Channel72 said:
Even if Lucas was toying with the idea of “Father Vader” before Brackett wrote her draft, the idea was still sort of clumsily forced into the script, giving the impression of a “last minute rewrite”. The fact that Vader apparently is okay with KILLING Luke at the beginning of ESB is a vestigial remnant of the original script, where Vader very much explicitly really did want to murder Luke: there’s a scene where Vader tries to force choke Luke to death as Luke escapes Hoth in his X-wing. This early motivation partially carries over into the final draft, when Vader orders the orbital bombardment; Vader’s actions were never properly updated to reflect the later revelation at the end.TLDR:
The original arc for Vader’s motivation was: “(1) Find and kill Luke, (2) Change of plans: capture and convert Luke to appease the Emperor”
The UPDATED motivation in later drafts was: “(1) Find and kill Luke, (2) Change of plans: capture and convert Luke because Luke is his SON, and can be used to overthrow the Emperor.”
But in everyone’s head-canon, the motivation is more like “(1) Discovers Luke is his son, but hides this from the Emperor, (2) tries to capture Luke to overthrow the Emperor”
The head-canon version at some point became ACTUAL canon via some Boba Fett comics. The head-canon version also makes the most sense given the “big reveal” at the end of ESB, as well as the wider context of Star Wars lore. But the head-canon version just is NOT supported by the first act of the actual movie.
I really do appreciate all the thought you’ve put into this so I hope I don’t come off flippant at all, but I think your concerns over the plot’s integrity stem pretty much entirely from an assumption that Vader for sure would have order the “orbital bombardment” and that this would entail the instantaneous extermination of the rebel base and its entire population. General Veers simply informs Vader that the Rebels have a shield up strong enough to deflect anything their ships can throw at it, and Vader is perturbed that this means the Rebels already know they’re in town. We don’t actually know what Vader would’ve done otherwise or if the rebels had any other defenses against being fired on from space. (if there’s a script weakness to this scene, it’s more that you can just feel the plot contriving itself to accommodate its spectacular land battle sequence, but would we have it any other way?).
As far as the Hoth battle itself putting Luke’s life into potential jeopardy, I also get the sense that Vader and The Emperor don’t believe Luke can be taken out randomly in battle. To them he’s a mysterious phantom youngster who inexplicably showed up out of nowhere and blew up their Death Star, he’s caused a “great disturbance in the Force,” etc. They know if he is to be dealt with, they have to go out of their way to do it themselves.
Sure, I could be overstating the case here. The main issue is we know that the script was originally written with Vader not being Luke’s father, and very explicitly trying to kill Luke on Hoth. Later, during subsequent rewrites, Vader was turned into Luke’s father, but he still seems to want to kill Luke on Hoth. It’s pretty hard to interpret the dialogue between Vader and Piett any other way than that Vader had planned on killing all the rebels via orbital bombardment, and only resorted to a ground invasion because of the shield. I guess you’re right that the dialogue leaves some wiggle room here, but not much in my opinion. (I mean the entire first movie was about blowing up a secret rebel base from orbit - so the audience would naturally assume the same idea in ESB.)
But on a broader level, after reading Brackett’s script, ESB gives me “last minute plot twist” vibes, commonly found in many Hollywood movies that feature some crazy twist at the end that recontextualizes the entire movie. Very often, the earlier events in the film don’t QUITE make sense in light of the later twist - possibly because the bulk of the script was written before the twist was conceived.
A movie like The Sixth Sense is an obvious example of this. If you watch the movie a second time, knowing the main character is dead the whole time (25 year-old spoiler alert), there are some scenes that seem to cleverly support the twist, but other scenes that really just don’t make any sense in light of the twist. I’ve come to view the aborted orbital bombardment of Hoth (along with some of Vader’s dialogue) as a similar example of a later-draft plot twist not quite fitting with previously written material.