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Post #999567

Author
canofhumdingers
Parent topic
Leigh Brackett's first draft of Empire
Link to post in topic
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/999567/action/topic#999567
Date created
10-Oct-2016, 8:57 PM

I finally got around to reading this a couple of days ago. I actually thought it was quite good. I agree that the final film we got (in 1980, not since…) was superior, but this was still very good, especially for an early draft.

I dunno if it’s just me, but something about the way it’s written made it feel more like some other lower budget 80’s scifi/fantasy films (Krull in particular kept coming to mind… As in I imagine the “look” and production value of this version of ESB to be very similar to what we got with Krull). Like, the sequence where Vader throws a fistful of stars at Luke and they rain down on him in a shower of sparks during the “force vision” part of their duel… I just see that looking SOOOO early-80’s-fantasy-movie. All dreamy and "gauze-over-the-lense"y…

I was also surprised, given some of the comments I had heard about how little of Brackett’s original stuff made it into the final draft, at just how much of the final film IS in this script. Seriously, almost ALL of the basic ideas and plot elements are already here. They cut out some things and certainly refined a whole lot of ideas, but they made very very few real additions to the actual story. Hairy hen nailed it, they added “i am your father” and a broken hyperdrive, but otherwise the entire story from ESB is already here in this early draft.

I’ve got more I want to say, but I’ll get back to it soon.

Really glad I got a copy of this though!