How about releasing “The Star Wars: The Pre-Marcia Lucas Edit?”
No? I didn’t think so…
🤣🤣
There is no such edit, unless you mean John Jympson’s collection of edited scenes
I think they mean the rough cut before it was redone before release
But Marcia Lucas edited that cut and left before it was finished
How about releasing “The Star Wars: The Pre-Marcia Lucas Edit?”
No? I didn’t think so…
🤣🤣
There is no such edit, unless you mean John Jympson’s collection of edited scenes
KK is back saying no story treatments George told her it was all up there in her head. Comedy. Pure comedy. Two paragraphs she says. No treatment.
That means free reign to do whatever Disney wanted. George can’t have his cake and it too.
It’s like he removed himself of the responsibility and the fans but wants the love, adulation and accolades. Disney can get the criticism.
Look at the malarkey about the prequel being a lost or misunderstood masterpiece. That happened since Disney bought Lucasfilm, born out of fan discontent.
I think KK is making that up. Bob Iger said that Lucas gave extensive and detailed outlines, and KK was one of the people to agree to discard them.
The only one that has merit to me is the Last Jedi and Rian went places I did not like with Luke Skywalker, but challenged you. JJ gave nothing. He did nothing. Luke as a worthless Maguffin empty mystery box.
Killed Han Solo. Made the worst Star Wars out of the now 3 trilogies. The Rise of Skywalker. They Fly Now, Somehow Palpatine returned. It was also his decision to put Luke on the Island in the first place and to not reunite the trio.
Abrams destroyed Star Wars. And he remade Star Wars 1977 as the Force Awakens. At best I liked the concept of Rey in that movie being a scavenger and coming up from nothing, not being a magic mutant bloodline. But then the last one undid that. Oh she is a dyad, she is the new chosen one and the granddaughter of Sidious. Can’t be Rey Nobody. Can’t be a somebody because of merit and struggle, it has to be midichlorians.
Can we have ordinary heroes or does everyone have to be a demi god. Why not come from a hard background and have some grit. Anakin was a slave. Who had to prove himself despite the magic mutant nonsense.
Not reuniting the trio was Abrams’s idea, but Luke being in exile on an island was Lucas’s idea and Luke being a bitter old man who abandoned his friends to die was Arndt’s idea
I was so put off by SW episode 8 that I never actually watched ep 9. Did I miss out on anything good - anything at all?
After watching 7 and 8 I thought the re-quels most of all just pissed on the OT and its characters.
I’d say no.
It’s not so much a script or outline or such that I found. It’s more that the first ‘continuing story of Star Wars’ thing Lucas attempted to write was “Splinter of the Mind’s Eye” in the fall of 1976, and even that was him and writer Alan Dean Foster fleshing out the story together, not something Lucas wrote on his own. Lucas most likely wanted Ballantine to think that he had written two additional stories to be made into books in December 1975, when he hired Foster to write the novel adaptation of the film. I think that was just to seal the book deal with Ballantine. Not implausible, considering that in 1978 he told Spielberg that he had already written outlines for two additional Indiana Jones adventures, when as Steven said, he found out later that that wasn’t the case.
Considering that the fourth draft was only days away from being published, it’s implausible that Lucas would be formulating a “we find out who Darth Vader is in book number two”, when there’s no trace of that in the fourth draft, or the third. The other anachronisms in that text from TMOSW Rinzler book are: the use of the family surname “Skywalker” when in December it was still “Starkiller” until March or April 1976. The quote about whether Luke or Han “gets” the Princess, when less than a year later in October 1976, Lucas tells Foster (and Lippincott?) that the Princess isn’t necessarily going for either one.
First off, masked mystery villains were a common trope in the Western stuff Lucas grew up with, and second off Lucas would be passionate about developing his own characters. Also, I don’t see what that last contradiction is.
Rinzler had access to a trove of information and the Lucasfilm Archives. There is no way he did not see Lucas notes, treatments and screenplays. He even viewed earlier cuts of the films.
The only issue is interviewing modern Lucas looking back who editorializes and mythologizes. Not the first hand information.
And a book on the making of Star Wars wouldn’t have been possible without access to the archives at Lucasfilm or the taped interviews of Charley Lippincott.
He didn’t have access to everything. We have early notes about the conception of the Force, an alternate version of the second draft with the third draft outline’s ending that Charles Lippincott had, and a page from an unfinished version of the third draft more loyal to the outline that Gary Kurtz had, and Rinzler saw none of those.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/movieprops/posts/2434275416612373/
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DHpVwMkJjQb/?hl=en
https://entertainment.ha.com/itm/movie-tv-memorabilia/star-wars-episode-iv-a-new-hope-vintage-original-3rd-draft-script-page-with-handwritten-annotations-by-george-lucas/a/997027-2530.s
We know Palpatine wanted to become Chancellor to seize control of the Republic and convert it into the Empire.
But other than the whole maneuvering with the trade federation and attacking the Naboo made no sense.
Why does he want to attack the Naboo, why does he want to kill the Queen or later be perfectly fine with Padme potentially being assassinated, but also perfectly fine in using her for his own ends. Jar Jar approving emergency powers.
Why did Dooku leave the Jedi order and the republic. The movies don’t explain. We get a hint he was disillusioned with democracy and was upset over Qui-Gon’s death that is about it. Why join the Sith that is a huge leap.
We get he wants to get rid of any opposition Sidious does, political or otherwise the Jedi. And he needs the Jedi as a scapegoat for his evil fascist ambitions. To pin a rebellion upon. The Jedi moved against the chancellor and became traitors. He convinces Anakin almost that the Jedi like the Sith desire power and don’t want to share it. That they are a jealous of his power. There is a enough of a hint of corruption in what the Jedi asked Anakin to do spying on the Chancellor he is convinced the Jedi went bad.
It was corruption to merely fight in the Clone Wars because the Jedi are keepers of the peace and not soldiers. Sidious wants the Jedi to be perceived as heroes and then to fall and be seen as villains. He wiped them all out except for Yoda and Kenobi. The whole thing was like an exercise in getting Anakin to grow in power and to get him to help destroy his enemies. Sidious is like the bad father and Kenobi is the good father. Kenobi fails as a surrogate father and a big brother to Anakin. Because of Anakin’s fear of loss and greed.
I think the original plan was for the Federation to win, Palpatine uses this to vote out Valorum, and then the Federation secedes and becomes the seperatists
We know from him revealing that the second film would entail the audience learning Vader’s identity that Lucas was willing to do that regardless of if the twist was planned to be him being Luke’s father at the time or not
It’s very strange that the public is given that tidbit in 2006/2007, some 30 years after the original film and years after the twist stopped being a ‘secret’ that the film going public wasn’t aware of. As I’ve said on the other thread, it doesn’t make sense for Lucas to plan for a twist to happen in films that may not ever get made. There’s also the possibility that Lucas was considering cutting some of Vader’s backstory from the film, as days later he would admit that the current script might have been a bit surplus for what was absolutely needed. As it turned out, he ended up keeping the Kenobi delivered Vader backstory, even added further details (while cutting out some Death Star set pieces). Since the December 1975 meeting was partly to give guidance to the film’s novel adaptation author, it should be viewed in that light, and not in light of what imho us is an anachronistic reading. A reading which btw, seems even less likely to be of late 1975 vintage when not even a year later, Lucas is telling Foster and Lippincott something completely at odds with the common ‘OT/CT Saga’ interpretation of the Rinzler quote.
What is this 1976 quote at odds with it that you’re referring to?
What he said about having Luke kill off Vader in SOTME. Also Leia, he was willing to kill her off. He also said that Leia isn’t necessarily ‘with’ or going to be with Han or Luke. The third book being the ‘Skywalker soap opera’ would probably require long lost relatives that aren’t Vader. The Emperor is not described as being a Sith Master sorcerer or what have you. And he wanted Luke to be a Jedi already in SOTME. No training required, so no Ben Kenobi nor Yoda. Foster didn’t seem to recall being told about any mystery regarding Vader that needed revealing.
I’ve always assumed that was cause of SOTME not being the sequel Lucas wanted to make. Foster explicitly said in the 2002 interview that “When George commissioned Splinter, he wanted me to write a story that could be filmed on a low budget. That’s why, for example, everything takes place on a fog-shrouded planet. His idea was that if Star Wars didn’t flop, wasn’t a huge success but maybe made a few bucks, he would have a story in hand that could be done using many of the props, costumes, etc., from the first film. It’s the approach of a good engineer, who always includes a backup system in his design. The book was written and completed before Star Wars was released, hence it was always intended to appear as a book. Also, proceeding on the assumption that the film was a success, George didn’t want any fans to have to sit around and wait for the next film. He wanted them to have additional Star Wars material available.”
We know from him revealing that the second film would entail the audience learning Vader’s identity that Lucas was willing to do that regardless of if the twist was planned to be him being Luke’s father at the time or not
It’s very strange that the public is given that tidbit in 2006/2007, some 30 years after the original film and years after the twist stopped being a ‘secret’ that the film going public wasn’t aware of. As I’ve said on the other thread, it doesn’t make sense for Lucas to plan for a twist to happen in films that may not ever get made. There’s also the possibility that Lucas was considering cutting some of Vader’s backstory from the film, as days later he would admit that the current script might have been a bit surplus for what was absolutely needed. As it turned out, he ended up keeping the Kenobi delivered Vader backstory, even added further details (while cutting out some Death Star set pieces). Since the December 1975 meeting was partly to give guidance to the film’s novel adaptation author, it should be viewed in that light, and not in light of what imho us is an anachronistic reading. A reading which btw, seems even less likely to be of late 1975 vintage when not even a year later, Lucas is telling Foster and Lippincott something completely at odds with the common ‘OT/CT Saga’ interpretation of the Rinzler quote.
What is this 1976 quote at odds with it that you’re referring to?
We know from him revealing that the second film would entail the audience learning Vader’s identity that Lucas was willing to do that regardless of if the twist was planned to be him being Luke’s father at the time or not
Lucas wasn’t telling the truth about the Father/Vader twist.
It’s pretty open/shut at this point almost 50 years later.
The stakes for Lucas having either misremembered or embellished or replaced a memory with repeated embellishment aren’t very high anymore, and haven’t been. If the worst case scenario at the end of this rabbit hole is “Lucas got the facts wrong” that’s… no big deal. It happens frequently with creators/creatives. They’re creative people. They’re used to making concepts and details malleable. Did he “lie?” Maybe/maybe not. But it’s beyond clear he didn’t “tell the truth” because the scenario at the core of this isn’t true, and we know it isn’t.
It is far from a closed case. There’s a ton of evidence pointing both ways and it’s impossible to prove for sure what was and wasn’t in Lucas’s head.
Lucas wasn’t telling the truth about the Father/Vader twist.
It’s pretty open/shut at this point almost 50 years later.
The stakes for Lucas having either misremembered or embellished or replaced a memory with repeated embellishment aren’t very high anymore, and haven’t been. If the worst case scenario at the end of this rabbit hole is “Lucas got the facts wrong” that’s… no big deal. It happens frequently with creators/creatives. They’re creative people. They’re used to making concepts and details malleable. Did he “lie?” Maybe/maybe not. But it’s beyond clear he didn’t “tell the truth” because the scenario at the core of this isn’t true, and we know it isn’t.
It is far from a closed case. There’s a ton of evidence pointing both ways and it’s impossible to prove for sure what was and wasn’t in Lucas’s head.
“When I wrote the first film ANH, I knew that Darth Vader was Luke’s father - the audience did not.” - Lucas, preface to 1995 edition of Star Wars novel.
I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a pretty straightforward statement to me.
Edit: Considering that Lucas’s priority was getting the film he was actually writing made, how likely would he have planned a twist that would have no immediate impact on the film being made ( and with sequels being a far from certain reality)?
What does this contradict about what I said? I said I’m fine with the idea that Lucas lied, or was wrong, or didn’t plan.
It was in response to this:
“I moreso disagree with idea of it being presented it as a certainty.”
I posted the Lucas quote as a rebuttal to your quote, since Lucas says what he does in no uncertain terms, the quote can’t be shifted to mean something else.
That being said, it looks as though your argument is that…you don’t have a particular argument? Why do you take issue with anything oojason or myself say then? It’s like you’re being intentionally vague.
I think Dagenspear meant he disagreed with Lucas lying being a certainty
How exactly would taking such a stance help your argument? I suppose one could say he started to over-claim how much of the saga he had already written or had in place as early as ESB’S development/production. How likely did he have ROTJ as we know it sketched out when ESB was in development? How likely did he have ESB as we know it already written in 1976 before ANH even started filming? If one goes by what he’s on record to have told Foster, Lippincott, and Brackett, the answer is: “not very likely”.
My overall argument isn’t that Lucas factually planned things or whatever. I moreso oppose the idea of that he must’ve lied about everything in regards to planning or whatever. I’m fine with the idea that Lucas lied or was wrong or didn’t plan. I moreso disagree with idea of it being presented it as a certainty.
“When I wrote the first film ANH, I knew that Darth Vader was Luke’s father - the audience did not.” - Lucas, preface to 1995 edition of Star Wars novel.
I’d say that sounds like a pretty straightforward statement.
Yeah and that statement isn’t a proven lie despite not being a proven truth either
As previously stated to both you and Avimo, your repeated attempts at interactions to me have been described by others here as ‘stalkerish’, ‘harassing’, and ‘creepy’… and again… I’m inclined to agree.
Yet you both still continue.
So once again… please stop. Avimo too.
And then kindly both go back to wherever it is similar like-minded trolls and GL/PT zealots as you and Avimo usually hang out at - and spare the good members of this community any more of your repeated bad-faith circlejerking shitposts and continuing performative trolling.
You’re inventing an issue I think. I think I usually reply to what I see and I frequent only a few threads here, but replying to you when I disagree with what you say in those threads is “stalkerish”, “harassing”, and “creepy”? What else is someone supposed to do when they disagree with that they see? What’s the point of discussing if I’m not to do that?
Calling me a zealot, even though I’ve criticized Lucas as well as his writing, while you refer to me being called a stalker for… disagreeing with you and saying so? What have I done that is an offense to you, that’s spoken against you as a person, that’s stalked you, when I only reply to you in a few threads about a limited amount of things?
In addition to that, I don’t recall it ever being “stated to me” that my interactions were that way. There’s no way to search for specific posts that I know of on this website so I don’t see everything. I had no idea this was a thing until now, and I apologize for coming off that way. If I had seen these alleged replies I would’ve obliged much earlier.
Because the one big script for the OT never existed, its in fact a lie. There was one film in 1977. At best Lucas reused ideas from the rough draft screenplay for the sequels and the prequels. But there was never a 1974 script about the tragedy of Darth Vader.
The mythology of how Star Wars came to be is almost a tale in of itself. Unraveling the truth from fiction would be difficult for anyone really without the work done by Charley Lippincott documenting things within the first years.
The tangled web, you don’t need secret history of Star Wars to know Lucas weaves a tale of I had it all figured out in the beginning, Luke and Leia were always be brother and sister, Vader was always going to be the father.
Even Rinzler’s book as good as it is is tainted by Lucas modern day edits. midichlorians don’t come from the 1970’s, Lucas also edited the notes for Leia and the droids. that is time travel revisionism. And Paul Duncan’s book from Lucas interviews from present day at best taken with a salt shaker of salt. not a hint, worthless basically. Legacy interviews from when the films were produced are more reliable on Lucas mindset.
In 78 Lucas intended at least from what I can see for Luke and Leia to end up together or they had a sort of romance. From the Splinter story conference and what he said in the making of Star Wars, and also the love triangle in the first two films.
You pretty much nailed it. The Secret History Of Star Wars book, Charley’s quality blog (RIP), Phil Szostak ‘Mythbusting’ twitter thread, doubleofive’s Star Wars Visual Comparisons, the community’s ‘GL: Unreliable Narrator’ thread, Pollock’s and BJ Jones’ respective books, etc etc - all have a recurring theme running through them; George’s actual words / quotes / interviews from the time… are repeatedly in direct contradiction to his later claims / later mythologizing / later re-writing of the official history.
That isn’t perception, context, personal takes, personal bias, or even ‘a certain point of view’… it is simply highlighting George’s own words from the time contradicting his own latterly constructed revisionist claims.
At the end of the day… facts and history matter. Chronicling the intriguing actual history of The Galaxy Far Far Away isn’t a criticism of the man himself - more a striving for a genuine, accurate, and authentic record on the evolution of Star Wars. That’s what this site strives for - amongst a few other things 😉 - and still does, even today.
I think the above is often missed or overlooked - especially by those who cannot accept that pre-retconned history - and instead look to denigrate those who highlight it, or attempt to downplay or twist it, ignore / deny it, engage in the usual selective cherrypicking and mental gymnastics… as well as the familiar ‘it is everyone else that is wrong but George’ ™ mindset.
^ (as well as those who also engage in denigrating others around the films or Lucasfilm at the time / others with access to files from that time - things that George seemingly overlooks when making his revisionist remarks. See George’s latter claims re Greedo ‘always shooting first’ as an example - differing from the actual scripts, the actors involved, and the crew etc… all ‘differing’ from George’s latterly constructed and debunked claims.)
Many of us still love George, admire him, appreciate him… yet also have a complex outlook or opinion on him (and his other disingenuous claims). Yet there is merit as to why is he known often to be an ‘unreliable narrator’.
Anyway…
I do hope Tosche does find that elusive quote from Gary Kurtz - we’ve both had a lengthy and exhaustive search for it and came up short. As is the way… it’ll likely surface (or something akin to it) now we’re not actively looking for it! 😉 👍
I understand that may be the case for you and some of the sources you’ve mentioned, but in the case of Secret History of Star Wars that’s definitely extremely biased out of Lucas hatred. The later editions were whitewashed to remove all the Lucas hater conspiracy theorist stuff though so it’s not common knowledge.
Dooku is just as badly written but he lives in a half cartoon world with clunky dialogue directed blankly. I don’t care about him. At times I genuinely care about Kylo Ben. He delivers clunky dialogue with conviction in a world that seems more tangible.
I disagree nearly entirely. I think Dooku has more character in his bare bones vague like ten minutes of Attack Of The Clones than Kylo has in the entire ST. Dooku has motive, a backstory (vague in showcase, but solid in concept I think), personal pathos, charm, wit, a goal, and an actual connection to one of the main characters that I think carry’s weight. As far as I think, Kylo is a black hole of a character, with little to none of that.
Yeah agreed. Pretty much every character in the ST is
So I’ve changed my mind on this topic considerably during January. I’ve had a lot of second thoughts about the ‘evidence’. I firmly believe that Lucas came up with Father Vader with EMPIRE, specifically the second draft that he wrote himself in April 1978. There’s too much evidence that stacks up against Lucas having the twist when ANH/SW’77 was made.
Aye, even Lucasfilm higher-ups have come around to openly admitting that ‘Darth Vader wasn’t Luke’s father until the second draft of Empire Strikes Back in April 1978’.
‘At the time of #StarWars’ release in 1977, Obi-Wan Kenobi wasn’t lying to Luke Skywalker about his father because Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader were different people’ etc - in the ‘MythBusters’ X thread by Lucasfilm’s Phil Szostak (with various published evidence presented from George prior to his 1978 retcon of re-writing Vader to be Luke’s father).
With more evidence via Lucas himself / Lucasfilm here: George Lucas: Star Wars Creator, Unreliable Narrator & Time Travelling Revisionist…
The way I think Lucas wrote the Vader-Anakin character arc for the OT is basically using the template of ‘thesis-antithesis-synthesis’. Bear with me, but I think the ‘clue’ to this can be seen in the drafts he wrote for TPM. For STAR WARS (original film), Vader killing/betraying/murdering Luke’s father Anakin(spelled Annikin then) was literal, NOT metaphorical or what have you. That’s the ‘thesis’ statement. Then for EMPIRE - second draft, he does a ‘sharp left-turn’, he literally changes this to: Vader is Anakin, Luke’s father, full-stop. No caveats. No “certain point of view”. This was meant to literally overturn what SW’77 had stated. That’s the ‘antithesis’. Then with JEDI- after Lucas wrote his drafts and after the story conferences with Kasdan, then comes the “certain point of view”, iow, Anakin “died” when he became Vader, Vader was “born”. When Vader dies, Anakin returns. This was the ‘synthesis’ - this allowed Lucas to not have to toss out either SW(ANH) nor ESB.
I do like this - both above and below as an idea - though worth remembering that Qui-Gon was quite a late addition to the writing process - originally it was just Obi Wan on his own.
The TPM script/drafts clue is this: in TPM’s first draft, Obi-Wan has a student, Qui-Gon - who is later killed. In this draft, Obi-Wan discovers Anakin and decides to train him. Pretty much in step with ROTJ. Then in the second draft, Obi-Wan, again the master, IS HIMSELF KILLED, and his student Qui-Gon, takes on Obi-Wan’s role and his name. This was the sharp left-turn, because it would retcon Obi-Wan in the OT to not really have been Obi-Wan. Then for the third draft, Lucas changed it to Qui-Gon is the master, Obi-Wan the student. Qui-Gon is killed, then per his dying wish and only because of that, Obi-Wan agrees to train Anakin.
The Vader-Anakin arc illustrates something else: each time Lucas began the writing process of ESB and ROTJ, his initial impulse was to write a story in continuity with the previous film; then for the re-writes, he somewhat ‘breaks’ that continuity. For EMPIRE(ESB), the story treatment by Lucas and Leigh Brackett’s draft largely follow SW’77 story continuity regarding Vader (and other topics). For JEDI(ROTJ), Lucas’s initial drafts of the script follow ESB’s continuity. Then with the Kasdan re-writes, the “certain point of view” is added.
As always, I enjoy reading reading your theories and ideas - always giving something to ponder about and spitball further. 👍
Plus I do hope you find that Kurtz quote - or where it originated from online. Keep us posted, mate.
Phil Szostak was not a Lucasfilm higher up during the development of ANH and ESB. Regardless of your opinions on the “When was Vader made Luke’s father debate”, Szostak’s “proof” for it being 1978 is nonsensical and based off of inaccurate and/or taken out of context info, which I can elaborate on if you’re interested
Yes, that would be great. You do make a fair point on Szostak not being with the company at the relevant time. Still,an elaboration on your point would be welcome.
I’ll address all four of his pieces of evidence.
Because the one big script for the OT never existed, its in fact a lie. There was one film in 1977. At best Lucas reused ideas from the rough draft screenplay for the sequels and the prequels. But there was never a 1974 script about the tragedy of Darth Vader.
The George Lucas time traveling revisionist by Jason is nearly exhaustive. As a nitpicker of nitpickers, I admire the dedication. And a very good piece of scholarship on the subject of why Lucas shifting narrative, especially after 1983 can’t be trusted.
The mythology of how Star Wars came to be is almost a tale in of itself. Unraveling the truth from fiction would be difficult for anyone really without the work done by Charley Lippincott documenting things within the first years.
The tangled web, you don’t need secret history of Star Wars to know Lucas weaves a tale of I had it all figured out in the beginning, Luke and Leia were always be brother and sister, Vader was always going to be the father.
Even Rinzler’s book as good as it is is tainted by Lucas modern day edits. midichlorians don’t come from the 1970’s, Lucas also edited the notes for Leia and the droids. that is time travel revisionism. And Paul Duncan’s book from Lucas interviews from present day at best taken with a salt shaker of salt. not a hint, worthless basically. Legacy interviews from when the films were produced are more reliable on Lucas mindset.
In 78 Lucas intended at least from what I can see for Luke and Leia to end up together or they had a sort of romance. From the Splinter story conference and what he said in the making of Star Wars, and also the love triangle in the first two films.
Lucas even said she could end up with the Wookiee that doesn’t sound much like a Saga of Skywalker’s nor Lucas saying he wouldn’t mind killing off Vader.
I think the reasoning for Lucss keeping the twist secret from his collaborators on the first film - and from Fox, who wouldn’t have cared either way, especially since Star Wars was an ‘unknown’ - and in the first stages of developing the second film, doesn’t wash imho. The fact that he fully disclosed the twist to Kasdan and Kershner once Kasdan (especially) joined the team is telling in and of itself.
Aye, that is a good point.
That also makes sense as until Star Wars became the hit it did… we’d have have likely had SOTME as the sequel to Star Wars SOTME link 2… rather than we later saw with Brackett’s Empire first script in Feb ‘78 - with the appearance of Luke’s father definitely NOT being Vader. Then later Lucas’ Empire 2nd draft script in April '78 (where for the first time Vader is now Luke’s father), and then Kasdan coming on board circa June '78 (and the later 4th draft / shooting script in October '78).
Yes, exactly 100%.
It doesn’t make sense for Lucas to know but then keep Foster and then Brackett in the dark.
Remember, he said in that 1999 piece with Coppola and Spielberg that the twist was in a 1974 script, but Frances looked confused.
Lucas would have no reason to tell Foster since it’s not in ANH (and either way we know that Lucas kept secrets from Foster since he said that in the second film you’d learn who Vader is only to not actually tell him who he is)
Lucas himself addressed the Brackett thing multiple times. He said “I didn’t discuss the notion of Vader being Luke’s father with Leigh Brackett. At that point, I wasn’t sure if I was going to include it in the script or reveal it in the third episode. I was going back and forth, and rather than confuse things for Leigh, I decided to keep the whole issue out of the mix. I figured I would add it later on.”” and that “I don’t really tell everything in the story conferences because by then I knew that people were scrounging all over garbage cans to try and find out everything, and I wanted to keep some things a surprise” and that ““As that evolved…I did the first film. I didn’t know how the public would take all this and that it would be as successful as it was and that Darth Vader would become the character that he became. So when I got down to the second film, I had to make a decision about whether I was going to go through with this thing of him being his father and finally decided that really was the way, the original story, the one I really liked the most and so I’d stick with it.” However, he DID mention to her in the outline that there was a secret reason Vader didn’t want to kill Luke and that there were “more to his efforts to win Luke over than meets the eye”. Even Michael Kaminski, who’s probably the most firm “Vader wasn’t Luke’s father till the second ESB draft” believer there is, admitted in his book that the second excuse would have been valid. But regardless of whether you believe any of Lucas’s claims on the topic, it is true that Lucas indeed withheld some info from Brackett. He tells her Han’s stepfather and Luke’s sister both live in secret places on a different side of the galaxy, but never tells her what these places are like, or who’s raising Luke’s sister and training her as a Jedi. He tells her Lando is from a clan of surviving clones, but specifically tells her not to develop where the clones came from or if they were good or bad. And as mentioned before, he says in his outline he gave Brackett that there’s a secret reason Vader is reluctant to kill Luke and would rather turn him, but it never says what the secret reason in question is. So the idea of Lucas withholding the father Vader twist from Brackett if he didn’t feel ready to share it yet lines up perfectly with what we know about the Brackett conferences.
Did he ever explicitly say that? He said in a very vague way “Darth Vader was the father and he was a Jedi”. So he might’ve just been referring to Kane Starkiller since he’s an early version of Vader (especially since Coppola was very likely talking about the 1974 draft).
Lucas has a great imagination, I do think he had a lot of the world of Star Wars in his head and not written down.
He had a tendency to change his mind frequently on things which leads inevitably to retcons through the decades and plotholes the OT AND PT lacking cohesion.
I try to be charitable, for example Tolkien’s Middle Earth was also constantly evolving and his final version of the Silmarillion was never completed. And many of its parts in various states. Lucas seems to be very much in the same vein of wanting to go back and make changes the same way Tolkien changes Bilbo’s ring, in Riddles in the Dark from a simple magic ring. To the One Ring to Rule them all.
But Lucas never really achieved perfection even after 4 versions of the Special Edition. The plothole for Leia remembering her mother is still there.
Some of his changes didn’t balance or further a 1-6 complete Saga narrative, and just are baffling like adding Hayden version of Anakin Skywalker to Return of the Jedi.
McCallum said an explanation for the Leia thing was planned in the Underworld series. And for adding Hayden to ROTJ, I agree it may have not been super necessary, but I can also see why Lucas wanted to do it and I don’t really think it’s that significant of a change.
It doesn’t make sense for Lucas to know but then keep Foster and then Brackett in the dark.
Why doesn’t it make sense? I’m a little confused about this. Sometimes, I think some may needlessly obfuscate their intentions or goals.
Because the one big script for the OT never existed, its in fact a lie. There was one film in 1977. At best Lucas reused ideas from the rough draft screenplay for the sequels and the prequels. But there was never a 1974 script about the tragedy of Darth Vader.
The George Lucas time traveling revisionist by Jason is nearly exhaustive. As a nitpicker of nitpickers, I admire the dedication. And a very good piece of scholarship on the subject of why Lucas shifting narrative, especially after 1983 can’t be trusted.
The mythology of how Star Wars came to be is almost a tale in of itself. Unraveling the truth from fiction would be difficult for anyone really without the work done by Charley Lippincott documenting things within the first years.
The tangled web, you don’t need secret history of Star Wars to know Lucas weaves a tale of I had it all figured out in the beginning, Luke and Leia were always be brother and sister, Vader was always going to be the father.
Even Rinzler’s book as good as it is is tainted by Lucas modern day edits. midichlorians don’t come from the 1970’s, Lucas also edited the notes for Leia and the droids. that is time travel revisionism. And Paul Duncan’s book from Lucas interviews from present day at best taken with a salt shaker of salt. not a hint, worthless basically. Legacy interviews from when the films were produced are more reliable on Lucas mindset.
In 78 Lucas intended at least from what I can see for Luke and Leia to end up together or they had a sort of romance. From the Splinter story conference and what he said in the making of Star Wars, and also the love triangle in the first two films.
Lucas even said she could end up with the Wookiee that doesn’t sound much like a Saga of Skywalker’s nor Lucas saying he wouldn’t mind killing off Vader.
No matter what we’ll get with any of this, I think the answer will be, from us alone, a lot of the time, that we don’t actually know the whole of Lucas’ intentions on much of anything on these issues, based on stories or second hand accounts or personal takes/perceptions.
This isn’t a claim of Lucas’ honesty or not lying, let’s be clear, but a argument against the idea that he must be lying or whatever.
Yeah agreed to both.
So I’ve changed my mind on this topic considerably during January. I’ve had a lot of second thoughts about the ‘evidence’. I firmly believe that Lucas came up with Father Vader with EMPIRE, specifically the second draft that he wrote himself in April 1978. There’s too much evidence that stacks up against Lucas having the twist when ANH/SW’77 was made.
Aye, even Lucasfilm higher-ups have come around to openly admitting that ‘Darth Vader wasn’t Luke’s father until the second draft of Empire Strikes Back in April 1978’.
‘At the time of #StarWars’ release in 1977, Obi-Wan Kenobi wasn’t lying to Luke Skywalker about his father because Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader were different people’ etc - in the ‘MythBusters’ X thread by Lucasfilm’s Phil Szostak (with various published evidence presented from George prior to his 1978 retcon of re-writing Vader to be Luke’s father).
With more evidence via Lucas himself / Lucasfilm here: George Lucas: Star Wars Creator, Unreliable Narrator & Time Travelling Revisionist…
The way I think Lucas wrote the Vader-Anakin character arc for the OT is basically using the template of ‘thesis-antithesis-synthesis’. Bear with me, but I think the ‘clue’ to this can be seen in the drafts he wrote for TPM. For STAR WARS (original film), Vader killing/betraying/murdering Luke’s father Anakin(spelled Annikin then) was literal, NOT metaphorical or what have you. That’s the ‘thesis’ statement. Then for EMPIRE - second draft, he does a ‘sharp left-turn’, he literally changes this to: Vader is Anakin, Luke’s father, full-stop. No caveats. No “certain point of view”. This was meant to literally overturn what SW’77 had stated. That’s the ‘antithesis’. Then with JEDI- after Lucas wrote his drafts and after the story conferences with Kasdan, then comes the “certain point of view”, iow, Anakin “died” when he became Vader, Vader was “born”. When Vader dies, Anakin returns. This was the ‘synthesis’ - this allowed Lucas to not have to toss out either SW(ANH) nor ESB.
I do like this - both above and below as an idea - though worth remembering that Qui-Gon was quite a late addition to the writing process - originally it was just Obi Wan on his own.
The TPM script/drafts clue is this: in TPM’s first draft, Obi-Wan has a student, Qui-Gon - who is later killed. In this draft, Obi-Wan discovers Anakin and decides to train him. Pretty much in step with ROTJ. Then in the second draft, Obi-Wan, again the master, IS HIMSELF KILLED, and his student Qui-Gon, takes on Obi-Wan’s role and his name. This was the sharp left-turn, because it would retcon Obi-Wan in the OT to not really have been Obi-Wan. Then for the third draft, Lucas changed it to Qui-Gon is the master, Obi-Wan the student. Qui-Gon is killed, then per his dying wish and only because of that, Obi-Wan agrees to train Anakin.
The Vader-Anakin arc illustrates something else: each time Lucas began the writing process of ESB and ROTJ, his initial impulse was to write a story in continuity with the previous film; then for the re-writes, he somewhat ‘breaks’ that continuity. For EMPIRE(ESB), the story treatment by Lucas and Leigh Brackett’s draft largely follow SW’77 story continuity regarding Vader (and other topics). For JEDI(ROTJ), Lucas’s initial drafts of the script follow ESB’s continuity. Then with the Kasdan re-writes, the “certain point of view” is added.
As always, I enjoy reading reading your theories and ideas - always giving something to ponder about and spitball further. 👍
Plus I do hope you find that Kurtz quote - or where it originated from online. Keep us posted, mate.
Phil Szostak was not a Lucasfilm higher up during the development of ANH and ESB. Regardless of your opinions on the “When was Vader made Luke’s father debate”, Szostak’s “proof” for it being 1978 is nonsensical and based off of inaccurate and/or taken out of context info, which I can elaborate on if you’re interested
So I’ve changed my mind on this topic considerably during January. I’ve had a lot of second thoughts about the ‘evidence’. I firmly believe that Lucas came up with Father Vader with EMPIRE, specifically the second draft that he wrote himself in April 1978. There’s too much evidence that stacks up against Lucas having the twist when ANH/SW’77 was made.
The way I think Lucas wrote the Vader-Anakin character arc for the OT is basically using the template of ‘thesis-antithesis-synthesis’. Bear with me, but I think the ‘clue’ to this can be seen in the drafts he wrote for TPM. For STAR WARS (original film), Vader killing/betraying/murdering Luke’s father Anakin(spelled Annikin then) was literal, NOT metaphorical or what have you. That’s the ‘thesis’ statement. Then for EMPIRE - second draft, he does a ‘sharp left-turn’, he literally changes this to: Vader is Anakin, Luke’s father, full-stop. No caveats. No “certain point of view”. This was meant to literally overturn what SW’77 had stated. That’s the ‘antithesis’. Then with JEDI- after Lucas wrote his drafts and after the story conferences with Kasdan, then comes the “certain point of view”, iow, Anakin “died” when he became Vader, Vader was “born”. When Vader dies, Anakin returns. This was the ‘synthesis’ - this allowed Lucas to not have to toss out either SW(ANH) nor ESB.
The TPM script/drafts clue is this: in TPM’s first draft, Obi-Wan has a student, Qui-Gon - who is later killed. In this draft, Obi-Wan discovers Anakin and decides to train him. Pretty much in step with ROTJ. Then in the second draft, Obi-Wan, again the master, IS HIMSELF KILLED, and his student Qui-Gon, takes on Obi-Wan’s role and his name. This was the sharp left-turn, because it would retcon Obi-Wan in the OT to not really have been Obi-Wan. Then for the third draft, Lucas changed it to Qui-Gon is the master, Obi-Wan the student. Qui-Gon is killed, then per his dying wish and only because of that, Obi-Wan agrees to train Anakin.
The Vader-Anakin arc illustrates something else: each time Lucas began the writing process of ESB and ROTJ, his initial impulse was to write a story in continuity with the previous film; then for the re-writes, he somewhat ‘breaks’ that continuity. For EMPIRE(ESB), the story treatment by Lucas and Leigh Brackett’s draft largely follow SW’77 story continuity regarding Vader (and other topics). For JEDI(ROTJ), Lucas’s initial drafts of the script follow ESB’s continuity. Then with the Kasdan re-writes, the “certain point of view” is added.