The Empire Strikes Back - a general Random Thoughts thread

Now that there is a dedicated ‘Original Trilogy Discussion’ forum on the site, and the General Star Wars Random Thoughts thread is in the ‘General Star Wars Discussion’ section, some of us on here thought it may be a neat idea to have new ‘General Random Thoughts’ threads focusing on each of the three Original Trilogy films.

Plus another thread for ‘General Random Original Trilogy Thoughts’.

In other words… a few threads for some light discussion of these much loved, iconic and ground-breaking films.
 

And so:-

Star Wars (1977) - a general Random Thoughts thread

The Empire Strikes Back - a general Random Thoughts thread

Return Of The Jedi - a general Random Thoughts thread

The Original Trilogy - a general Random Thoughts thread
 

Adherence to ‘tradition’ makes the opening a little irksome to me. Jambe Davdar’s reconstruction of the storyboarded opening crawl is something I personally find a lot more interesting; a blue crawl over a snow-covered landscape, altogether different from the first film yet similar enough that an audience would be sure they came to the right film. Not to mention, opening with the launching of the probes removes a bit of the tension and mystery that was in the script; there are two threats, one to Luke and one to the Rebellion.

That certainly would have left the door open to greater creativity in opening sequences in every film after that.

I finally figured out an explanation for why Vader was angry Admiral Ozzel came out of lightspeed “too close to the system” during the Imperial attack on Hoth.

If the Imperial Fleet ships were to simply hang back and wait for the Rebels to notice their presence, then they would be well-positioned to destroy any Rebel ships trying to flee the planet and escape into hyperspace.

But with the fleet in close proximity to the planet, then Rebels fleeing Echo Base have a chance of slipping through the blockade and getting into hyperspace before the Star Destroyers can turn around and give chase.

This might have worked as a means to mount a surprise attack, as Ozzel evidently hoped… but the Rebels had a shield generator that prevented making an attack from orbit, which the fleet commanders apparently didn’t know about until arriving at Hoth. At which point Vader orders a ground assault to take out the generator, which otherwise wouldn’t have been necessary.

So Vader’s original plan accounts for the possibility of a Rebel shield, saves Imperial lives, and also works to make sure more Rebels fall into the Imperial dragnet.

Tack said:

Adherence to ‘tradition’ makes the opening a little irksome to me. Jambe Davdar’s reconstruction of the storyboarded opening crawl is something I personally find a lot more interesting; a blue crawl over a snow-covered landscape, altogether different from the first film yet similar enough that an audience would be sure they came to the right film.

I dig that too, but I actually prefer all the films having the same opening.
It’s just something I love about the trilogy.
I’d really love to see fan edits with different openings though.

Tack said:

Adherence to ‘tradition’ makes the opening a little irksome to me. Jambe Davdar’s reconstruction of the storyboarded opening crawl is something I personally find a lot more interesting; a blue crawl over a snow-covered landscape, altogether different from the first film yet similar enough that an audience would be sure they came to the right film. Not to mention, opening with the launching of the probes removes a bit of the tension and mystery that was in the script; there are two threats, one to Luke and one to the Rebellion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdXzAcwyVrY

There’s one thing in that reconstruction that isn’t quite right: as I understand it, the original idea was to have the background plate be a top-down view of the snowy Hoth plains, so it would nearly be a featureless white.

Once the crawl finished, Luke on a tauntaun would ride into frame, and then the film would cut from a top-down view to a normal perspective.

Also, according to Rinzler’s Making of ESB, “a million worlds” was changed in the shooting script to “a thousand worlds”.

ATMachine said:

There’s one thing in that reconstruction that isn’t quite right: as I understand it, the original idea was to have the background plate be a top-down view of the snowy Hoth plains, so it would nearly be a featureless white.

Once the crawl finished, Luke on a tauntaun would ride into frame, and then the film would cut from a top-down view to a normal perspective.

That’s really cool. Each film having a different pan to the opening action would be interesting.
(though I still prefer the matching starfield/stardestroyer openings)

ShiftyEyes said:

How come the opening crawl says that Luke Skywalker is the leader of a group of freedom fighters? He only gets lost and abandons them whenever he feels like it.

In my headcanon the Rebel leadership views Luke and his buddies as liabilities, only keeping them around because Luke and Leia are celebrities in the Rebellion.

In TESB after Luke leaves Dagobah and Obi-wan says “That boy is our last hope” and then Yoda says “No, there is another…”, was he simply reminding Obi-wan about Leia? Or did Obi-wan not know about her being Lukes sister until ROTJ?

Tantive3+1 said:

In TESB after Luke leaves Dagobah and Obi-wan says “That boy is our last hope” and then Yoda says “No, there is another._.”, was he simply reminding Obi-wan about Leia? Or did Obi-wan not know about her being Lukes sister until ROTJ?

Real answer is that Leia wasn’t Luke’s sister until Georgie boy retconned it ROTJ.

Canonical answer is that Obi-wan kinda forgot about Leia being Luke’s sister after Episode 3.

My answer is that Obi-wan just didn’t know Luke had a sister, for whatever reason. Disregard Prequel Nonsense.

^ Real world answer, Canon answer & OT answer.
Nailed it.

[edit: oh great, now the word “answer” doesn’t look or sound like a real word & I feel foolish. This ever happen to anybody else?]

I like to think that he was simply being reminded. During the Dagobah scene in ROTJ when Obi-wan tells Luke about his sister, his father, and why its his destiny to fight him, I find it important that he’s telling him what hes always known throught the OT and not what he found out from Yoda as a Force Ghost.

My answer is that Leia had no training & time was running out. I think Obi-Wan thought it would be too late to get Leia to the state she needed to be in to face Vader & overthrow the Emperor.

But the real reason is that the siblings thing is a bad retcon that created problems.

ray_afraid said:

My answer is that Leia had no training & time was running out. I think Obi-Wan thought it would be too late to get Leia to the state she needed to be in to face Vader & overthrow the Emperor.

But the real reason is that the siblings thing is a bad retcon that created problems.

It was meant to be a love triangle. Thats why in the scene when Luke calls out to her she was able to hear him because deep down it was Luke who she truly loved, not because she was force sensitive.

Tantive3+1 said:

ray_afraid said:

My answer is that Leia had no training & time was running out. I think Obi-Wan thought it would be too late to get Leia to the state she needed to be in to face Vader & overthrow the Emperor.

But the real reason is that the siblings thing is a bad retcon that created problems.

It was meant to be a love triangle. Thats why in the scene when Luke calls out to her she was able to hear him because deeep down it was Luke who she truly loved, not because she was force sensitive.

Nah. Han & Leia fall in love in ESB & tell each other so.
The “power of love” angle is lame & has nothing to do with this.
Luke is the one using the force here, not Leia. She’s just receiving the message.
Sorry, this is a pet peeve of mine.
Kasdan envisioned the 3rd film ending with Luke going off to find “the Other” on his own.

It’s also worth noting that earlier versions of the crawl actually did correctly state that Leia was the one in charge…

Do you think Willard and Dodonna were written out of the film for ease of casting or some other reason? Lucas immediately changes their roles over to Riekaan once he gets the chance. Brackett’s version definitely fits with the pre-EU notion that Willard was actually the one in charge of that Rebel cell.

^ good question , although the writer of that comic Archie Goodwin ened up killing off Dodonna in his newspaper strip . He planted charges all over Yavin base to buy the Rebels more time to escape when the Empire came back to drive them off Yavin , sacrificing himself.

The same (semi)recently happened with Willard in the newer Marvel series. It could actually be that Lucas was saving them, considering Rieekan pretty explicitly dies in the original scripts. I don’t recall the name showing up during the development of ROTJ, though…

Since Lucas toyed with having an attack on Yavin being a part of ESB’s story, it’s possible the idea of the Rebels suffering some major losses (ala the Hope Dies story arc) was in his mind at a certain point. I have a feeling some of the higher-ups from Star Wars being dispatched in the meantime might have been something Lucasfilm allowed at the time as a way to fill in blanks once the characters went nowhere. I have a feeling Veers would have shown up if the Marvel adaptation hadn’t labored under the assumption of him being dead (even though he showed up in ROTJ’s early drafts- that would have been fun to explain).