Anyway, more fantasy football. Could someone move this to "How would you redo the prequels" in scriptwriting? Apologies! Computer is on the fritz.
Between '77 and '83 I was collecting bits from various sources. My Granfather had a fairly large personal library in his basement. I didn't have much time or patience for actually reading the books, so I developed a method of paging through and gleaning some essential points. Books on history, archeaology, philosophy, comparative religion, mythology. There were books on oriental philosophy. Buddism, Tao (Dao), Confucius. 'A Study Of History' had pride of place on the shelves, so I borrowed a volume at a time and read most of the work (paged through the rest.)
Also during this period, I was looking into my own mongrel background. I'm part Slavic, part German, part British, and part Altaic (Mongol.) I tended to approach history from the back and forth movements of these peoples. It's interesting to me that the Hungarians and Finns could speak an essentially Mongolian language so deep within Europe. In school, I was taught the more recent history of the peoples of a midwestern state as well.
When ESB was released, I was blown away. I also became interested in the aspects in which it didn't meet my expectations. On the brief occasions when I considered SW, I began to look even more for historical, cinematic and philosophical relationships. I also began wishing that Ben could have been the same age as Luke's parents, so that Yoda could take his place and the basic character relationships of my backstory could be maintained. Around this time, someone told me that there were SW fans who thought Ben's name OB1 was a clone designation. I had another theory about that and thought it must be the wildest speculation. I suppose that I should have paid closer attention. It's a terrific story, Jedi clones going insane from accelerated growth.
When ROTJ was released, again, I was blown away. Vader saving his son was so powerful. I much enjoyed the first two times I saw it. By the third viewing, critical analysis set in. I decided upon theoject. I saw very moving 'what if/if only' aspects to the OT and took it up as a pleasant little diversion.
I needed a clearer understanding of the backstory, my best guess as to where GL was taking it, and to fill in some gaps to the best of my knowledge. Up to ROTJ release, I had Jedi as UN/LON style peacekeepers, Force Women as diplomats/peacemakers (because we all know that every SWU woman is either a farmer's wife or a diplomat/special operative;) both of Lukes parents were Force wielders (because Luke could deflect lasers, blindfolded, after 20 minutes of instruction), a love triangle among 20 year olds, and Ben/Yoda overseeing the crew. I had two or more worlds creating clone armies and going to war with each other and other systems- for some reason. I even tried to imagine a hero ship to carry our heros (shiney new- but nothing like the Naboo transports) I didn't have anything like a story for any of this- and didn't really need any.
Exactly why I've never changed my signature.
