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Star Wars prequels were mapped out in 1981, only nothing like the way they turned out

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This is a really interesting excerpt from the upcoming "Making of Return of the Jedi" book.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/22/star-wars-prequels-return-of-the-jedi_n_3313793.html

Interesting to just how different his plans were back then. It also destroys the argument of the prequel fans that they were planned out that way all along ( i bet they're going to love that ;) ). 

So to summarise;

Yoda doesn't fight. He is more of a teacher.

NO MIDICHLORIANS

Jedi can love and marry.

ANYONE can learn to use the force if they are prepared to learn.

Luke & Leia's mother was still alive until they were 2 years old

So they would have originally fit in pretty well with the OT.

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I think you're reading it wrong.

They don't *talk* about midichlorians, but it's mentioned on one of Lucas's original notes in the back of The Making of Star Wars (hardcover-only I belive).

Anakin getting to know the emperor, and slowly getting twisted, and 'his wife' going to Obi-Wan, as well as them fighting on the vulcano, Anakin losing his limbs and the emperor's (who was a president/supreme chancellor before) soldiers pick him up.

That's all there. It's pretty surprising how much *was* thought up before, even if the details vary.

Kitbashed
Essays, videos and thoughts on the inspiration behind Star Wars.

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adywan said:

Interesting to just how different his plans were back then. It also destroys the argument of the prequel fans that they were planned out that way all along ( i bet they're going to love that ;) ). 

ANYONE can learn to use the force if they are prepared to learn.

The Jedi/Sith is described as a Religion by Han & Motti, which would imply that in SW anyone could be a 'Believer'

It is a pity, a real downright pity that the Prequels turned out the way they did, my way of looking at them is the same way I regard the crap Superman (3&4), Jaws (3&4) & Alien (3&4) sequels.....they don't exist to me

J

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The Midichlorian idea was dropped long before the final draft of Ep4. You can clearly see from this that they had nothing to do with if you could become a Jedi or not. He was still following the plan of "anyone" could learn to use the force. The force in the OT was spiritual and not a medical condition. He only reintroduced Midichlorians as a measuring device to determine how powerful Anakin was in Ep1.

There are bits in there that made their way into the final version of the prequels.

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I like the part where he is gradually turning to the dark side by doing the missions.

In contrast, in PT Palpatine directly admits to him that he is the Sith Lord. Then he knowingly commits a crime to "save" his wife. And a few moments later his IQ drops to 50 and he thinks the Jedi are actually evil...

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but at no point in the prequels does anyone say that the force isn't available to anyone; only that midichlorians determine their power. Which is probably analogous to height having an influence on your future as a basketball player.

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Essays, videos and thoughts on the inspiration behind Star Wars.

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 (Edited)

Heilemann said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but at no point in the prequels does anyone say that the force isn't available to anyone; only that midichlorians determine their power. Which is probably analogous to height having an influence on your future as a basketball player.

That is not the point. The point it that the whole idea of midichlorians is stupid...

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Prequelheads have been harping on this ideas for years, that saying "the force runs strong in my family" in JEDI was already just midichlorians by another name, as if it excludes everyone else, which is ridiculous. 

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adywan said:

The Midichlorian idea was dropped long before the final draft of Ep4. You can clearly see from this that they had nothing to do with if you could become a Jedi or not. He was still following the plan of "anyone" could learn to use the force. The force in the OT was spiritual and not a medical condition. He only reintroduced Midichlorians as a measuring device to determine how powerful Anakin was in Ep1.

There are bits in there that made their way into the final version of the prequels.

The rot set in with ROTJ.

Luke and Leia are seen as strong in the Force due to inherited traits which suggests something biological rather than mystical.

If the Prequels had Luke and Leia born in a mystical place or situation, that would explain why they are particularly strong without suggesting weird biology.

**Baronlando got in there before me**

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Bingowings said:

 

Luke and Leia are seen as strong in the Force due to inherited traits which suggests something biological rather than mystical.

So if you say "a familily of good composers" because both father and son happen to be talented in music, does that suggest a biological inheritance?

Obviously not. Same goes for the Force in OT.

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We've known a lot of that stuff long before the prequels came out. But what was the source for it? For years I had my Return of the Jedi Luke Skywalker action figure playing the role of Anakin fighting my Obi-Wan figure on sofa cushions that served as the cliff of a volcano. I've known this was Anakin's fate and what made him Darth Vader for as long as I can remember, since before I had any exposure to the EU, but why did I know this? Wasn't it in the Return of the Jedi novelization or something?

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The main thing is that it was a mistake to demote the Force down to a parasite living in your cells, the success of Star Wars and the 'May the Force be with You' saying which caught on and became part of our culture to be dumped in Ep 1

J

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CP3S said:

We've known a lot of that stuff long before the prequels came out. But what was the source for it? For years I had my Return of the Jedi Luke Skywalker action figure playing the role of Anakin fighting my Obi-Wan figure on sofa cushions that served as the cliff of a volcano. I've known this was Anakin's fate and what made him Darth Vader for as long as I can remember, since before I had any exposure to the EU, but why did I know this? Wasn't it in the Return of the Jedi novelization or something?

Not sure, I think it might have been said by Lucas before ESB, I think I remember when you saw the back of Vader's scarred head in ESB, everyone had heard how that happened........hmmmm

J

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I agree with imperialscum, saying, "The Force runs strong in my family" doesn't have to mean it is hereditary. It is like saying, "Faith runs strong in my family" indicating that the family holds to religious values and are strong believers.

Anakin having been a Jedi, and now Luke becoming a Jedi, are enough to warrant the comment about the Force being strong in Luke's family without inferring that it must mean that the ability to use the Force, or how well you can use it, is somehow genetic.

In fact, that seems like a really bizarre inference to make based only on that one line.

Were there other sources for force ability being genetic, or only found in some? It must have been out there somewhere, because the EU used this. Some characters were said to be force sensitive, while others were not. Luke's Jedi Academy would look for and take in Force sensitive students, it is suggested throughout the EU that not everyone has it in them to be able to manipulate the force. Was all of that simply based on Luke's comment about the force being strong in his family? It seems like quite a stretch.

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Fascinating article and kinda sad. Most of the time with films it takes time for writers to do draft after draft to iron out plot problems and manage satifactory character arcs. But not Lucas, no he had it all in place back in the day, then went back in and introduced extra plot problems. wtf??

e.g. "Leia and Luke’s mother go to Alderaan and are taken in by the king"

Why did you make Bail Organa a Senator George? It makes NO sense that his daughter grows up to be a princess! *sigh*

Although it's interesting to note that the "Seduction of power" plot element...

"(Papatine) was a politician. Richard M. Nixon was his name. He subverted the senate and finally took over and became an imperial guy and he was really evil. But he pretended to be a really nice guy. He sucked Luke’s father into the dark side."

...was fully filmed during principle photograhy on ROTS. But Lucas went back in during post-production and rewrote much of the dialogue and called his main cast back for pickups, to change Anakin's fall to be about losing Padme. All of this material is sitting on a tape somewhere in the Lucas archive but I doubt it will ever see the light of day.

 

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Being good at something or talented isn't inherited. Just because your father or mother was particularly adept at say, drawing, doesn't necessarily mean you will be. If you take an interest in what they do when your younger and are actively encouraged to do so then you may develop a talent for it. Eye colour etc are inherited. Not talent. 

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CP3S said:

I agree with imperialscum, saying, "The Force runs strong in my family" doesn't have to mean it is hereditary. It is like saying, "Faith runs strong in my family" indicating that the family holds to religious values and are strong believers.

Anakin having been a Jedi, and now Luke becoming a Jedi, are enough to warrant the comment about the Force being strong in Luke's family without inferring that it must mean that the ability to use the Force, or how well you can use it, is somehow genetic.

Pre PT. I always imagined the force as more of a mental thing. The skywalker family just are strong in this way. Kinda like a seer, or mystic. Not a physical thing, but they have some kind of evolved mental energy. It is passed down but not in such an explicit way as "You've got more of these things floating in your blood than that guy".

A question:

I always remember growing up with the image of Anakin and Obi-Wan dueling in a Volcano (Or at a push a lava planet) firmly fixed in my mind. Me, my brothers and my friends. So where did I get this notion from? An article? A EU book? An interview?

VIZ TOP TIPS! - PARENTS. Impress your children by showing them a floppy disk and telling them it’s a 3D model of a save icon.

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Ryan McAvoy said:

Although it's interesting to note that the "Seduction of power" plot element...

"(Papatine) was a politician. Richard M. Nixon was his name. He subverted the senate and finally took over and became an imperial guy and he was really evil. But he pretended to be a really nice guy. He sucked Luke’s father into the dark side."

...was fully filmed during principle photograhy on ROTS. But Lucas went back in during post-production and rewrote much of the dialogue and called his main cast back for pickups, to change Anakin's fall to be about losing Padme. All of this material is sitting on a tape somewhere in the Lucas archive but I doubt it will ever see the light of day.

Ugh, I haven't seen that movie in so many years, I was starting to forget about it. No I am remembering how ridiculous the turn was.

Somewhere in the depth of this forum we have a thread discussing good characters turning bad, and whether or not it is possible for it to be done convincingly. That was a fun thread, I thought of it sometime back while watching Breaking Bad.

You start off with Walt, an easy to sympathize with character and you grow attached to him. They put him in a dire situation and make him do bad things for a noble reason. So you still sympathize. As the show progresses, his dire situation turns around, and his bad actions slowly cause him to lose the noble reason for doing them. Eventually, when you take the time to think about it, you realize Walt is just a bad guy. But you still can't shake that sympathy for him that was built at the beginning. He continues to do these bad things, but is now driven by greed and pride, rather than the intended selfless sacrifice for his family that started him off on that path. It is the best story of a fall into evil that I have ever encountered. 

I don't think it is impossible, or even necessarily that hard, to make a beloved character sink into becoming the villain. We all loved Darth Vader before, but imagine how we'd feel about him now if George had managed to make Anakin a character we loved and sympathized with as much as Luke. Instead he was just a bitch from the beginning that you couldn't wait to see Obi-Wan smack around a bit before he finally grew a pair and donned his leather suit.

It should have been the story of a good man led astray, instead it was a character who was marketed heavily as being a hero for a very young audience (who ran around with his action figures and dressed up like him) ultimately doing some very stupid, sick, and sadistic things, all the while seemingly having never made up his mind about what kind of a person he really was or wanted to be. Anakin as portrayed to us had no character to be put to question, he had no ethics or moral code. He was an immature kid in one film, an annoying jerk of a teenager in the next (where he is already committing mass murder), and a creepy conflicted psycho in the last one (who isn't sure if his mentor admitting to being evil is a big deal or not, and is easily convinced that slaughtering a classroom full of small children is necessary). Gah, that movie isn't only awful, but it is actually kind of disgusting when you think about it.

 

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I'm sure Anakins history with Obi-Wan was briefly touched upon somewhere in a Star Wars book. Not a novel but a Star Wars universe book. 

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Did a little searching online and found this quote from the ROTJ novel,

" We fought ... your father fell into a molten pit. When your father clawed his way out of that fiery pool, the change had been burned into him forever — he was Darth Vader, without a trace of Anakin Skywalker. Irredeemably dark. Scarred. Kept alive only by machinery and his own black will ... "

I also found that in a pre-Empire Strikes Back interview with Mark Hamill, he mentions that he was told his character's father and Obi-Wan fought Darth Vader over a volcano, and both Luke's father and Vader fall in, with Vader managing to survive. 

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CP3S said:

Ryan McAvoy said:

Although it's interesting to note that the "Seduction of power" plot element...

"(Papatine) was a politician. Richard M. Nixon was his name. He subverted the senate and finally took over and became an imperial guy and he was really evil. But he pretended to be a really nice guy. He sucked Luke’s father into the dark side."

...was fully filmed during principle photograhy on ROTS. But Lucas went back in during post-production and rewrote much of the dialogue and called his main cast back for pickups, to change Anakin's fall to be about losing Padme. All of this material is sitting on a tape somewhere in the Lucas archive but I doubt it will ever see the light of day.

Ugh, I haven't seen that movie in so many years, I was starting to forget about it. No I am remembering how ridiculous the turn was.

Somewhere in the depth of this forum we have a thread discussing good characters turning bad, and whether or not it is possible for it to be done convincingly. That was a fun thread, I thought of it sometime back while watching Breaking Bad.

You start off with Walt, an easy to sympathize with character and you grow attached to him. They put him in a dire situation and make him do bad things for a noble reason. So you still sympathize. As the show progresses, his dire situation turns around, and his bad actions slowly cause him to lose the noble reason for doing them. Eventually, when you take the time to think about it, you realize Walt is just a bad guy. But you still can't shake that sympathy for him that was built at the beginning. He continues to do these bad things, but is now driven by greed and pride, rather than the intended selfless sacrifice for his family that started him off on that path. It is the best story of a fall into evil that I have ever encountered. 

I don't think it is impossible, or even necessarily that hard, to make a beloved character sink into becoming the villain. We all loved Darth Vader before, but imagine how we'd feel about him now if George had managed to make Anakin a character we loved and sympathized with as much as Luke. Instead he was just a bitch from the beginning that you couldn't wait to see Obi-Wan smack around a bit before he finally grew a pair and donned his leather suit.

It should have been the story of a good man led astray, instead it was a character who was marketed heavily as being a hero for a very young audience (who ran around with his action figures and dressed up like him) ultimately doing some very stupid, sick, and sadistic things, all the while seemingly having never made up his mind about what kind of a person he really was or wanted to be. Anakin as portrayed to us had no character to be put to question, he had no ethics or moral code. He was an immature kid in one film, an annoying jerk of a teenager in the next (where he is already committing mass murder), and a creepy conflicted psycho in the last one (who isn't sure if his mentor admitting to being evil is a big deal or not, and is easily convinced that slaughtering a classroom full of small children is necessary). Gah, that movie isn't only awful, but it is actually kind of disgusting when you think about it.

 

I remember seeing a characters 'redemption' told properly in 'The Mission' with Robert de Niro. A very moving piece of filmmaking. I remember some good anti-hero characters (Riddick in Pitch Black) but for the life of me I'm struggling to remember a characters fall from grace portrayed convincingly? Shrug.

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imperialscum said:

Bingowings said:

 

Luke and Leia are seen as strong in the Force due to inherited traits which suggests something biological rather than mystical.

So if you say "a familily of good composers" because both father and son happen to be talented in music, does that suggest a biological inheritance?

Obviously not. Same goes for the Force in OT.

Err...

I suggest a family of good composers would be a mixture of nature and nurture.

The kind of brain and ear that understands the nuances of music (nature) and hanging around with an enthusiast keen to pass on knowledge (nurture).

Leia and Luke have hardly hung with Vader in any form of nurturing way.

The only point they both know they are both related to him is in the last act of the last film of 'their' trilogy.

So the only thing connecting them to each other and Vader is genetics.

The film is suggesting the Force ability that Vader and the Emperor fear from his children is biological, which is a bit crap for the little kid in the cinema who dreams of being a Jedi knight one day but I guess it does mean he is less likely to jump out of the window onto the nearest television aerial.

This does tie more with my idea of Anakin having a split personality rather than a sudden 11th hour switching of sides.

If I were to try and make the PT fit more along these lines I would have Anakin not know he is bumping off his Clone War comrades and have the Vader persona a fugue state (birthed by the trauma of his mother's death and his inability to do anything about it).

By the time he realises what his dark side has been doing it's too late for him to turn back.

How To Get A Head In Advertising but with lightsabers.

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Bingowings said:

imperialscum said:

Bingowings said:

 

Luke and Leia are seen as strong in the Force due to inherited traits which suggests something biological rather than mystical.

So if you say "a familily of good composers" because both father and son happen to be talented in music, does that suggest a biological inheritance?

Obviously not. Same goes for the Force in OT.

Err...

I suggest a family of good composers would be a mixture of nature and nurture.

The kind of brain and ear that understands the nuances of music (nature) and hanging around with an enthusiast keen to pass on knowledge (nurture).

Leia and Luke have hardly hung with Vader in any form of nurturing way.

They only point they both know they are both related to him is in the last act of the last film of 'their' trilogy.

So the only thing connecting them to each other and Vader is genetics.

The film is suggesting the Force ability that Vader and the Emperor fear from his children is biological, which is a bit crap for the little kid in the cinema who dreams of being a Jedi knight one day but I guess it does mean he is less likely to jump out of the window onto the nearest television aerial.

Actually being a good composer has very little or nothing to do with the ear (ie biological structure and so on). Being a good composer is all about mental capacity, perception and imagination which are not genetically linked.

What I was trying to tell you is that the quote doesn't necessary mean that Luke and Liea are storng in the force because of their father. Like I said, it can simply mean that they all happen to be strong in the force. An observation, nothing more.

An example: "my family is good at math"

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