which should've came first? PT or OT? — Page 2

skyjedi2005 said:

I still stick by my statement though Despite the very personal Connection Tolkien had to the Silmarillion the real meat of the story come into play in Lord of the Rings.  Similar to the Meat of the Story in Star wars Being the films now known as IV-V-VI.

Regardless of where you think the meat of the story is, or how popular any given story is, you were wrong when you said of the legendarium, "These are usually only for the authors benefit and never shown." The early stories were not solely for Tolkien's benefit; they were intended for publication. They were shown to Tolkien's publisher toward that end. And they were certainly not intended to be backstory for Lord of the Rings, which wouldn't even be conceived until decades after most elements of the Silm were in place.

Star Wars is 180 degrees different. I don't think Lucas ever shopped his backstory around. After ANH's success, he shelved it and started casting around for new ideas.

The comparison is not felicitous.

I thought i made it perfectly clear that the backstory of star wars was an illusion it never existed.   Unless you count rejected prototype scripts as a backstory.

Rinzler in the Making of Star Wars gave a full account of what the journal of the whills actually was it had nothing to do with the young days or obi wan kenobi or anakin skywalker neither characters were even created yet.

Also Laurent B. who wrote the annotated screenplays was given access to all the scripts.

Unless Lucas has kept the prequel outline and sequel series outline from them i don't even think they were even written.  The facts from many sources pretty much make a solid case that Lucas made things up as he went along.  Though the Original Ideas Did exist in embryo in the first treatments and drafts for star wars.

Leia was never at first intended to be the sister, Vader was not Luke's father in the beginning vader was just some facist general and not even a fallen jedi or sith Knight.

Did he combine the concept of Kane Starkiller the dying father with prosthetic Limbs, The evil General Vader and the Valorum character.  I believe that he did.  I also believe Luke ended up having a sister because in one unrleased permutation of the story Luke was a female, and Luke also at one point had a brother deak starkiller.  Yes in one draft Leia was the cousin, but starting out and what ended up in the a new hope movie Leia was the Love interest.  Also in Splinter of the Mind's Eye she was not his sister.

The first angle they put in Empire that Fans guessed she may be his sister because Vader was his father and also could sense him through the force, happened when he was on cloud cities weathervane and asked her to hear him through the force.

I think Carrie Fisher said that was a happy coincidance because it could have just been womanly intuition.

I truly believe Lucas did not canonize Vader as the Father and Leia as the sister til return of the jedi.  Vader all along could have just as easily been lying.

Of course it makes the drama stronger when the heroes father is the villain he has staked his life to bring down, and the heroic image of his father he idolized was made up by Obi Wan.  I mean you saw the prequels the selfless Idealistic Young Man Of Anakin did not exist he was selfish asshole from episode II to III. 

I known Lucas likes mythological tales and figures so Vader really is Anakin's shadow self.  The Sith are taught to embrace passion and the Jedi are taught to remain calm and serene.

There is also the possibility Anakin was really Vader on the inside and just kept those bad emotions, hate lust and fears in check.  In the novelization they refer to it as the dragon inside him like some caged pent up beast waiting to escape and lash out.  If their is one word to desribe Anakin in the prequels it is Angst.

You cannot divorce the vader character from anakin as they are 2 sides of the same coin.

It is easier for Obi Wan to Believe Anakin died on Mustafar because the truth is painful to him.  There is some truism in his point of view that when he betrayed the morals and codes the Jedi stood by and betrayed democracy he killed the good man he was. He did not betray the prophecy, the jedi just misread it.  He did bring balance to the force through his son and daughter and by his final selfless act.

I have always felt that Stephen King is a bit of a prat. His works are way over rated, it pains me how many serious literature teachers consider this guy the next Shakespeare. Of course, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and I'd hesitate to call anyones opinion stupid just because I disagreed with it. Many people feel Lord of the Rings is a masterpiece and that the Silmarillion is just a shadow of what it was meant to be, an unfinished work never finished by its creator. I believe had the Silmarillion been finished by Tolkien and published while the author still lived, it would not recieve such harsh criticism. 

A little off topic, but the coolest thing about Stephen King is that fact that he writes a story where the main character gets hit by a vehicle and is killed, then a mere matter of months later gets struck by a vehicle himself and is nearly killed. After a hell of a time in recovery, King buys the van that hit him, and goes batshit on it with a baseball bat (total nutter!). Originally he planned to demolish it by hand via sledge hammer, but I guess he found out what a task that would be and had it demolished the usual way. A little over a year after the accident, on Stephen King's birthday, the man who hit King is found dead, supposedly of a painkiller overdose. Hmm, makes me wonder what wish Stephen made that year as he blew out the candles... Creepy stuff. I am not reading anything into it, it is all a matter of a series of coincidences, but it is interesting to reflect on.

King's writing is most certianly medocre. Tolkien was a brilliant writter. If you could't understand Tolkien's books, that is too bad, but it is not his fault. Most people can read his books and understand them just fine.

I haven't read anything by King, so I really can't judge if his writing is mediocre or not.  It's been ten years since I read The Lord of the Rings, but I remember liking the books and thinking they were great works.  But just because Tolkien is great doesn't mean he's immune to any kind of criticism.  But since I haven't read King and haven't read Tolkien in so long, I'm not really the best person to evaluate any of this, I guess.

zombie84 said: I often read random passages, even out of context, just for pleasure.

Ha ha, so do I. I keep a leather bound copy under my side of the bed (right next to Emily Dickinson and Fangles' translations of Homer), I'll pick it up and just read bits from whatever page I turned to before going to bed sometimes. Every now and then I will talk my wife into letting me read some to her out loud to let her hear why it is so great, and every time I do she falls asleep in just a few minutes, bores the shit out of her. To each their own.