Gaffer Tape said:
You disagree that a movie is written in the context of itself? I'm... very confused. How could it be any other way? The universe is folding in on itself. The laws of writing fiction are being, well, rewritten. How does this make sense?! PLEASE EXPLAIN!!!
To be honest i have no idea what you're going on about above.
But I understood that you thought i was talking from an audience point of view, but it is kind of the only way anyone except George Lucas can view it becuase only George Lucas knew exactly what he thought at the time of writing the movie. His explanations of the overall story were continually changing eversince writing the original movie. But the way i read the script of ESB and understood it is that, its like a cliff hanger......is he or isnt he???? and a tacked on one at that... it would still have been a great action movie with out the father son thing...however adding that thematic element later on proved to be a good idea ...as it gave the movie a whole new dramatic edge to it. Poor old George still didnt know what he was gonna do with the next movie tho.
Did he know for sure while writing ESB if Darth Vader was supposed to be Anakin Skywalker? because the idea of Darth Vader becoming Lukes father didnt come to GL untill during late in the production of Empire Strikes Back. In Leigh Bracketts original screen play - Luke and vader have a fight, Lukes hand gets cut off and he throws himself off the platform to escape from vader. there is no mention of Vader being Lukes father. So it seems clear up to that point (since star wars was originally made) that there was no father son story originally or at least not in the form in which it appears now.
And you can remove that revelation scene from empire and remove the few scenes later with Luke hanging below bespin and in the Falcon and Vader staring out of the star destroyer talking to Luke...and it still makes a good movie without the father son element to it. The Rebels get their arses kicked and Han Solo has been captured. Thats not a bad way for a movie called "Empire Strikes Back" to end.
So to sum up finally, I don't think the way it is written you can assume darth vader is anakin skywalker - and it was only a handfull of scenes that were added into the movie to insert the father son story - I dont think the movie was re-written when George Lucas got the idea he just added a few more scenes to put it in there.