Frivolous use of the Force

Nothing really irritates me in PT because I simply don't care about PT.

Wasn't there a thread about Vader's floating glass of water in the original drafts for Star Wars, which made it into a comic adaptation?  Basically the guy can't even be bothered to hold his own cup--it's the very definition of frivolous use of the Force.

We'll never know exactly why that wasn't filmed, but I like to think part of it was that in the early days, Lucas accepted criticism and when people told him something was idiotic and unnecessary, he didn't do it.  Now we have three complete idiotic and unnecessary films, so yeah, frivolous use of the Force comes right along with that.

So, is lifting an x-wing and boxes, calling your lightsaber to your hand, and directing torpedoes frivolous use of the force?

SilverWook said:

CatBus said:

Wasn't there a thread about Vader's floating glass of water in the original drafts for Star Wars, which made it into a comic adaptation?  Basically the guy can't even be bothered to hold his own cup--it's the very definition of frivolous use of the Force.

We'll never know exactly why that wasn't filmed, but I like to think part of it was that in the early days, Lucas accepted criticism and when people told him something was idiotic and unnecessary, he didn't do it.  Now we have three complete idiotic and unnecessary films, so yeah, frivolous use of the Force comes right along with that.

 IIRC, it's in the novel, and merely illustrates his mastery of The Force, before choking Admiral Motti of course. He summons the cup into his hand. I never thought it frivolous.

I think when it came time to shoot, they probably decided there was just was no way to make a guy in a scary mask drink from a cup, and not look silly...

In the third-draft script, Vader floats the cup over to him when he's interrogating Princess Leia aboard the Tantive IV. And yes, we're told that "He casually drinks from the flask."

But it's worth keeping in mind that as recently as the previous draft, Vader's helmet had been intended largely as a spacesuit, used when the stormtroopers breached the hull of Leia's ship. It was a one-scene wonder that would be discarded during the rest of the film.

Except, of course, that Ralph McQuarrie made it look so goddamned awesome that Lucas decided Vader should have his spacesuit on all the time.

(Elsewhere in the third draft, the idea of a cyborg character is actually grafted onto Ben Kenobi--who has a cybernetic left arm.)

By the fourth draft, Vader's cup-floating trick is moved to the familiar scene with Admiral Motti. But in that version Vader crushes the cup with his mind, rather than drinking from it.

Presumably by that point the "all-spacesuit-all-the-time" idea for Vader's costume had occurred to Lucas, with the result that Vader could no longer be seen drinking, so he had to do something else with the cup.