ToscheStation

screams in the void said:
If you watch the documentary From Star Wars To Jedi , Lucas talks about how he needed a reason for Luke to snap on Vader when hiding under the stairs and until that moment , he did not realize it was staring him in the face in form of Leia being his sister . So that was when that plot point came along .

If the plot point could come to him at that moment (out-of-the-blue), how is it less probable for the notion to have occurred to him years earlier?

The Autistic Asexual said:

I actually totally disregard Return of the Jedi to tell you the truth. Yeah the inbreeding crap is pretty atrocious writing.

I’ve never seen this version of ROTJ.

Voss Caltrez said:

No. Once I read that the original plan was to have Luke discover he had a sister on the other side of the galaxy, and Return of the Jedi ending with Han dead, Leia resuming some powerful leader position in the newly restored Republic, and Luke walking off into the sunset to go in search of his lost sister…awesome.

Awesome or not, it’s still a synopsis that hasn’t ever really been verified by Kasdan and the others as something they were seriously considering*, unlike the idea of Luke putting on Vader’s helmet and pretending to point the Death Star’s weapon at The Emperor’s home world - an idea which DID come from Kasdan (and yes, Death Star II was even in earlier versions of the story).

*nor was the above synopsis shown to be contemporary within the time period that they were making the movie, i.e. the early eighties. At best, this anecdote seems to come from the late eighties but more solidly from the nineties.

Mocata said:> >

This … is a ROTJ thread? I feel like I missed something.

It has to do with the perception that Lucas had taken the storyline - which according to the stated theory was supposed to have gone on for four more films/episodes following TESB - and “compressed” it into a single film, ROTJ. In light of that perception, I think it’s relevant to bring up how much is revealed in the second film (TESB) and wonder how this really coheres with a notional six-part continuous story (SW + TESB + four more films), rather than a trilogy of trilogies with twenty some years between each trilogy.

For the second movie of a supposed six-movie continuous narrative, TESB sure has a lot of reveals:

1. The character of Yoda
2. Lando
3. The Emperor (via-hologram)
4. Vader “I am your father”
5. “No, there is another”

DuracellEnergizer said:

ToscheStation said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

ToscheStation said:

Sounds like you’re talking about TFA/TLJ/The Sequel Trilogy :

[DuracellEnergizer said:]>
Nope, Lucas ain’t much of a writer. That’s why we got universe-shrinkage, a mystery subplot which went nowhere, and a whole lot of other crap which didn’t need focusing on in the prequels.

“Universe-shrinkage” (wut) - Sequel trilogy solution: Rey is “nobody”, Rebels Vs. Empire 2.0
"Midi-chlorians" - S. T. solution: Force-download-presto-instant-Jedi!
“Mystery subplot which went nowhere” - Sequel trilogy (ahem): Rey’s parents/Jakku, Snoke

And if I actually liked the ST, this would be a profound revelation to me.

Perspective, really re: Lucas as a “failed” writer

“From my point of view perspective, both the PT & ST are evil!”

To each his own. I’d also take the Thrawn trilogy EU over either. But I would probably have gone for Lucas’ ST over the one that actually got made.

DuracellEnergizer said:

ToscheStation said:

Sounds like you’re talking about TFA/TLJ/The Sequel Trilogy :

[DuracellEnergizer said:]>
Nope, Lucas ain’t much of a writer. That’s why we got universe-shrinkage, a mystery subplot which went nowhere, and a whole lot of other crap which didn’t need focusing on in the prequels.

“Universe-shrinkage” (wut) - Sequel trilogy solution: Rey is “nobody”, Rebels Vs. Empire 2.0
"Midi-chlorians" - S. T. solution: Force-download-presto-instant-Jedi!
“Mystery subplot which went nowhere” - Sequel trilogy (ahem): Rey’s parents/Jakku, Snoke

And if I actually liked the ST, this would be a profound revelation to me.

I had to be sure…
At any rate, keeping things in perspective re: Lucas being “not much” of a writer (something he himself would admit)

adywan said:

ToscheStation said:

Jim Smith said:

Yep, Georgie boy was definitely making things up as he went along. He never should’ve fired Gary Kurtz. Return of the Jedi was originally going to be about as dark as The Empire Strikes Back but George scrapped that idea much to my chagrin. Instead they went with the version of episode 6 that follows a lot of the same beats as episode 4 does. It’s also quite similar to episode 7. Too much repetition in this saga if ya ask me.

“Return of the Jedi was originally going to be about as dark as The Empire Strikes Back”

The way Lucas described “book three” back in Dec 1975 says otherwise:

“In the third book I want the story to be just about the soap opera of the Skywalker family, which ends with the destruction of the Empire.”

The third “book” they talks about was NOT ROTJ. This was to be the later episodes. Right up until ROTJ was in pre-production, ROTJ was not to be the final episode. The confrontation with the Emperor and defeat of the empire was to have been in those later episodes. Episode 6 WAS originally going to be darker. With Luke being separated from his friends at the end, going off to search for his sister (who was not Leia). When Lucas decided he didn’t want to make any more SW films, he brought those plans forward, dropped the search for the “other” Skywalker and made Leia the sister.

No, book three means book three, not books 3,4,5, and 6. The idea of stretching the story out for 3/4 more movies comes from Gary Kurtz in the 90’s. There’s nothing from the late 70’s of Kurtz and co. mentioning the current story being stretched into Episodes 7-8-9. Those episodes were to be the sequel trilogy featuring the trio as older characters. I would take things Lucas and Kurtz said during meetings in 1975 over what either one of them says in latter days.*

I wish I still had the Alan Arnold “Once Upon A Galaxy” making of ESB book (1980). I seem to remember in that book or in an issue of Starlog from 80 or 81 Kurtz expressing concern with the way ESB is structured that it leaves the third film to resolve everything (!). Kurtz’ concern for the following movie may have been the impetus for proposing that the story get extended for three of four more films. edit: But once Kurtz is on record saying it in the late nineties or so, all of a sudden it becomes the “gospel” of what-was-the-original-plan for the saga.

*I do believe that ever since the OT came out both Lucas AND Kurtz have obfuscated things about how the original trilogy was supposed to go

Anchorhead said:

Those Making Of stories have long been shown to be Lucas revision many times over. No different than his attempts to revise history in other written forms, documentaries, and interviews.

Yes, we’ve known about the latter-day interpolations in that book. But if you take the quote about midi’s at face value, all it means it that he had the concept of midi-chlorian back then in 77, but he wasn’t using that word for it at the time. And he said that they were found in certain alien species, not humans (and certainly wasn’t in reference to any ‘chosen one’).

The excerpt from that Dec 1975 conference is not a revisionist interpolation. Note that he says that Luke gets the girl, instead of Han. He says that Han leaves at the end of the second book, not gets frozen and captured by a bounty hunter…and note that the ‘leaving’ subplot is taken up again once he and Leigh Brackett start writing the sequel in late 77. Also we find out who Darth Vader at the end of the second book, which merely suggests a secret identity under the mask. If this was a Lucas revisionist bit, he would have said, “we find out that Vader is Luke’s father/Annikin Starkiller(Skywalker)”. Something to consider.

Anchorhead said:

Lucas wouldn’t have been discussing a second sequel two years before the original film even had a finished script. It didn’t even have a finished story at that point.

December 1975 is not two years before the finished script. The script was finished in March 1976 (the 15th I believe). That was about three months away. What intervened in those months - during January to be precise - were the budget cuts demanded by Fox as a condition of the go-ahead/green-lighting of production. In making these cuts, Lucas had to come to terms with reality and make the story/film work as a stand-alone picture, should sequels not get made. He was forced to think pragmatically. That is where the idea of killing off Ben came in. Anyway, he has said that prior to that, in the period between drafts three and four, he deliberately came up with ideas as to what happened before the current story (SW), and what happened after (sequels). Despite your objection, he was considering two sequels during that time (Dec 75).

Sounds like you’re talking about TFA/TLJ/The Sequel Trilogy :

[DuracellEnergizer said:]>
Nope, Lucas ain’t much of a writer. That’s why we got universe-shrinkage, a mystery subplot which went nowhere, and a whole lot of other crap which didn’t need focusing on in the prequels.

“Universe-shrinkage” (wut) - Sequel trilogy solution: Rey is “nobody”, Rebels Vs. Empire 2.0
"Midi-chlorians" - S. T. solution: Force-download-presto-instant-Jedi!
“Mystery subplot which went nowhere” - Sequel trilogy (ahem): Rey’s parents/Jakku, Snoke

Anchorhead said:

ToscheStation said:
The way Lucas described “book three” back in Dec 1975 says otherwise:

“In the third book I want the story to be just about the soap opera of the Skywalker family, which ends with the destruction of the Empire.”

Source?

The Making of Star Wars (JW Rinzler, 2007). It was during a story meeting with Kurtz and writer Alan Dean Foster. In it, he also said that at the end of the second book, “we find out WHO Darth Vader is”. (emphasis mine)

TV’s Frink said:

Possessed said:

1 moar tim pls

I don’t even know how it has any relevance to what I’m saying, let alone what it is.

It’s a reply to what another poster (Jim Smith) said on the subject. It says it right in my post (“quote: Jim Smith”). He made the claim that originally ROTJ was going to be a ‘dark’ film like Empire, to which I posted a rebuttal

Jim Smith said:

Yep, Georgie boy was definitely making things up as he went along. He never should’ve fired Gary Kurtz. Return of the Jedi was originally going to be about as dark as The Empire Strikes Back but George scrapped that idea much to my chagrin. Instead they went with the version of episode 6 that follows a lot of the same beats as episode 4 does. It’s also quite similar to episode 7. Too much repetition in this saga if ya ask me.

“Return of the Jedi was originally going to be about as dark as The Empire Strikes Back”

The way Lucas described “book three” back in Dec 1975 says otherwise:

“In the third book I want the story to be just about the soap opera of the Skywalker family, which ends with the destruction of the Empire.”

Jim Smith said:

Yep, Georgie boy was definitely making things up as he went along. He never should’ve fired Gary Kurtz. Return of the Jedi was originally going to be about as dark as The Empire Strikes Back but George scrapped that idea much to my chagrin. Instead they went with the version of episode 6 that follows a lot of the same beats as episode 4 does. It’s also quite similar to episode 7. Too much repetition in this saga if ya ask me.

“Return of the Jedi was originally going to be about as dark as The Empire Strikes Back”

The way Lucas described “book three” back in Dec 1975 says otherwise:

“In the third book I want the story to be just about the soap opera of the Skywalker family, which ends with the destruction of the Empire.”

TV’s Frink said:

4-1/2 months later, a response!

the poster below…

TV’s Frink said:

Oh hai 10-year bump.

…would like a word with you.

Jim Smith said:

Yep, Georgie boy was definitely making things up as he went along. He never should’ve fired Gary Kurtz. Return of the Jedi was originally going to be about as dark as The Empire Strikes Back but George scrapped that idea much to my chagrin. Instead they went with the version of episode 6 that follows a lot of the same beats as episode 4 does. It’s also quite similar to episode 7. Too much repetition in this saga if ya ask me.

“Return of the Jedi was originally going to be about as dark as The Empire Strikes Back”

The way Lucas described “book three” back in Dec 1975 says otherwise:

“In the third book I want the story to be just about the soap opera of the Skywalker family, which ends with the destruction of the Empire.”

chyron8472 said:

I’m sorry, what? What exactly is “claustrophobic” about the plot and characters of Star Wars?

And besides that, from where in the Original Trilogy do we learn anything about Han Solo’s backstory? Prior to and during Star Wars, he was a selfish, scoundrelly smuggler; he had unpaid debts to crime lords; and he won the ship he now owns from his old friend, Lando. That’s it. That’s all we ever learn about his pre-OT past from the OT itself. Does that make him any less of a compelling character, especially in the original Star Wars film?

The “claustrophobic” element I refer to is the “popular” reading of the first film, whereby none of the character’s in the film have a literal, familial relationship to Luke, and if any of them do, this somehow ruins the integrity of the film. A reading which was borne out of Lucas having to make the film work as a stand-alone film, something Lucas was forced to deal with due to practical/real-world movie making considerations. *

Notice that I don’t posit that Han or Ben were related to Luke. We are only taking about Vader and Leia here. If Leia being Luke’s sister is universe shrinking, how in the world is Vader being Annikin/Anakin not?

Vader having a secret identity under the mask was not out of storytelling bounds in the least, whether he was Ben’s estranged son, Luke’s older brother, his illegitimate father, Luke’s uncle/Annikin’s (younger?) brother, etc. Leia, otoh, could have been Luke’s “cousin” (iow, the Lar’s child, from the second draft), a half-sister to Luke (but older than him, rather than younger, as the public script implies with their character ages).

*Ben being killed off, the Tarkin/Vader dynamic in terms of the Imperial hierarchy, the implication that the Death Star is the key keeping the Empire under control, are all things that make the first film work on it’s own

edit:
I would say that each film of the OT was designed to work on it’s own (yes, even TESB), as much as and maybe even more so than being designed to work within an overall trilogy/saga.

Jim Smith said:

Yep, Georgie boy was definitely making things up as he went along. He never should’ve fired Gary Kurtz. ** Return of the Jedi was originally going to be about as dark as The Empire Strikes Back but George scrapped that idea much to my chagrin. Instead they went with the version of episode 6 that follows a lot of the same beats as episode 4 does. ** It’s also quite similar to episode 7. Too much repetition in this saga if ya ask me.

** If we’re going to bring up changing premises, it’s only fair to bring up the fact that the premise(s) of Empire Strikes Back/“Star Wars II” changed almost half-way into the writing process. As per the story treatment and first draft, ESB wasn’t going to leave so many loose ends as the film did. Han doesn’t get frozen in carbonite, and Luke successfully faces his “trial” - i.e. refuses to join Vader and the dark side - and is a Jedi Knight by the end of the story. Thus, the third film wouldn’t have needed to resolve what the second film left unresolved (and no need to stretch the OT’s story into nine episodes).

dahmage said:

But, they DID go beyond just one film, we all have seen it.

Yes, and they were only able to do so (successfully, I might add) because Lucas and co. introduced - or rather, re-introduced - connections (yes, familial) between the characters that made it more…breathable…instead of the somewhat ‘claustrophobic’ feel of the original film within the stand-alone movie paradigm.

What I’ll never understand is how someone can find a story as “rich”, “expansive”, and overall “emotionally satisfying”, a version of the Star Wars universe where:

1. The main character’s parents were people that we’ve never seen or met, and will probably never get to see, barring prequels.

2. The princess character belongs to a family that (thanks to the Death Star) we’ve never met, nor whom we will ever learn about in potential sequels.

3. A solitary knight(Ben) with no family or progeny whatsoever.

4. A villain who for all we know is some one-dimensional guy behind the mask. Nothing to his past, other than having once been a student of the solitary knight character.

That’s the character dynamics of the stand-alone Star Wars film, in a nutshell. I can’t see a story with such characters going beyond a single film.

moviefreakedmind said:

I don’t get how Obi Wan telling Luke to track down someone he used to know is “shrinking the universe.” If Han Solo happened to be the Jedi master he was referring to, or Yoda lived on Hoth, then that would be convenient and universe shrinking.

Yoda and Obi-Wan supposedly being the only Jedi survivors, while perhaps not “shrinking” the established story universe, is still convenient for the plot and how it relates to Luke. But then again, it’s part of my overall point in this argument: Leia being the Other/Luke’s sister is no more a case of “shrinking” the established story universe than is Ben (a close comrade of Luke’s father) and Yoda (Ben’s teacher) being the only surviving Jedi in the galaxy such a case.

The writer of the story having one more Jedi other than Obi-Wan Kenobi survive the purge - and just those two but no more! - is not exactly a case of “expanding” the story universe. An expanded universe would have been that Ben and Yoda thought they were the only survivors but actually weren’t (something that I originally thought the title “Return of the Jedi” alluded to before the movie came out).

Note that when originally - per the first draft of ESB - the Other/Luke’s sister wasn’t Leia but was “Neilith” Skywalker, she was said to have been undergoing Jedi training on the other side of the galaxy. A story element which, of course, implies that Jedi other than Yoda and Ben had survived the Empire/Vader’s purge (a Jedi was training her). The story universe where Leia is the Other, is logistically consistent with a story universe where only two Jedi survive the purge (and one if not both of them, had a close connection with Luke’s father - Yoda having originally supposed to have been Annikin’s teacher as well as Ben’s).

Frank your Majesty said:
There is no doubt that Lucas made it up as he went along. But that’s not what universe shrinking is about.

Sometimes the two are connected, especially if it’s a case of a storyteller writing themselves into a corner.

DominicCobb said:

ToscheStation said:

DominicCobb said:

Because he is a great and wise Jedi master?

Regardless, what I’m trying to say is that I don’t understand what your larger point is.

Right. So…Yoda would have been in the movies even if Ben hadn’t died in the first one?

Could have, certainly, would have, I don’t know. Again, I’m not even sure what the point of this hypothetical is.

The point is that if Lucas only* introduced Yoda because he killed Ben off, and otherwise wouldn’t have introduced a strong and wise Jedi Master character into the trilogy, then it shows that Lucas’ penchant for making things up as he goes along was something that goes back almost to the beginning of Star Wars. It’s not something that he just started doing with Return of the Jedi. The same goes with Ben’s character. The character of Ben Kenobi was created to take the place of the father character who had been killed off in the story (as of the third draft), whereas prior to that he was to have been still alive in the story (in these earlier versions, Jedi knights trained their own children). So, as Yoda was a sort of ‘proxy’ for Ben, Ben himself was a ‘proxy’ for Luke’s father.

My overall point is that the “shrinking-universe” phenomenon is part of Star Wars’ “dna”, if you will

*Lucas himself even said that prior to killing off Ben, when thinking of potential sequels, he wanted Ben to train Luke in the other two films and then maybe have him die in the third.

DominicCobb said:

Because he is a great and wise Jedi master?

Regardless, what I’m trying to say is that I don’t understand what your larger point is.

Right. So…Yoda would have been in the movies even if Ben hadn’t died in the first one?

DominicCobb said:

You literally repeated what you just said but I still have no idea what your point is.

I am asking: is there an in-universe reason to introduce Yoda into the story, that goes beyond “because Ben died/sacrificed himself”?

DominicCobb said:

I guess I really have no idea what you’re even arguing.

Had Ben not have died in the first film, would he have completed Luke’s training, or would Ben have taken him to Yoda to teach?

DominicCobb said:

This argument is ridiculous. Leia being Luke’s sister is universe shrinkage because they were two separate people with disparate stories and backgrounds that didn’t come together until those fateful events in the original film. Making them siblings causes their backgrounds and stories to come from the same place.

So what did or would we the audience have learned about the Organa family, what with Alderaan being destroyed in the first film? Her background is basically destroyed right then and there…

DominicCobb said:
Vader’s story, on the other hand, is already intertwined with that of Luke’s father. Key difference.

True. Though, he still need not be the same person as Anakin/Annikin/the father character that Ben talked about in the first film.

DominicCobb said:
The stuff about Yoda doesn’t even make sense.

Had Ben not died in the first film, would he have still continued to have taught Luke, when his teacher Yoda was still an option? Especially if he had thought he had failed with Vader…

Frank your Majesty said:
One obvious consequence is that if Leia and Luke are siblings, Vader is also Leia’s father. Vader was directly facing her in Star Wars, being near her for a long time while she’s on the Death Star, and he never sensed anything through the force?

That ties into another point of mine. If they were going to be siblings, I saw no need for them to be full siblings, let alone twins. I would have preferred half-siblings, where she and Luke had the same mother, but different father(s). And she would have been somewhat older than Luke, rather than younger, as the public script of the first film suggested (her being two years younger than Luke). But you’re right, the easiest thing would have been to have not have them be siblings because of Leia and Vader’s previous interactions.