ATMachine

Because I couldn’t find an equivalent on the first few pages, or an easy way to search the forums.

I’ll start:

As I’ve noted in the past, while writing the original Star Wars film in 1975, George Lucas considered having Princess Leia’s torture at Imperial hands be considerably more graphic.

Among other injuries, Leia’s back would likely have borne half-healed whip marks from a flogging (as in Lawrence of Arabia), and one of her eyes would be swollen shut, like Clint Eastwood in Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars.

Darth Vader’s thugs would even have installed a cyborg dataport on her head, in order to access Leia’s memories, leaving one side of her head half-shaved afterward. Anyone who’s seen THX-1138 might find this imagery familiar.

The end result, as seen in the Ralph McQuarrie storyboards below, was that once Luke rescued Leia, he’d be running around the Death Star corridors alongside a bare-breasted, blaster-wielding princess with a punk hairstyle and a very pissed-off mood.

Eugène Delacroix would be proud. (And yes, this is why John Mollo notes that a “Tarzan-like” costume was considered for Leia in the (SW Costumes* book.)

Oddly enough, on the last season of History Channel’s Vikings, the character of Thorunn the shieldmaiden received injuries in battle which are a pretty good approximation of what George Lucas wanted for Leia’s facial wounds:

They even worked in the half-shaven hairstyle.

(This is even more remarkable when you consider that, judging by McQuarrie’s 1975 concept sketches, Lucas evidently wanted Leia to be a Wagnerian-type blonde who shared Luke’s hair color.)

Mayhew’s pics are actually of the shooting script. Luke’s surname was changed during the shooting process (happily before any footage had been filmed with the old name). The opening crawl was likewise rewritten in post.

^ Always nice to see new articles from Gestestudien.

SilverWook said:

I like this except I would have Photoshopped the robes to white.

The “Ultimate Editions” are soundtracks featuring the music of the PT films, exactly as it appears in the films, without cuts for length.

Only TPM had one, alas – the others are presumably languishing in GL’s subsection of the Disney Vault.

And given that the final edits of the PT (all three films) required some nasty chopping work to John Williams’ music to make it fit, I’d personally prefer an “ur-Ultimate” edition of JW’s actual soundtracks as they were meant to be heard (ie, scored to fit the rough cuts of the prequels).

Baldwin IV of Jerusalem - B+

I still need to see a Superman movie. (All of 'em. Any of 'em. Well, except the Fleischer Studios cartoons.)

pittrek said:

Well we’re talking about an American seeing the movie in the early 70’s. So there are not too many options.

Well, GL did attend USC film school, so presumably he knew people who had connections to film archives and such.

Lord Haseo said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

Lord Haseo said:

Kylo should definitely inherit Vader’s lightsaber when he completes his training.

Yes, because one lightsaber miraculously retrieved from oblivion wasn’t coincidental enough …

Really any type of logic regarding things/people surviving falls was thrown out of the window in ESB. Luke surviving his fall is something we attribute that to the will of the force. The same can be applied to a lightsaber.

Of course, hardly anybody complained when Timothy Zahn did the same thing in the Thrawn trilogy. But put the same idea in a film and you have Internet forums exploding with nerd rage.

That’s an interesting question! I don’t know, but I’d sure as heck like to find out.

Mithrandir said:

Bingowings said:

Swazzy said:

So basically The Force Unleashed, maybe sans the over-glorified wielding of force powers?

More like Rebels in the sense that you have a core set of characters that are only loosely connected to the OT ones with occasional side views of what the OT crew are up to.

I doubt if the Jedi in that show are going to make it but there is an off chance Yoda is wrong about Luke being the last Jedi so their fate isn’t set in stone and the other characters are even more open to survive so we can invest more into their story not knowing that they are doomed.

Obi-wan and Yoda are never in peril in the PT if you watch the films in the order they were made because we know they are survive.
If we watch the episodes in chronological order the surprise twists in Episodes V and VI are ruined.
If they had made the PT about other people we could watch them in either order and still get the same sweep of history.

Maybe the importance of the “twist” in ESB is a little overreated if you take the saga as a whole. There’s a chance it would be too much to force seven hundred minutes of a movie to preserve just one.

Taking Bespin as the actually defining moment of the SW ethos is could neglect the phenomenom Star Wars already was in 77.

I believe we all would preserve the “secret” of Vader’s identity mostly because it reminds us of our childhood, when it blew us then rather than to keep it due to strictly artistical reasons.

Well said. Still, there’s something to be said for watching the SW films in release orde: besides the likely already-spoiled-to-death Father Vader reveal, there’s the benefit of seeing the films in, well, the release order.

Seeing the saga’s backtory evolve and grow (and be retconned) as GL et al wrote each successive movie is much more interesting IMO than starting with TPM, by which point so much backstory already established.

Also, even if the novelty of it is lost on modern viewers, Vader’s turn nonetheless works extremely well as a dramatic device, because it furthers the themes of Luke’s journey, developing and deeping the morally black-and-white world of the first film.

(Contrast the Luke and Leia sibling revelation, which felt decidedly underwhelming because it was shoehorned into ROTJ after being unplanned in ESB – although given all the Richard Wagner influences on the original film, it’s quite likely that GL had considered this plot line as far back as 1977 and before.)

TV’s Frink said:

Reverse vampires are the only vampires allowed in this thread.

Would that be an eripamv?

DuracellEnergizer said:

All true vampires sparkle.

No true vampire does not sparkle.

ZkinandBonez said:

DominicCobb said:

It’s funny because Lucas talks in From Star Wars to Jedi about how sci-fi directors always make the mistake of spending film time showing off the amazing sets and locations they’ve created just because they’ve spent a lot of time actually making them, but really they should be getting on with the story and letting the setting speak for itself. This mantra is definitely followed in the OT and TFA but not at all in the PT.

You know the more I read stuff like this I start to wonder what happened to Lucas in the 90’s. He really has a great track record of contradicting himself.
It also kind of ironic on how he used the PT to show off all the CGI while he did all he could to not show off the practical stuff. It’s almost as if it was done on purpose.

“Almost”?

My two cents: this whole Ring Theory hoopla is basically a lot of sound and fury that signifies nothing.

^ I like that Darth Vader is cast in the role of Van Helsing in the above pic.

I want a picture of Mace Windu’s lightsaber hilt, specifically the one engraved with BAD M----- F-----*.

(*language censored to protect the children)

Depends on whether LFL/Disney’s marketing department is the only entity that gets to “call” a SW film.

Judging from the flashback, said ranks consist of a mighty army of… 7.

Huh. Seven Dark Jedi.

Eh, Jedi Knight did it better. And with yellow lightsabers, too.

So I guess “Kylo Ren” is vain enough to name an order of Dark Side knights after himself.

Who does that remind me of…

They’re right next to Turboshaft 2.

DuracellEnergizer said:

joefavs said:

Didn’t Kenner come close to doing a toy line at one point that was based around the premise that Tarkin somehow survived the Death Star and came back to cause trouble after ROTJ?

More or less.

“Evacuate? In Our moment of triumph? I think you overestimate their chances. … Now, you gentlemen seem to have this matter well in hand, so if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll take a well deserved trip to the Wieland Riviera in my personal shuttle.”

darklordoftech said:

Darth Bane, the one who started the conspiracy that led to the rise of the Empire and has no canon fate.

Excuse you, obviously he walked off into the deserts of Arrakis Aquilae Tatooine.

A double, or a twin, maybe.

SpilkaBilka said:

I always heard “Shitty Jedi! Shitty Jedi!”

Maybe the guy who says “Die, dickhead!” as the Executor crashes into the DS2 was involved.

Clearly he’s saying “The Dickhead” in German. ;P

An Imperial spy? Or just somebody who hates bad drivers?