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Post #1656566

Author
oojason
Parent topic
George was telling the truth about the Father Vader twist going back to ANH, but so was Kurtz:
Link to post in topic
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/1656566/action/topic#1656566
Date created
17-Jul-2025, 10:04 AM

Tosche Station said:

Basically, the Gary Kurtz quote shows that I was wrong. Lucas did NOT merge Vader and Anakin until Empire (ESB), and it was with Empire, not Jedi (ROTJ) that he did this. The earlier ‘father Vader twist’ idea that Lucas had during the writing stage/pre-production of SW (ANH) was dropped before the final version of the script was done.

Fair play to you, TS. Not many would admit that. 👍

 

Tosche Station said:

Gary Kurtz: “When we made Star Wars, Vader and Anakin were two separate people. The idea that Vader was Luke’s father didn’t exist. I remember Lucas talked about Anakin having killed Vader and then taking his identity, but that was dropped early on. The whole twist in Empire was new and unexpected.”

Star Wars Insider #138, 2011

 
Unfortunately the above quote found online by TS (via a ‘google search’) does NOT exist in ‘Star Wars Insider #138, 2011’.

Both TS and myself have had a thorough look through Issue #138 of SW INsdier (which is actually the issue for January 2013 - and NOT 2011) - and there is no quote or mention of Gary Kurtz in that issue.

I’ve had a look through adjoining issues, the 2011 issues - also online in general - and cannot find such a quote from Gary Kurtz.

It does NOT look like the quote is actually from Gary Kurtz - or exists outside of what TS found in that google search.
 

If anyone does know of this quote - and where is originates from - please post it up in here. Thanks, as always. 👍

 
 


 
 

For anyone interested in when Vader was retconned to become Luke’s father… these may be of interest for further info:-

(from multiple sources - mainly consistent and confirmed - including from Lucasfilm high-ups, Marcia Lucas, & JW Rinzler etc)
 

Category #5 of George Lucas: Star Wars Creator, Unreliable Narrator & Time Travelling Revisionist…

• Emre’s two ‘info & image’ posts on the subject here: link & link - citing JW Rinzler and earlier drafts of scripts.

• The 2019 ‘Star Wars Mythbusting’ twitter thread by Lucasfilm Creative Arts Manager Phil Szostak

• and the Marcia Lucas interview in ‘Icons Uncovered’ documentary where she talks about how and when George retconned Vader to be Luke’s father - whilst writing the 2nd draft of Empire Strikes Back (GL, Marcia, Huyk & Katz were all having dinner).