NeverarGreat said:
Could the words ‘Father changes into Darth Vader’ be a reference to a Force vision, much like Luke’s Dagobah Cave experience? In the finished film Luke defeats Vader and his face turns into Luke’s face, but perhaps there was a version where Luke’s father appears to him in a dream or vision but then changes into Vader to represent the revenge that Luke feels that he needs to take.I suggest this alternate explanation merely because if I suddenly had the idea to combine the two characters, I would simply write ‘Father is Darth Vader’, or ‘Father changed to Darth Vader’. It’s very strange to use the present form of the word ‘changes’ since it suggests something which happens within the film, rather than being a revelation of an unchanging fact.
A couple things immediately apparent with these notes are that they’re pretty much stream-of-consciousness, and they’re not just for Empire in particular but the entire saga (oh, and George Lucas has absolutely terrible handwriting, lol). The whole thing is in present tense and is almost the kind of thing you’d write on a napkin.
I’d emailed J.W. Rinzler a couple years back (this turned out to be mere months before he passed away - RIP) to get some clarification on these notes. Rinzler confirmed again they were undated and it’s possible they could’ve been moved around over the years so they could’ve been written anywhere from 1975 to 1978, but they were indeed found in the archives for Empire and he wasn’t just going back and referencing stuff found from the first Star Wars’ production.
I’m going to hazard a guess that the notes were written in the second half of 1977, before November of that year ahead of his conference with Leigh Brackett. The details read like the first film was already complete (the characters introduced in that film already have their correct names, for one), and appear to be trying to turn Star Wars into a 9-12 part saga (as opposed to the first 1-3 installments of a 12-episode serial). And in general you’d presume you’d want to get all your brainstorming and outlining done by the time you’re writing the first treatment.
On the other hand, you could suppose that after Brackett’s draft and subsequent death Lucas went back to the drawing board a bit to prepare for writing the second draft himself - and indeed the 2nd draft is the first time Empire opens with “Episode V” (on the typed copy, at least).
(More scans of the notes/treatments/drafts at link: https://imgur.com/a/B8Xd69U)
