Anyone else totally disregard Leia being Luke's sister? — Page 8

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:
One obvious consequence is that if Leia and Luke are siblings, Vader is also Leia’s father. Vader was directly facing her in Star Wars, being near her for a long time while she’s on the Death Star, and he never sensed anything through the force?

That ties into another point of mine. If they were going to be siblings, I saw no need for them to be full siblings, let alone twins. I would have preferred half-siblings, where she and Luke had the same mother, but different father(s). And she would have been somewhat older than Luke, rather than younger, as the public script of the first film suggested (her being two years younger than Luke). But you’re right, the easiest thing would have been to have not have them be siblings because of Leia and Vader’s previous interactions.

This argument is ridiculous. Leia being Luke’s sister is universe shrinkage because they were two separate people with disparate stories and backgrounds that didn’t come together until those fateful events in the original film. Making them siblings causes their backgrounds and stories to come from the same place.

Vader’s story, on the other hand, is already intertwined with that of Luke’s father. Key difference.

The stuff about Yoda doesn’t even make sense.

DominicCobb said:

This argument is ridiculous. Leia being Luke’s sister is universe shrinkage because they were two separate people with disparate stories and backgrounds that didn’t come together until those fateful events in the original film. Making them siblings causes their backgrounds and stories to come from the same place.

So what did or would we the audience have learned about the Organa family, what with Alderaan being destroyed in the first film? Her background is basically destroyed right then and there…

DominicCobb said:
Vader’s story, on the other hand, is already intertwined with that of Luke’s father. Key difference.

True. Though, he still need not be the same person as Anakin/Annikin/the father character that Ben talked about in the first film.

DominicCobb said:
The stuff about Yoda doesn’t even make sense.

Had Ben not died in the first film, would he have still continued to have taught Luke, when his teacher Yoda was still an option? Especially if he had thought he had failed with Vader…

I guess I really have no idea what you’re even arguing.

DominicCobb said:

I guess I really have no idea what you’re even arguing.

Had Ben not have died in the first film, would he have completed Luke’s training, or would Ben have taken him to Yoda to teach?

You literally repeated what you just said but I still have no idea what your point is.

DominicCobb said:

You literally repeated what you just said but I still have no idea what your point is.

I am asking: is there an in-universe reason to introduce Yoda into the story, that goes beyond “because Ben died/sacrificed himself”?

Because he is a great and wise Jedi master?

Regardless, what I’m trying to say is that I don’t understand what your larger point is.

DominicCobb said:

Because he is a great and wise Jedi master?

Regardless, what I’m trying to say is that I don’t understand what your larger point is.

Right. So…Yoda would have been in the movies even if Ben hadn’t died in the first one?

ToscheStation said:

DominicCobb said:

Because he is a great and wise Jedi master?

Regardless, what I’m trying to say is that I don’t understand what your larger point is.

Right. So…Yoda would have been in the movies even if Ben hadn’t died in the first one?

Could have, certainly, would have, I don’t know. Again, I’m not even sure what the point of this hypothetical is.

DominicCobb said:

ToscheStation said:

DominicCobb said:

Because he is a great and wise Jedi master?

Regardless, what I’m trying to say is that I don’t understand what your larger point is.

Right. So…Yoda would have been in the movies even if Ben hadn’t died in the first one?

Could have, certainly, would have, I don’t know. Again, I’m not even sure what the point of this hypothetical is.

The point is that if Lucas only* introduced Yoda because he killed Ben off, and otherwise wouldn’t have introduced a strong and wise Jedi Master character into the trilogy, then it shows that Lucas’ penchant for making things up as he goes along was something that goes back almost to the beginning of Star Wars. It’s not something that he just started doing with Return of the Jedi. The same goes with Ben’s character. The character of Ben Kenobi was created to take the place of the father character who had been killed off in the story (as of the third draft), whereas prior to that he was to have been still alive in the story (in these earlier versions, Jedi knights trained their own children). So, as Yoda was a sort of ‘proxy’ for Ben, Ben himself was a ‘proxy’ for Luke’s father.

My overall point is that the “shrinking-universe” phenomenon is part of Star Wars’ “dna”, if you will

*Lucas himself even said that prior to killing off Ben, when thinking of potential sequels, he wanted Ben to train Luke in the other two films and then maybe have him die in the third.

Frank your Majesty said:

ToscheStation said:

DominicCobb said:

ToscheStation said:

DominicCobb said:

Because he is a great and wise Jedi master?

Regardless, what I’m trying to say is that I don’t understand what your larger point is.

Right. So…Yoda would have been in the movies even if Ben hadn’t died in the first one?

Could have, certainly, would have, I don’t know. Again, I’m not even sure what the point of this hypothetical is.

The point is that if Lucas only* introduced Yoda because he killed Ben off, and otherwise wouldn’t have introduced a strong and wise Jedi Master character into the trilogy, then it shows that Lucas’ penchant for making things up as he goes along was something that goes back almost to the beginning of Star Wars. It’s not something that he just started doing with Return of the Jedi. The same goes with Ben’s character. The character of Ben Kenobi was created to take the place of the father character who had been killed off in the story (as of the third draft), whereas prior to that he was to have been still alive in the story (in these earlier versions, Jedi knights trained their own children). So, as Yoda was a sort of ‘proxy’ for Ben, Ben himself was a ‘proxy’ for Luke’s father.

My overall point is that the “shrinking-universe” phenomenon is part of Star Wars’ “dna”, if you will

*Lucas himself even said that prior to killing off Ben, when thinking of potential sequels, he wanted Ben to train Luke in the other two films and then maybe have him die in the third.

There is no doubt that Lucas made it up as he went along. But that’s not what universe shrinking is about.

Yeah, exactly.

moviefreakedmind said:

I don’t get how Obi Wan telling Luke to track down someone he used to know is “shrinking the universe.” If Han Solo happened to be the Jedi master he was referring to, or Yoda lived on Hoth, then that would be convenient and universe shrinking.

Yoda and Obi-Wan supposedly being the only Jedi survivors, while perhaps not “shrinking” the established story universe, is still convenient for the plot and how it relates to Luke. But then again, it’s part of my overall point in this argument: Leia being the Other/Luke’s sister is no more a case of “shrinking” the established story universe than is Ben (a close comrade of Luke’s father) and Yoda (Ben’s teacher) being the only surviving Jedi in the galaxy such a case.

The writer of the story having one more Jedi other than Obi-Wan Kenobi survive the purge - and just those two but no more! - is not exactly a case of “expanding” the story universe. An expanded universe would have been that Ben and Yoda thought they were the only survivors but actually weren’t (something that I originally thought the title “Return of the Jedi” alluded to before the movie came out).

Note that when originally - per the first draft of ESB - the Other/Luke’s sister wasn’t Leia but was “Neilith” Skywalker, she was said to have been undergoing Jedi training on the other side of the galaxy. A story element which, of course, implies that Jedi other than Yoda and Ben had survived the Empire/Vader’s purge (a Jedi was training her). The story universe where Leia is the Other, is logistically consistent with a story universe where only two Jedi survive the purge (and one if not both of them, had a close connection with Luke’s father - Yoda having originally supposed to have been Annikin’s teacher as well as Ben’s).

Frank your Majesty said:
There is no doubt that Lucas made it up as he went along. But that’s not what universe shrinking is about.

Sometimes the two are connected, especially if it’s a case of a storyteller writing themselves into a corner.

I think a way to make ROTJ not feel like it’s dragging is if Luke went on a journey to find “The Other” maybe make it Lukes sister rather than Leia, and explore why they weren’t around in Anh and Esb.

Leia doesn’t need to be anyone’s sister to be their other last hope. They set up her potential Force powers at the end of Empire, the added twist is unnecessary. Then again they could have also cut out all that Ewok padding and wrote in a new character. They do go back to Tatooine after all, it would be simple.

What I’ll never understand is how someone can find a story as “rich”, “expansive”, and overall “emotionally satisfying”, a version of the Star Wars universe where:

1. The main character’s parents were people that we’ve never seen or met, and will probably never get to see, barring prequels.

2. The princess character belongs to a family that (thanks to the Death Star) we’ve never met, nor whom we will ever learn about in potential sequels.

3. A solitary knight(Ben) with no family or progeny whatsoever.

4. A villain who for all we know is some one-dimensional guy behind the mask. Nothing to his past, other than having once been a student of the solitary knight character.

That’s the character dynamics of the stand-alone Star Wars film, in a nutshell. I can’t see a story with such characters going beyond a single film.

But, they DID go beyond just one film, we all have seen it.

dahmage said:

But, they DID go beyond just one film, we all have seen it.

Yes, and they were only able to do so (successfully, I might add) because Lucas and co. introduced - or rather, re-introduced - connections (yes, familial) between the characters that made it more…breathable…instead of the somewhat ‘claustrophobic’ feel of the original film within the stand-alone movie paradigm.

ToscheStation said:

…instead of the somewhat ‘claustrophobic’ feel of the original film within the stand-alone movie paradigm.

ANH stands on its own, and does it brilliantly.