that the novelization writer worked off of, but that was about the same time.

In my opinion, what I think is more improbable/ludicrous (or what you would call, “nonsense”) is the idea that Lucas suddenly came up with Vader=Anakin, in the Spring of 1978 (the period you refer to), with no prior precedent.

yotsuya said:

Lucas claims he had that in mind from earlier, but with his track record at reconning the past, he can’t be completely trusted. But, others can. Hamill, Kershner, and Kasdan had no reason to lie and according to them it was intended that way from Hamill’s performance on set and had been that way in the full screenplay (not the shooting copies given to the crew) for quite some time. The earlier drafts of the screenplay bear this out by having a reference to inserted dialog.

All that says is that they were told that Vader would claim to be Luke’s father…still a far cry from establishing that he’s the same father character that Ben talked about in the first film, or the Anakin of ROTJ.

yotsuya said:

According to the book Star Wars: The Annotated Scripts (by Laurent Bouzereau), it was the second draft that had the first version of the iconic “I am your father” scene. That was the draft Lucas did himself before Kasdan came on board. This doesn’t quite back Lucas up, but it does place it very early in the story development.

Yes, and in this same draft, Yoda still tells Luke that his father and Ben were both his students and that they trained on the bog planet, just like he says in the first draft. Vader was still being said to have been Ben’s student. So even with Vader being Luke’s father, he most likely wasn’t supposed to be the same father character that Ben talked about in the first film, if that man, along with Ben, were both trained by someone else (in this case Yoda)> This was subsequently changed in one of Lucas’s re-writes (the typed version of the Second Draft), where Yoda says that he trained Ben, who then trained Luke’s father. Which, btw, doesn’t indicate necessarily that by then, Anakin and Vader were the same person. Marvel Comics, in a story flash back (from the Annual issue #1 dated 1979), took it as meaning that Ben had TWO apprentices, Skywalker Sr. and Darth Vader. The later drafts, from the Third draft (by Kasdan) onwards, dropped the whole subject of who trained Luke’s father from the script entirely, leaving that matter up to the next film. But please not that in the final film, Skywalker Sr. and Vader are still spoken of as separate people by the Emperor, and only Vader is still spoken of as Ben’s (former) student.

To sum up, it was only with ROTJ that is was established that:

1. Vader was Luke’s father
2. That he used to be Anakin - the same friend and father of Luke that Ben talked about in the first film
3. That Anakin was trained by Ben (Obi-Wan)

edit to add:

ATMachine said:

The idea of Vader and Anakin being the same person seems to date from the making of ESB, as you say. But the notion of Vader being a secret Skywalker (Luke’s brother, uncle, illegitimate father) seems to have been present even on the first film: in a 1975 conversation with Alan Dean Foster, Lucas said the second SW film was when we would “learn who Darth Vader is”.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^This.

ATMachine, I think the “stumbling block” for a lot of people on the “secret Skywalker” thing for Vader’s former identity pre-Vader, is the forgone conclusion that Anakin Skywalker was envisioned as an only child back when Star Wars was made, just like he is in the PT.

I think the very ‘linear’ proposal that Lucas came up with Vader=Anakin totally out-of-the-blue, in the Spring of '78 while writing (or re-writing) TESB, is the least probable scenario.

Yotsuya, Obi-Wan wasn’t lying in the scenario that I propose. His ‘funny face’ or hesitation is the due to the fact that he knew that Owen never told Luke that his father was murdered. In the alternate scenario (while ‘alternate’ I think it’s more probable than the orthodox version(s) we are told to believe), Annikin/Anakin was indeed killed by Vader, the twist would have been that Vader - or whoever Vader really was beneath the mask - was the actual father of Luke, or barring that, family member X. And let’s be honest: how could Ben know for a certainty that his friend Annikin (original spelling) was Luke’s father? All the story really needed was the presumption that he was. And from Ben’s point of view, with his assumption of Annikin’s role in Luke’s paternity, he would have no reason to believe that his former Jedi student was the actual biological father of Luke, whoever he was prior to becoming Vader.

The genesis of a ‘secret identity’ for Vader goes all the way back at least to December of 1975, in a story conference which Lucas held along with writer/novelist Alan Dean Foster, FX supervisor John Dykstra, and a few others (Kurtz of course knew). How David Prowse could have found out about this is anyone’s guess. However, Lucas realized in Jan of 1976 that Star Wars might only be realized as a single film, so he re-worked the script to make the movie read as a stand-alone. Thus, a bigger role for Tarkin, superseding that of Vader. And Vader - on a surface reading at least - is just Vader, and had no other name.

When SW became a hit, and actuall full-budget sequel movies became a real possibility, Lucas re-visisted the ‘secret identity’ aspect of Vader’s character.
edit: For all the talk of the orthodox version* of Star Wars (*i.e. where there are absolutely no familial connections among the main characters whatsoever) exhibiting a ‘larger universe’ until the familial retcons in the sequels ‘shrunk’ that universe, this version of Star Wars would have been a stand-alone movie that would have inspired ONE sequel, at best. (say, something in the vein of Splinter of the Mind’s Eye, except where Luke would have possibly killed Vader), and probably only ONE prequel.

Possessed said:

Well I think it was at least before post production, I remember an interview with Mark where he said George pulled him aside before shooting the scene and told him so he would know to react stronger than expected.

To be more clear, I was proposing that the idea of Vader being the same person as Annikin/Anakin - the man the Ben talked about in the first film - was not put in place until Lucas started on ROTJ, or very late in (post) production for TESB (my more ‘charitable’ estimate). Vader was indeed Luke’s father when TESB was made, but he was someone else under the mask - not Annikin/Anakin, but possibly another Skywalker (brother of Annikin), or even Ben’s son. Even if the relationship wasn’t a paternal one, still some sort of familial relationship and ‘secret identity’ was meant to be there when the first film was being made. However, the idea was temporarily set aside in order that the movie would work as a stand-alone.

Anchorhead said:

SilverWook said:

You were never curious about how much they knew and were keeping from Luke?

Not at all. Other than Beru mentioning that “he’s too much like his father”, it never felt like there was anything there. From what we’ve known since then (early script\story\characters\Original Vision nonsense), there wasn’t anything there. Owen, Beru, and Ben let us know that Luke’s father was a good pilot, a good man, and was killed when Luke was young.

They were a character vehicle to get a farm boy out in the middle of nowhere and have him feel less attached to his family because they aren’t his parents. They’re in the film to add a bit of depth on our main character.

Since Vader wasn’t his father in the 70s, there was no reason to ponder anything that Lucas retconned about Luke’s parents in the 80s and 90s. I never gave them any thought because there wasn’t anything there in 1977.

I think Luke was related to Vader in some familial fashion already when the film was made. But yeah, Vader most definitely wasn’t Annikin/Anakin Skywalker in 1977, nor even in 78 pre-production for TESB. I maintain that Lucas didn’t make that switch until he started on the third film (or, very, very late in TESB’s post-production period). A Vader who is not Anakin/Annikin but is Luke’s biological father doesn’t explicitly contradict what Ben told Luke. No certain point of view required, or “metaphorical” death, since Annikin/Anakin would have been killed in this scenario as well. There probably was a ‘secret identity’ involved with Vader’s character, but this aspect was of course muted so that Star Wars could work as a stand alone movie, should the planned “books two and three” sequels not get made. To me, that’s where the whole “no there, there” comes in.

flametitan said:

Dek Rollins said:

What?!?! I have no idea what you mean by all that. If Vader wasn’t “the elder Skywalker”, then how could he be Luke’s dad? If Ben didn’t know Vader was Luke’s dad, who was this other lightsaber wielding good friend that he assumed was his dad, and why didn’t he know who his dad was in the first place? Whoever thought of this convoluted idea is thinking too hard.

The idea is that Skywalker’s lover (Luke’s mother) had an affair with Vader that Ben never knew about, leaving him to assume that clearly this child is a Skywalker, when Luke was actually a Vader.

Thank you.

Dek Rollins said:

What do you mean? It was ESB when we found out that Vader was Luke’s father, meaning Ben was lying to him in Star Wars.

ESB could have meant many things…not [i] necessarily [/i] that Vader used to be the elder Skywalker. An alternate scenario is that booth Vader and Ben could have still been telling the truth (as far as they knew), but difference being that Ben was mistaken about who Luke’s biological father was.*

*a scenario which would also explain why neither he nor Yoda warned Luke about what Vader might claim, and the Emperor going along with Vader’s plan (i.e. the Emperor mistakenly thought Luke was Annikin’s son as well).

Bingowings said:

Okay after hearing Ben’s ‘nostalgia for Weimar’ we were led to believe that before the Empire the world was a better place and the Empire just ruined it all.
But if ESB told us one thing it’s Ben is not a reliable narrator.

Actually, it was ROTJ that told us that Ben is an unreliable narrator…

  Come on!  ATMachine is clearly taking recreational drugs and channeling 1969 era David Bowie, because he's, like, you know,  coming up with his own version of Star Wars, but not being paid by a film studio to do so!!!!

(end sarcasm)

ATMachine said:

"Who ever said George Lucas was a good writer?

Besides, in the 1974 rough draft, he very clearly stated that Princess Leia Aquilae had auburn hair and blue eyes, while both secondary protagonist Clieg Whitsun and Annikin Starkiller's brother Deak were blond.

Of course, back in the 1970s, GL had a certain amount of flexibility when it came to the appearance of his characters. Han Solo was almost played by a black actor, remember, and the first choice for Obi-Wan Kenobi was actually Toshiro Mifune.

Luke Starkiller himself was almost played by dark-haired Jewish actor Will Seltzer. But Mark Hamill, who turned up almost at the end of the casting sessions, not only had the acting chops; he also fit GL's vision of Luke as a blond Flash Gordon type.

Mind you, this flexibility seems to have evaporated by the time of the prequels.

Watch the making-of documentary on the TPM DVD and you'll see GL pass over a child actor who was clearly the better choice for young Anakin, in favor of the "cuter" (and blonder) Jake Lloyd, who was much worse in terms of flubbing his lines.

That's the peril inherent in trying to find an actor to fit your pre-existing mental image precisely. GL should have remembered the wisdom of his younger self."

^^^^^^^^^^This.   Home....freakin'.....run. 

 But..but..ATM is clearly taking recreational drugs and channeling 1969 era David Bowie,  because he's like,  you know,  coming up with his own version of Star Wars,  without being paid by a film studio to do so!!!!  

 (end sarcasm)

RU.08 said:

There's a lot to like in the PT, and in the theatre I really enjoyed ATOC. It's not as enjoyable with repeat viewings as other films, but then neither is ROTJ. Personally I think ROTJ is the weakest of the OT, and that ROTS is the weakest of the PT.

 The "weakest" of the OT is still better than the "best" of the PT......

Bingowings said:

I have never left a showing without seeing the end of a movie though my ex did once and went home leaving me in the cinema watching The Blair Witch Project (which says more about my taste in others of significance than anything else).

 Not sure if serious?

Anchorhead said: They wanted either more "Adventures Of Luke Skywalker, or something with a hell of a lot more substance than the children's bed time story he belched out.

 "Children's bed time story" would have been preferable to what we ended up getting. 

What we got was:

"Children's bed time story" that also wanted to be "War and Peace"  + unsubtle/obvious commentary on late 90's/early OO's politics + bad soap opera (redundant) + pseudo-Godfather drama. 

Scruffy said:

** My own hobby horse is Luke's dilemma throughout RotJ, and his debate with Obi-Wan Kenobi. As originally envisioned, Luke was right and Kenobi was wrong. There was good in his father, and we see that the old man is good at heart when Darth Vader's aged spirit turns out to be a kindly old man. In the revision, Kenobi was right. Anakin Skywalker really had died when he became evil, and thus his redeemed ghost has the aspect of a young, not-yet-corrupted man. I think this is due to the aging auteur shifting his sympathy from the idealistic youth to the cynical senex, but I might be overthinking it. I don't think there's anything in the LOTR EE that really reverses the story told in the theatrical editions like that.

 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^This.

Darth Id said:

Wait--we're not supposed to say "apologists" anymore?

Booooo.

 LOL!!!

StarThoughts said: and the “virgin birth” is not only pulled by the hair in TPM, but doesn't pay off in ROTS in any meaningful way.

 More importantly it doesn't pay off or have any impact on the story in the OT whatsoever.

TK-949 said:

Leonardo said:

Ok, but who's on first base?

Yes.

 No.

darklordoftech said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

I've never been fond of how KOTOR handled the Tusken-Jawa relationship. One race evolves into two new -- apparently incompatible -- species in the mere span of thousands of years?  I'm not buying it.

I agree 100%. What we're told in KOTOR sacrificed logic in order to tie two things together. In addition to not giving a date, the ANH novel says that only a few scientists believe that there's any connection between Tuskens and Jawas. The movie never gave me the impression that they're related.

Also, what horror visuals are in TOTJ?

 ^^^This.

Baronlando said:

That's still no excuse! You should all be talking about something you are unlikely to know about! 

 LOL