Yep, Georgie boy was definitely making things up as he went along. He never should’ve fired Gary Kurtz. ** Return of the Jedi was originally going to be about as dark as The Empire Strikes Back but George scrapped that idea much to my chagrin. Instead they went with the version of episode 6 that follows a lot of the same beats as episode 4 does. ** It’s also quite similar to episode 7. Too much repetition in this saga if ya ask me.
** If we’re going to bring up changing premises, it’s only fair to bring up the fact that the premise(s) of Empire Strikes Back/“Star Wars II” changed almost half-way into the writing process. As per the story treatment and first draft, ESB wasn’t going to leave so many loose ends as the film did. Han doesn’t get frozen in carbonite, and Luke successfully faces his “trial” - i.e. refuses to join Vader and the dark side - and is a Jedi Knight by the end of the story. Thus, the third film wouldn’t have needed to resolve what the second film left unresolved (and no need to stretch the OT’s story into nine episodes).
And Vader wasn’t going to be Luke’s daddy in the earlier draft of the script for The Empire Strikes Back either. It still stands that Return of the Jedi would’ve still been a whole lot better if Irvin Kershner filmed the original ideas for The Empire Strikes Back. But then again maybe the original Star Wars trilogy only should’ve been 2 films. Hell anymore I just mainly watch the original along with the new Rogue One nowadays. 😄
Where can I read this early TESB draft that you speak of?