Act Breaks? — Page 4

GGGGrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr........

And...then.....?

cutnshut said:

Ok lets argue!

In ESB there is no certainty that Darth Vader is Lukes Father - In the original theatrical movie which is the only version that counts untill, Adywan releases his!. There is no character development of Darth Vader happening off screen or otherwise... as a character he just wasnt designed like that - he is purely a villain - he starts off a villain and he ends a villain. All the crawl says about Luke and Vader is that "Vader is obssessed with finding Luke Skywalker" nothing else..... During the conversation with the Emperor, Vader never refers to Luke as his son. (remember at this point, all the audience knows is that Anakin Skywalker was killed by Darth Vader).

During the fight with Luke....he tells Luke hes his son....but i dont think anyone really believed that untill return of the jedi was made. So i wouldnt call it proper character development. It is certainly character Development for Luke because what Vader say's has some emotional impact on him.....but Vader is unchanged by anythning that happens here.

previously i said that Darth Vader's character development is him being redeemed.

But now i think his whole character development for Vader begins - when Luke surrenders to the imps and they are brought together again. Then Vaders character does start to change....

What the audience knows or doesn't know is totally irrelevant to the characters.  While I truly do believe that Lucas was making up shit as he went along, as of ESB, Vader is Luke's father, and all of his actions in that film are motivated by that.  At the beginning of that film, it's clear he already knows, which means that he would have had to have learned this at some point in between the first two films.

I find it funny you're arguing with me about this considering the only reason I brought this point was because I was supporting your earlier statement:  Vader had no character development in ESB because if there was any development it would have had to have happened beforehand.

I'm not saying this is necessarily the case.  The knowledge might not have affected him in the slightest at this point.  But I admit I do find it a bit baffling that you seem to think it has anything to do with what the audience is aware of at any given time, as if Vader realized that Luke was his son at the same time the audience was given that information (ie, through Vader saying it!).

We started off this subject trying to break ESB down into 3 acts - which we did, but Xhonzi and yourself are thinking of it in terms of the entire saga - where i was breaking it down as if it was the first sequel to Star wars, which is the way it was written. Like you said - it seems clear now that George Lucas had no overall plan untill he made return of the jedi - I think this lack of focus for the overall story is evident in ESB - many people were totally confused by vaders revelation to Luke, why were so many people confused after seeing it? I dont remember seeing Empire at the cinema - but i certainly remember seeing Return of the Jedi at the cinema as soon as it came out! and i remember feeling disappointed that Yoda confirmed everything Vader had told Luke. Which thinking back now suggests to me - Lucas left the plot of episode VI open to different story lines - its possible he could have made a very different story where Vader had infact been lying to him and that would have been plausible too - because of the way ESB was filmed.

Nowadays there are way too many sequels and the magic of the first 2 get kinda lost becuase of the way Lucas decided to continue the story - this alters your perspective when you watch these movies again.

I think you're confused with what I'm saying.  I don't think Xhonzi is, and I surely am not thinking of ESB in context of its later sequels or prequels or novels or anything else.  I'm purely thinking of it in context of itself.  And at the time of its release, for that entire film, Vader is written to be Luke's father.  Just because the audience is not made aware of it until the end of the film doesn't mean it's not there.  In fact, it would be impossible for it not to be there, unless you know of some way to update a movie in the middle of itself, something I admit I'm at a loss to figure out.

Let me clarify.  The way you're talking, this is what's coming across to me.  Let's say we're talking about Star Wars.  There's a scene a third of the way through the film where Ben reveals to Luke that a young Jedi named Darth Vader killed Luke's father.  Based on what you've said so far, it seems like I should assume you think that, before Ben says that, the information is not only unknown to Luke and to us, but it's also completely non-existant.  That it's some kind of cosmic ripple effect, and that, in all of Darth Vader's scenes prior to that, there is absolutely no connection between him and Luke's father, but after Ben says that, every subsequent Vader scene has that connection.  And... that's just... odd.

I understand what you're saying, I just disagree :P

next subject please :)

You disagree that a movie is written in the context of itself?  I'm... very confused.  How could it be any other way?  The universe is folding in on itself.  The laws of writing fiction are being, well, rewritten.  How does this make sense?!  PLEASE EXPLAIN!!!

Gaffer Tape said:

You disagree that a movie is written in the context of itself?  I'm... very confused.  How could it be any other way?  The universe is folding in on itself.  The laws of writing fiction are being, well, rewritten.  How does this make sense?!  PLEASE EXPLAIN!!!

To be honest i have no idea what you're going on about above.

But I understood that you thought i was talking from an audience point of view, but it is kind of the only way anyone except George Lucas can view it becuase only George Lucas knew exactly what he thought at the time of writing the movie. His explanations of the overall story were continually changing eversince writing the original movie. But the way i read the script of ESB and understood it is that, its like a cliff hanger......is he or isnt he???? and a tacked on one at that... it would still have been a great action movie with out the father son thing...however adding that thematic element later on proved to be a good idea ...as it gave the movie a whole new dramatic edge to it. Poor old George still didnt know what he was gonna do with the next movie tho.

Did he know for sure while writing ESB if Darth Vader was supposed to be Anakin Skywalker? because the idea of Darth Vader becoming Lukes father didnt come to GL untill during late in the production of Empire Strikes Back. In Leigh Bracketts original screen play - Luke and vader have a fight, Lukes hand gets cut off and he throws himself off the platform to escape from vader. there is no mention of Vader being Lukes father. So it seems clear up to that point (since star wars was originally made) that there was no father son story originally or at least not in the form in which it appears now.

And you can remove that revelation scene from empire and remove the few scenes later with Luke hanging below bespin and in the Falcon and Vader staring out of the star destroyer talking to Luke...and it still makes a good movie without the father son element to it. The Rebels get their arses kicked and Han Solo has been captured. Thats not a bad way for a movie called "Empire Strikes Back" to end.

So to sum up finally, I don't think the way it is written you can assume darth vader is anakin skywalker - and it was only a handfull of scenes that were added into the movie to insert the father son story -  I dont think the movie was re-written when George Lucas got the idea he just added a few more scenes to put it in there. 

But I understood that you thought i was talking from an audience point of view, but it is kind of the only way anyone except George Lucas can view it becuase only George Lucas knew exactly what he thought at the time of writing the movie.

Not if you're talking about analysis of plot structure.  If you're a first-time viewer, then, sure, you're not going to know the twists and turns or surprises.  But in order to properly analyze how a story works, you do have to know everything in context and place that information back where it belongs.

But the way i read the script of ESB and understood it is that, its like a cliff hanger......is he or isnt he???? and a tacked on one at that... it would still have been a great action movie with out the father son thing...however adding that thematic element later on proved to be a good idea ...as it gave the movie a whole new dramatic edge to it. Poor old George still didnt know what he was gonna do with the next movie tho.

Yeah.  He did write it in a way that leaves it open enough for ambiguity that he could have abandoned ship in the next film if he'd wanted to, no question, but I'm not sure where you're going with that.  Even if we are to assume that the movie was written to be teetering on the brink of one or the other, with one as potentially valid as the other, the fact still remains that one side is ultimately chosen and the other discarded.  It's not like the original Star Wars where the father interpretation doesn't exist at all.

 

So to sum up finally, I don't think the way it is written you can assume darth vader is anakin skywalker - and it was only a handfull of scenes that were added into the movie to insert the father son story -  I dont think the movie was re-written when George Lucas got the idea he just added a few more scenes to put it in there. 

 

Well, here's where we disagree.  It seems we both agree that George Lucas, as a writer, has hack-like tendencies and often screws himself over in his ability to properly plot.  But you seem to think he's so much of a hack he would just throw in a major plot element without bothering to rewrite the rest of the script to accommodate that? ...  Come to think of it, if we were talking about Revenge of the Sith, you'd be proven completely correct, as he did do exactly that.  But in ESB-era, Lucas was surrounded by intelligent people and co-writers, and, by looking at the scripts, you can see that he did alter things for this new context.  I mean, it's not like he had any scenes on Dagobah where Luke talks to the ghost of his dead father... which were indeed in the first draft.  It was actually quite early on that he came up with the idea, after Leigh Brackett's first draft.

So, yeah, while my opinion of Lucas is quite low, my opinion of Lawrence Kasdan is less so.  So even if we do accept that Lucas was so poor a writer he didn't bother to adapt his story for an entirely new context, it's impossible to even suggest that Kasdan would not have had all the appropriate knowledge in his head before he sat down to write the actual screenplay.  So, yes, that context would had to have been there throughout.

Princess - regardless who wrote it, the scene can still be removed without destroying the movie - therefore i find it hard to believe that this idea was originally the main plot of the movie.

Which scenes, by that reasoning, can't be taken out without destroying the movie?

Taking that scene out would destroy the movie for me... so I'm just wondering what standard of measure you're using.

What was David Prowse's original dialogue? that would be interesting to know. I thought i also  read somewhere, that it was only during post production - that George Lucas got James Earl Jones to re-record his lines with what we now hear and then got Mark Hamill in to re-do the scene where he says "Father..." in the Falcon - as Darth is reaching out to him from the star destroyer.

He said, "Obi-wan was your father!"

But Hamill was told on the set to react to "I am your Father."

cutnshut said:

you're saying the cause of the problem is Darth Vader - yes, i agree with you.

No, that's not what I'm saying.  Saying, "The Villain is the cause of the problem" is not very interesting, because that's almost always true.

In Empire Strikes Back, "the problem" is Vaders to solve.  Vader is trying to capture Luke Skywalker.  This is what is introduced in Act 1, what gets complicated in Act 2, and is resolved in Act 3.

Normally the hero owns the problem- it is his to solve.  But in this movie, the villain owns the problem- it is his to solve.

You dig?

cutnshut said:

Princess - regardless who wrote it, the scene can still be removed without destroying the movie - therefore i find it hard to believe that this idea was originally the main plot of the movie.

But... that's not at all what we're talking about in this thread.  I'm sure there are lots of scenes from any Star Wars movie I could remove and have it make sense or even improve it (Jabba the Hutt stuff, I'm looking at you).  But we're analyzing what's there, not what we'd prefer to be there, not what could have been there, not what wasn't there, and not what we think Lucas had or hadn't come up with at that point.

xhonzi:

You dig?

 Not if i can avoid it....