Originally posted by: THX
Once again, I'd like to encourage your efforts and look forward to seeing the results. Now I'm going to offer some more constructive criticism. Please let me know if you don't find this process useful and I'll stop.
Movies work if and when the characters in them work - we understand and sympathise with their reasons and motivations and these tie directly to the plot of the movie. This is the biggest reason why the OT is better than the PT. If the audience loses touch with the emotions of the character(s), the movie ceases to move them. Now, as soon as Ben tells Luke his father is out there, Luke will have a specific goal - to find and confront his father- which is quite separate from his goal of rescuing the princess (and by extension the galaxy). However, for the rest of the movie, he makes no effort towards this goal. His reaction when he sees his father ("Ben!") is totally inappropriate. Thes factors will put the audience in a position of not understanding their hero - fatal for any movie.
Also, Luke's reactions toward Vader in ESB are totally inappropriate to the scenario you describe.
If you are set on this basic idea, I think you'd be better advised to just cut the "betrayed and murdered your father" bit from Ben's hut and figure out a way to have Ben tell Luke the truth about Vader on Dagobah in ESB.
Once again, I'd like to encourage your efforts and look forward to seeing the results. Now I'm going to offer some more constructive criticism. Please let me know if you don't find this process useful and I'll stop.
Movies work if and when the characters in them work - we understand and sympathise with their reasons and motivations and these tie directly to the plot of the movie. This is the biggest reason why the OT is better than the PT. If the audience loses touch with the emotions of the character(s), the movie ceases to move them. Now, as soon as Ben tells Luke his father is out there, Luke will have a specific goal - to find and confront his father- which is quite separate from his goal of rescuing the princess (and by extension the galaxy). However, for the rest of the movie, he makes no effort towards this goal. His reaction when he sees his father ("Ben!") is totally inappropriate. Thes factors will put the audience in a position of not understanding their hero - fatal for any movie.
Also, Luke's reactions toward Vader in ESB are totally inappropriate to the scenario you describe.
If you are set on this basic idea, I think you'd be better advised to just cut the "betrayed and murdered your father" bit from Ben's hut and figure out a way to have Ben tell Luke the truth about Vader on Dagobah in ESB.
That's quite a leap you're making in my opinion -- any farm boy who rushes off to confront his father, the dark Jedi, would indeed lose me. But a farm boy who's attracted by a message from a princess, learns that his father was not what his uncle said, and that a brave knight needs his help to rescue said princess -- that's a solid character-- and quite like what's there already.
You have no way yet of knowing what the edited Luke's reaction will be to seeing his father, so...
Gotta go, more later. Thanks for the loyal skepticism tho ;-) It's VERY welcome. These kinds of ideas need to be tested if they're ever going to work.