And look over there - The entire villain is one big mystery box. Note the question mark on his forehead.
As opposed to this mirrored question mark on Obi-Wan’s forehead in Episode I concept art. I guess tattoo removal is very advanced in the GFFA.
Uh, maybe?
Remember this 1975 Ralph McQuarrie sketch of Luke and Leia as identical blondes?
The 1975 third draft reintroduced Princess Leia as a character, after her near total absence in the second draft… where Leia’s role in the film we know as taken by Luke’s older brother.
As awkward as the whole Leia-sister reveal in ROTJ is – mainly because during production of ESB she was very definitely not Luke’s sister – Lucas probably did consider having them be half-siblings while making the first film. And having them carry on a romantic relationship despite that.
Further circumstantial evidence:
There are strong Arthurian parallels with Ben Kenobi’s character in the 1975 third draft: he has a mechanical right hand, like the one-handed Bedivere, the knight who returned Excalibur to the Lady of the Lake after King Arthur fell to Mordred in the Battle of Camlann. Ben, as custodian of Anakin’s sword, plays a similar role, in this case after Anakin fell to Vader in the Battle of Condawn.
Besides being Bedivere to Anakin’s Arthur, Ben also plays the role of Merlin for the new generation of heroes. And Merlin failed to stop Arthur from having sex with his own half-sister Morgause, which is what led to Mordred’s birth.
Incest between half-siblings of different ages also features in the story of Richard Wagner’s Ring Cycle, where it’s blonde lookalike siblings Siegmund and Sieglinde who confess their love for one another and get it on, resulting in the birth of the hero Siegfried.
Wagner famously called his Ring Cycle “a trilogy with a prelude”. In 1975 Lucas told Alan Dean Foster he envisioned Star Wars as a trilogy of films about Luke and “the Skywalker family”, along with a single prequel movie, the same structure as Wagner’s opera cycle.
So basically Lucas was looking at and incorporating into SW a lot of ideas from stories which also feature quite prominently a brother and sister getting it on.
Not conclusive… but definitely thought-provoking.
Perhaps you could speak to someone about that, in your non-Internet capacity.
Eh, Mr. Rinzler?
One thing about ROTJ that’s often overlooked is how it thematically sets up Luke and Leia’s sibling relationship.
In ESB Luke rushed off hotheadedly on his own to save his friends, and got his right hand cut off by Vader as a result. In ROTJ Leia rushes off hotheadedly on her own to save Han, and is unmasked and implicitly raped by Jabba as a result.
Skywalker hotbloodedness in both cases. But since the Leia bit of that parallel is told mostly through implication, few viewers pick up on it.
Can’t say I ever picked up on any implications that Leia HAD been raped, sure it could be an extrapolated possibility if you took that view that at some stage she would be but by whom I don’t know as looking at Jabba he doesn’t seem compatible with humans and being her captor and master of the palace, it’s not like anyone else has access to her without his permission and there’s no implication in the movie as to any of this.
Basically I am saying - what makes you think (from in movie implications and cues) that she has or would be raped simply because she is sitting there in a bikini? It’s a possibility if your mind really delves down that line of thought but I don’t feel the movie allows for this, ultimately just showing as another part of Jabba’s entertainment in humiliating his captives and displaying his power over them (like carbonite Han hanging as a wall display).
.Val
It’s in Kasdan’s second-draft screenplay, which contains everything in the finished film but also uses the phrase “fate worse than death” to describe what happens to her offscreen.
That isn’t any evidence to say it is rape. Rape alone isn’t worse than death as after rape there is still life no matter what trauma came beforehand. Death is final, there’s no going back or alternative outcomes…though I suppose the topic is somewhat debatable for Jedi Knights that become force ghosts 😉
Be that as it may, the phrase “fate worse than death” is a traditional euphemism for rape/sexual assault/etc. Kasdan using it in dialogue in the script indicates that he, as the film’s writer, understood that to be what happens in that scene.
ATMachine said:
The nuEU also apparently had this in mind, because it specifically invalidated the Legends claim that Hutts were all hermaphrodites.No offense if you do, but I really don’t care what any sort of EU has to say on original OT canon and I never will.
This is an admirable approach. Of course I personally am one who prefers to throw out the idea of a single rigid “canon” altogther.
Possibly.
LucasArts actually included the phrase “white slavers” in Monkey Island 2, back in 1991. When the remake came out in 2010 that phrase was censored - along with every mention of a corporate product made by anyone other than Lucasfilm.
It’s a brave new world of corporate feudalism. Star Wars is just another paving stone on the road to that hell.
“At Lucasfilm at this point, followers might be all the studio is looking for.”
Hollywood, led by Disney’s twin brands Marvel and Lucasfilm, is undoing the last vestiges of the 1970s auteur theory that shifted the power of filmmaking to directors, and bringing back the 1930s studio system.
And it couldn’t have happened without Star Wars. Without a doubt, this will be the most shameful aspect of George Lucas’ legacy.
I choose the former. Mainly because not all of us want to live in the stultifying sterility of proverbial Peoria.
But even Luke’s mutilation in ESB was conceived in sublimated sexual terms: Lucas referred to it as “a castration scene” on multiple occasions.
You’re more right than you know.
The 1975 third-draft script has Leia interrogated by Vader and two other Imperial officers: a scene modeled on a deleted scene in THX 1138 which survived in the novelization, where LUH is raped by three prison guards.
Not to mention several of Ralph McQuarrie’s thumbnail sketches for the chasm-swing scene show Leia bare-breasted and wearing only a tattered skirt. (And another 1975 McQuarrie “wardrobe malfunction” sketch of Leia in prison is the frontispiece to The Making of ESB.)
I think Lucasfilm already has such a movie (or several), but they’re not releasing it because it wouldn’t be anything except an R rating at best.
One thing about ROTJ that’s often overlooked is how it thematically sets up Luke and Leia’s sibling relationship.
In ESB Luke rushed off hotheadedly on his own to save his friends, and got his right hand cut off by Vader as a result. In ROTJ Leia rushes off hotheadedly on her own to save Han, and is unmasked and implicitly raped by Jabba as a result.
Skywalker hotbloodedness in both cases. But since the Leia bit of that parallel is told mostly through implication, few viewers pick up on it.
Can’t say I ever picked up on any implications that Leia HAD been raped, sure it could be an extrapolated possibility if you took that view that at some stage she would be but by whom I don’t know as looking at Jabba he doesn’t seem compatible with humans and being her captor and master of the palace, it’s not like anyone else has access to her without his permission and there’s no implication in the movie as to any of this.
Basically I am saying - what makes you think (from in movie implications and cues) that she has or would be raped simply because she is sitting there in a bikini? It’s a possibility if your mind really delves down that line of thought but I don’t feel the movie allows for this, ultimately just showing as another part of Jabba’s entertainment in humiliating his captives and displaying his power over them (like carbonite Han hanging as a wall display).
.Val
It’s in Kasdan’s second-draft screenplay, which contains everything in the finished film but also uses the phrase “fate worse than death” to describe what happens to her offscreen.
The nuEU also apparently had this in mind, because it specifically invalidated the Legends claim that Hutts were all hermaphrodites.
I wonder how many people would be lining up for photos with Jabba at Star Wars conventions if they knew?
Two words: tongue action.
Those two words said, I don’t think Leia was raped. I think she’d exhibit signs of PTSD had she been.
She does! Leia is uncharacteristically silent throughout the whole scene where she’s in the bikini. Basically the idea is she’s in shock after being assaulted. As Carrie Fisher said, normally Leia would be first to crack wise about that skimpy outfit. But she’s silent, because she’s traumatized by what happened offscreen.
^ Well said.
I do think Vader being Luke’s older brother was a strong possibility. Again, very mythological, and as far back as the 1975 second draft you have the motif of the extended Skywalker family and Luke having to deal with an older brother or two.
One thing about ROTJ that’s often overlooked is how it thematically sets up Luke and Leia’s sibling relationship.
In ESB Luke rushed off hotheadedly on his own to save his friends, and got his right hand cut off by Vader as a result. In ROTJ Leia rushes off hotheadedly on her own to save Han, and is unmasked and implicitly raped by Jabba as a result.
Skywalker hotbloodedness in both cases. But since the Leia bit of that parallel is told mostly through implication, few viewers pick up on it.
Indeed it has. Not that that speaks well for LFL’s management of the series so far.
Colin Trevorrow is out as director:
http://www.starwars.com/news/a-statement-regarding-star-wars-episode-ix
Something like the Valley of the Jedi, perhaps? I’ve long been of the view that that particular plot point was inspired by an idea Lucas had for Episodes VII-IX in the days before ROTJ.
Indeed, Jabba the Hutt is a master of underworld and under-the-table attacks.
The pink solar fins don’t bother me nearly as much as the unholy hybrid of the X-Wing chassis and TIE Fighter wings.
Can they be rehashes if they’re really… prehashes?
puts on shades
Stop putting on those shades, you keep not earning them.
And how, pray tell, does one earn shades in Frinkville?
New interview with the designer behind these:
StarWars.com: Let’s start with the Dreadnought. Can you tell me about coming up with the design and how closely you were working with Rian Johnson to bring it to life?
Kevin Jenkins: All of my work was with Rian. Direct with Rian. The Dreadnought didn’t actually come to life until we got into post [production]. We had made some passes that were similar that Rian had approved that were on set, but it kind of turned into the final version that we are seeing now when we were in the post process, and we were going into full model-build stage. Basically, it evolved from story reasons because Rian needed a new battleship in the script called the Dreadnought. Essentially, it needed to be a ground-firing gun platform, and the other limitations that Rian put on me was he needed and required a flat surface with gun turrets on it. So basically, it’s an armored gunboat, an armored gun platform. It’s sort of a heavy artillery that’s much bigger than a standard Star Destroyer, about two-and-a-half times the size of a standard Star Destroyer. That was the original brief to me.
StarWars.com: As you were developing it, what were you looking at for inspiration? Were you looking at real-world craft or were you going back to the original trilogy and building off what came before? How did you approach it?
Kevin Jenkins: Combination of the original trilogy stuff, in the sense that I designed everything in Episode VIII as if it was to be a model. World War II and the Korean War and that era was a heavy influence in all the design, going into the ‘60s. But also using the mentality that Rian and I talked about a lot, which was an iteration-type idea. War makes you adaptive. So you start off with one vehicle, tank, gun, ship, and it evolves through combat into something else. The gun platform, of course being a larger Star Destroyer gun platform, we initially started with a giant triangle, which was the shape of a Star Destroyer. But then flattening off the top became a big design requirement. Quite late in the design phase, the under side of it was also sloped like a traditional Star Destroyer, because they are kind of a trapezoid shape if you look at them in a cross-section.
We had all sorts of design ideas and things, but when seeing an early cut with Rian, I just remember straight afterwards we talked to each other and went, “We need guns.” We tried radars because, obviously, you look at Return of the Jedi and there were radar dishes. There’s one on the Death Star. So it was also part of that retro, Flash Gordon-esque sci-fi thing, and we went down that path for a while, but then the cut just went, “Nah. Big guns. It just needs big guns.”
StarWars.com: You can never go wrong with big guns.
Kevin Jenkins: Yeah, exactly. I spent a lot of time looking at real-world references. Looking at the big battleships, the Yamato and all those kinds of things from World War II, and the way those guns would lower or rise. So the idea of them coming out the bottom of the Dreadnought became a design feature, because rather than just being there pointing down, we wanted to imply the danger that they sort of unlocked themselves and then moved into position. Just like the big 14-inch guns you used to see on those old battleships. It was a capitol ship. That was what we were kind of going for.
StarWars.com: Let’s jump over to the AT-M6. Walkers are a huge part of Star Wars and a fan-favorite thing. We see them in the original trilogy, the prequels, the animated series. So in coming up with a new kind of walker here for the sequel trilogy, what did you want to accomplish and what direction was Rian giving you?
Kevin Jenkins: Well, there were a few ideas that were kicking around before we came up with this idea. Funny, just before I took a vacation, sort of half way through preproduction, I talked to Rian about “what is a walker.” We went through this whole discussion about iteration. Iteration, to me, makes more sense than random walker design. So we talked about the way a Sherman tank in World War II evolved into an Abrams tank, for various reasons, or a Chieftain tank, or a Challenger, or whatever you want to say. And so we were trying to think about what made sense for a walker and I just said, “Look, a walker, to me, it’s essentially a Panzer tank mixed with a dog.” One of the questions that tied us up a lot is the fact that they’d been taken down by snowspeeders in The Empire Strikes Back, and it felt like everyone else is trying to avoid the problem of a four-legged version of a walker because they had been defeated on Hoth. So I sort of took that on board and I suggested to Rian, “Well, instead of a dog, what about a gorilla?” I can’t remember why I said a gorilla, but I just said, “They have a great stance, they are very aggressive,” and that’s how the idea of the gorilla came. And literally in profile, I molded it over an actual photo of a gorilla to get the initial base pose.
The front legs are very heavily armored, and you can see can almost up to the forearm. And again, that’s my take on, “You can’t take these down with a snowspeeder.” They’ve armored up the front or maybe they just cut the ropes because they are too big now. Also, the way they are balanced now is like a gorilla, because their knuckles are turned backwards and they’ve got very high shoulders. They are a completely different poise. Maybe they could even sort of kneel down or something. So I just took that gorilla design iteration, with the very high back, and just went to town with it. Actually, I didn’t do many conceptual designs or even images for it. Funny enough, I literally just took my laptop on holiday and I modeled it by the beach over two weeks and brought it back to Rian. Did the only two or three pictures that were done for it, and then showed those to Rian, who was really happy with it, and then I just made the physical models. Because the other thing I was doing on this show, compared to Episode VII with a lot of the vehicles that I was doing, I actually got Rian to approve them as physical prototypes. I would 3D print them from my 3D files, and then I would sort of scratch-build them. They are fully-painted. Rian has a fully-painted gorilla walker I’ve made for him. That was done for a number of the vehicles on Episode VIII.
StarWars.com: I’m glad to hear that they finally figured out how to defend against tow cables.
Kevin Jenkins: Well, it was more of a thought process of trying to base the design not upon something random but to move it forward. That’s also the reason for adding the large guns on there. It’s become the heavy assault walker. Also, I really love the idea of going, “What if the old walkers become the scouts for these walkers?” Because these are literally about a third or twice the size of them. So in the artwork, in the designs I initially did, I always put not scout walkers, but the actual classic walkers next to them, which sort of showed off their size. I think I called them goliaths for a while or something, but that’s how they got to where they were.
StarWars.com: That’s interesting. It sounds like you had the idea of, “Let’s have this really make sense from a design perspective.” But how did you hit the balance between, “We have to make something that the audience is going to respond to visually and like,” versus “Let’s have it make sense in-universe and have it move the technology of walkers forward.”
Kevin Jenkins: Yeah, I mean, I think the way I approached the design was purely from the design-that-makes-sense approach, and I heavily wanted to mix it with the feeling of a gorilla, and you can see tons of that in there when you look at it from the side. But then, really, the final aesthetic came from something we were doing on Episode VII — this is why I made a physical model. If it feels like a model and I felt like it probably could have been in the original trilogy, then I’d be happy with it. I kind of did that bit for me. That was why Rian liked some of the physical models that I was making so much, because it made us realize that, “You know, if this could have been around 1983 and if it feels good, then we’re fine.” That was pretty much the internal checkbox that I took forward with that.
StarWars.com: With these two designs, the Dreadnought and the AT-M6, what are you particularly proud of?
Kevin Jenkins: I’m very proud of the gorilla [walker] from the point of view of exactly what I said, that I feel that it’s an iteration forward. A spitfire and a modern jet, you can see the link there. They’re part of the same thing. That was always my intention with the gorilla. It’s not a start from scratch. This is the aesthetic, this is the way that the First Order, who was the Empire, work. So that, I’m really happy with. When I found the final model balance, I kind of thought, “I don’t think I can move this around anymore. I think this is it.” Rian saw it and his eyes lit up, and he just went, “There’s our walker.” That was really cool.
But then on the other hand, the same kind of goes with the Dreadnought, and that evolved a lot harder and over a lot longer period of time than the walker, which was pretty much kind of stab one, almost. With the Dreadnought, I feel that we are making sense of First Order technology and trying to tie it together, rather than just doing cool ships. It’s hopefully cool because of what it does and its design makes sense for the story, and then hopefully future generations will think it’s cool because of what it ends up doing in the movie. But again, trying to move the design forward. That’s why it has that super-wide bridge. When it’s lit, it’s like a submarine because everything goes red when it’s going to fire.
So I don’t know, I’m pretty happy with them, to be honest with you. But for different reasons, because when the Dreadnought was [requested], “Oh, we need another ship,” I thought it was just a flippant, “Oh, we just need another thing,” and it turned into a whole sequence around what it needed to be. And the walkers for different reasons, because that 10-year-old kid in me, when I saw The Empire Strikes Back, thought that that was the coolest thing I had ever seen. And it’s very hard to live up to anything that Ralph [McQuarrie] did, but if we captured a little bit of that feeling of what was done in the ‘70s and ‘80s, then hopefully we succeeded.
While I appreciate the appearent thoughtfulness behind the designs and the desire to make them logical evolutions of previous vehicles, the end results simply seem uninspired. And, honestly, I don’t really see the logic in the AT-M6’s design – how does having bulkier front legs make this any more resistant to cables? If they somehow enable them to move more quickly, as Lord Haseo said, then okay, but I doubt it.
IMO they at least show a level of thought about the design that was greater than the vehicles in Episodes II and III. The latter two prequels had very uninspired ship designs whose only idea was to transition between the ships in TPM and the OT, without any thought given to the designs as standalone designs.
If she isn’t albino, she’s not the real Kira in my books.
I think you’re confusing the four-armed Holiday Special chef with Zaphod Beeblebrox.
Can they be rehashes if they’re really… prehashes?
puts on shades
The thread says Star Wars quotes, not quotes from alternate cuts of Star Wars films the public doesn’t get to see.
I’ve already got my alternative PT, so this isn’t something that would pique my interest.
You may have them already, but the rest of us deserve them as well, n’est-ce pas?
Why is Han Solo not wearing a spacesuit in a vacuum?
