darklordoftech

I got the impression that Tarkin had a major role in the rise of the Empire. I imagine that he helped Palpatine become President of the Senate, helped wipe out the Jedi, etc. I think that the prequels should have shown an escalating rivalry between Bail Organa and Tarkin.

Here's some Lucas quotes from summer 1977:

"[...] One of the Chancellors began subverting the Senate and buying off Senators with the help of some of the large intergalactic trade companies and mining companies and intergalactic power companies. Through their power and money, he bought off enough of the Senate to get himself elected to a second term, because of a crisis. By the time the third term came along, he had corrupted so much of the Senate that they made him Emperor for the rest of his life.
"Giving the Emperor that title for life and doing away with the elective process was all done with a lot of rationalizing. Many in the Senate felt that having elections and changing leaders in the time of an emergency disrupted the bureaucratic system. And the bureaucracy was getting to be so big that changing leaders made it impossible to have any effect on the system and make it work - moreover the bureaucracy was running amok and not paying attention to the rulers. So they reasoned that the Emperor could bring the bureaucracy back in line. So the Emperor took control of the bureaucracy. The Galactic Senate would meet for a period that was similar to a year, but after it became the Imperial Senate, the meetings were less and less frequent until finally the meetings were only once a year, and they were very short.
"With the bureaucracy behind the Emperor, it was impossible and too late for the Senate to do anything. He had slowly manipulated things; in fact, it was he who had let the bureaucracy run amok and therefore had blackmailed the Senate into doing things because he was the only one who really had any power over the bureaucracy. It was so large there was no way to get things done, but he knew the right people; the key people in the bureaucracy were working for him and were paid by the companies."

"Darth Vader is really attached to the Emperor himself, and he was not really part of the Death Star personnel or any of that system. Lord Vader worked directly for the Emperor and was the Emperor's emissary.
[...]
When the Jedi tried to restore order, Darth Vader was still one of the Jedi. What he would do is catch the Jedi off guard and, using his knowledge of the Force, he would kill the Jedi without them realizing what was happening. They trusted him and they didn't realize he was the murderer who was decimating their ranks. At the height of the Jedi, there were sever hundred thousand. At the time of the Rebellion, most of them were killed. The Emperor had some strong forces rally behind him, as well, in terms of the army the Imperial forces that he'd been building up secretly. The Jedi were so outnumbered that they fled and were tracked down. They tried to regroup, but they were eventually massacred by one of the special elite forces led by Darth Vader. Eventually only a few, including Ben and Luke's father, were left. Luke's father is named Annikin."

I still wonder how they will continue without Vader and Palpatine. Vader is what comes to mind when people think of "Star Wars" and he spoke one of the most famous lines in film history. Palpatine has been behind everything for all six films and there was an entire prophecy devoted to defeating him. How does one continue beyond the deaths of these fundamental characters?

Be consistent about what "Sith" means. The old EU couldn't make up its mind about this.

Early ESB drafts suggest that Yoda trained Annikin.

Akton said: positivity-at-all-costs crusaders: complaining about complaining.

Thanks for standing up to them. "Better than the prequels" doesn't tell me that something's good, it tells me that something's so horrible that it has to be compared to something even worse in order to look good.

ATMachine said:

John Doom raises a very good point.

In fact, although Vader says in ESB that he is Luke's father, never once does he say "I am Anakin Skywalker."

Even Yoda is careful to refer to Vader as "Obi-Wan's apprentice."

The definite assumption that Darth Vader and Anakin Skywalker are one and the same person actually appears to date to the writing of ROTJ, not ESB.

After all, it's quite possible that Mother Skywalker was getting some action on the side....

I do wonder whether or not Lucas was right to make Vader and Anakin the same person. What does everyone here at originaltrilogy.com think?

Going only by Star Wars, do we know whether whether Owen was Annikin's brother, Beru was Annikin's sister, or if Lars was the maiden name of Luke's mother? Was Owen actually intended to be Obi-Wan's brother in 1983 like Obi-Wan says he is in the ROTJ screenplay and novelization or did Lucas drop that idea by the time ROTJ was released? Would Owen being Obi-Wan's brother preclude Beru from being Anakin's sister or Luke's mother's sister?

Also, I'd love to read the first edition of A Guide to the Star Wars Universe because it wouldn't be polluted by the EU.

Tallguy said:

Going strictly by Star Wars, the Jedi Knights were around when Luke was born.  Or at the latest shortly before.  So since 1977 it's only been twenty-ish years between Luke's father's death and Star Wars.  So it's not like this was a prequel thing.  If anything you might argue that the fall of the Jedi was even LATER in Luke's lifetime.

Even if this is true, Star Wars does imply that even before the Empire started wiping out the Jedi, the Jedi rarely, if ever used The Force in public.

Two of my headcanons about Vader:

1. People who don't know that Palpatine is a Sith Lord think that Vader is a bounty hunter hired by Tarkin. As a result, Palpatine isn't blamed for Vader's actions.

2. Vader rarely, if ever, appears in Imperial propaganda and never gives speeches on Holonet. The Tarkin novel implies that Tarkin gives the majority of the Empire's speeches.

ZkinandBonez said: it's regardless very interesting to see that the name Vader wasn't always used for the Sith antagonist.

That's for sure. It's fun sharing that with people who claim that "Darth" has always been a title.

ZkinandBonez said: In the early drafts the name Vader actually referred to the Tarkin role (commander of the Death Star and not a sith) and a "Sith Knight" called Valorum played Vader's part, so his role is probably kind of hard to pinpoint in the pre-ESB canon of ANH. 

In the rough/first draft, Tarkin is Crispin Hoedaack, Vader is a general, and Valorum is a Sith Knight. The second draft combined Vader and Valorum.

I hate how Dark Empire was moved from immediately after ROTJ to after the Thrawn novels at the last minute just because Zahn didn't want to reference Dark Empire. Dark Empire would have worked much better immediately after ROTJ both thematically and in terms of continuity. You'd have a smooth transitiom from the OT to the post-Vader era to the post-Palpatine era. Thrawn could be Palpatine's top admiral (besides dark side Luke) in Dark Empire, setting up the Thrawn novels.

In the first draft of TPM, Obi-Wan has a lot of Qui-Gon's role and characterization.

Interestingly, the ANH shooting script calls Vader the "right hand of the Emperor" but also calls him Tarkin's "powerful henchman."

One thing I've always been curious about is the point at which Lucas decided to give Palpatine the ability to use The Force. Palpatine as described in the novelization of Star Wars (1977) seems quite different from the character who we see in ESB, ROTJ, and the prequels.

This website has a bunch of different screenplay drafts: http://starwarz.com/starkiller/

I'd enjoy seeing some good old Star Wars (1977)-styled targeting computers. I love the wireframe look.

joefavs said:

Being good in general is no insurance against being bad in a particular movie, especially a Star Wars prequel. Natalie Portman has an Oscar, after all. All I know is that the Palpatine v. Mace Windu confrontation makes me cringe almost as hard as Jedi Rocks, and it's not because of Sam Jackson.

Ian said that he disliked having to perfrom that scene. 

https://youtube.com/watch?v=GjdycGgeaIY

swagmasta69 said:

darklordoftech said:

- establish Plagueis's death as occuring before TPM

 why?

because Plagueis is nowhere to be seen in TPM

- not canonize Sith tattoos

- not canonize the thought bomb

- not canonize the SWTOR Sith Empire's symbol, titles, and ships

- not canonize the Rakata

- establish Plagueis's death as occuring before TPM

- more adaptations of unproduced TCW episodes

Love the archeologist idea. That makes you intrigued about the Sith Pureblood Empire as well as what else there is to discover.

Replace JEJ's voice with Hayden's.

How would you write sequels and/or prequels to it? Would Yoda exist? Would The Emperor be a Force-user like he is in the other 5 movies or would he be the figurehead described in the ANH novelization? Would the Lars's homestead be where Luke's father grew up? Would green lightsabers exist?

SilverWook said:

Maybe the interceptors didn't perform too well in ROTJ? Or at least they didn't outperform the older design?

This is what I was thinking. Maybe Interceptors are the Imperial equivalent of A-Wings rather than a successor to standard TIEs.

timdiggerm said:

we won't, as a whole, be satisfied

nor should we be satisfied

joefavs said:

I've never understood everyone's insistence on how good Ian McDiarmid was. By ROTS his performance was self-parody.

Lucas had McDiarmid's voice digitally altered.