[nerfherder69]

Chef Jeff fails to point out that there are clearly some very mature subject matter in Star Wars. First of all, incest is a very central theme.

You can't tell me that Luke and Leia aren't hot for each other in the first two movies. The actual tag line of Star Wars initially was "A Boy, A Girl, and A Galaxy." It wasn't "A Brother, A Sister, and A Galaxy."

Also, there were a couple of moments of sexual tension between Luke and Leia. Princess Leia kisses Luke "For Luke" before they swing over the bridge on the Deathstar. Then Luke gets all pissy with Han when they are flying away from the Deathstar when Han suggests the possibility of a romantic relaitionship.

The Empire Strikes Back is even worse. Despite the terrible dialogue in Episodes I and II, there is about a 30 second stretch that may be the worst dialogue in movie history. The scene where Han says "She expressed her true feelings for me," and Leia proceeds to call him "Laserbrain", "Scruffy Looking NerfHerder," etc. is just painful.

At the end though, Leia forcefully grabs Luke and gives him a passionate kiss. This isn't the kiss a sister gives a brother. Luke then puts his hands behind his head and acts like he is the man. I am quite certain that he ran and beat off later.

I think it would have been more dramatic if when Luke was told about Leia being his sister, he started vomiting and they played the "Crying Game" theme (even though the Crying Game was years away from being released), similar to Ace Ventura's reaction when he found out that the Police Chief was a man.

In addition to the obvious incest that was going on, child abuse was a big issue. Darth Vader tortured Princess Leia in Episode IV. That's child abuse in my book, as he is her father.

He cut his own son's hand off for God's sake. I know Luke was over 18, but if not you can be sure that child services would not have awarded Vader/Anakin custody of his child with that type of behavior.

Anyway, I wanted to point out that, although Star Wars appears to be a children's series, there is some pretty mature subject matter explored in the films.

[Helena]

Welcome to the forum, nerfherder69. Would you be related to our good friend Hannibal, by any chance? Just kidding.

I agree that much of the interaction between Luke and Leia in ANH and ESB is distinctly nausea-inducing when viewed in the knowledge that they are brother and sister. However, there's a much simpler explanation for this: Lucas simply didn't know at this point that he was going to make Luke and Leia siblings later on. I hardly think he intended to make incest a 'central theme' - notice how in RotJ, all the flirting between them completely disappears. As to why neither of them made any comments regarding their kiss, I imagine Lucas preferred to just forget about this in the hope that the viewers would as well.

Similarly, this explains Vader's treatment of Leia in the first two films. Besides, I don't really see how it counts as 'child abuse' when she's already an adult.

This post has been edited by Helena: 11 February 2005 - 03:50 PM

[nerfherder69]

I understand Helena.

I always thought the brother/sister thing was contrived and unnecessary. I don't think Lucas had this in mind originally either.

In fact, I saw no purpose as to why they needed to make them brother and sister. I think Lucas was trying to duplicate the shock of the Darth Vader/father discovery in Empire Strikes Back, and went with this lame idea.

This is about where the Star Wars series turned for me, about the same time that the Ewoks were introduced. I think Lucas lost his mind somewhere between 1980 and 1982.

Return of the Jedi sucked in so many ways it's hard to describe. First:

-How did Lando "get a job" at Jabba's Palace? Did he fill out an application?

-All of the new aliens looked like muppets. It felt like Star Wars meets the muppet show. Even in the tolerable half of the movie, the Jabba part, the stupid blue elephant and half the creatures in Jabbas palace looked lame.

-Boba Fett's death was inexcusably stupid.

-Harrison Ford was embarrassing in his overacting in Return of the Jedi. The "Hey, it's me!" line makes me want to vomit.

-Could Lucas have thought of something else besides the damn Death Star again? Wasn't that already done in the first movie? It really made Return of the Jedi unoriginal.

-The Ewoks were intolerable.

This movie was really, really, dissapointing, and frankly as bad as either Episode I or Episode II, and actually maybe even worse than Episode II. Lucas really struck out in 3 of the 5 movies in my opinion, which is a real shame.

[Michel Orla]

LUKE
You're wrong, Leia. You have that power too.
In time you'll learn to use it as I have. The
Force is strong in my family. My father has
it...I have it...and...my sister has it.

Leia stares into his eyes. What she sees there frightens her. But
she doesn't draw away. She begins to understand.

LUKE
Yes. It's you Leia.

LEIA
I know. Somehow...I've always known.


That's from the official Return of the Jedi script.

Lucas chooses Leia to say the melodramatic line "Somehow I always knew" And she still flirted and kissed Luke. I guess in the Star Wars galaxy incest isn't a big thing. And if Leia had a notion Luke was her brother, Luke was clueless. Yet he's suppose to be stronger in the force. IMO a horrible and stupid way to handle "the other" Yoda was talking about

Of course Leia could be implying she always knew she was strong in the force, but that doesn't make sense either.

[Despondent]

You'd have thought they'd have chatted AT LEAST ONCE about the force powers Leia uses to save Luke's life.




if ANYONE knew, it was Luke. Clueless he was the one who called for her by name.

[CowboyCurtis]

You know, Yoda's statement, "No, there is another," should've only implied that there is another JEDI, not another Skywalker... or Lucas could've had a sister for Luke like he had planned (used loosely) for other sequels, and just allow EU to take over in that department. He didn't need to go onto film sequels... altho, he could've and just hired others to take care of those storylines.

Ack, yes, the brother/sister thing has always bothered me. It's Lucas' first real big blunder.

[thrawn]

Nerfherder69 youre a bloody idiot :angry:

[nerfherder69]

Thrawn:

Instead of insulting me, you could elaborate.

It seems to me that most people who responded found the whole brother/sister thing contrived and unnecessary.

I think it was a stupid idea and I don't think Lucas thought of it until he had to explain the "no, there is another" line. You would think that during Vader's time with Leia in Star Wars that he might have sensed that she was his daughter. He can sense it from space with Luke, but somehow his sense of the force with Leia doesn't exist when she is right next to him.

I really think the series turned with this stupid and unnecessary plot twist. It didn't even matter, other than to try to surprise the audience. In fact, for most people with memories, it grossed them out.

Leia never became a Jedi, and there really was no benefit to the plot to having her being Luke's sister, other than making the movie dumber.

Of course this was foreshadowing to Lucas' belief that every character had to somehow be related to the Skywalkers in some way. C-3PO was built by Anakin and lived with Uncle Owen on Tatooine, yet they somehow don't remember him. Hell, he even put Baby goddam Greedo in Episode 1, and Baby Boba Fett in Episode II.

We already know that we will see Chewbacca, but I can pretty much guarantee that we will see baby Han Solo, baby Lando, and maybe even baby Admiral Akhbar in some stupid contrived scenes that do nothing to further the plot of Episode III.

[Helena]

I think the reason Lucas decided to make them siblings was in order to solve the Luke/Leia/Han love triangle as easily as possible. But I agree, it was unnecessary and pretty stupid. Unfortunately, we're stuck with it now.

[CowboyCurtis]

You know, I'd really like to know more of the "story" behind ROTJ. What happened to make it the way it was. ESB is almost flawless and it's beautifully shot and edited. What went wrong with ROTJ?

I know a lot of it has to do with how Lucas treated Gary Kurtz. From Kurtz' interviews, it seems like he was basically shunned or put into a position where Lucas wasn't accessible to him. It almost seems like Lucas got mad at Kurtz for ESB. So, it is about Lucas' ego here. His pride was hurt on ESB because it is the film he had the "least control on."

At least, that's how it appears to me.

Kurtz mentions many other ideas for ROTJ in his IGN interview, and I would've rather seen those. I could've dealt with Ewoks if they were actually formidable, believable little creatures. There is no way in my mind that these clumsy little furballs survived evolution on Endor!!!

[Michel Orla]

For some reason I gather Lucas wasn't (and still isn't) thrilled with Empire like he is with the rest of his films. Because he had the least creative control of this film . And the dark tones (We all know his version of "dark" in Episode 3 wont hold a candle to Empire) And the great dialogue he could never write. So he decided to take more control of Return of the Jedi, and as a result we get a far weaker film.

He's said time and time again he had all three OT films written out when he started Episode 4. Bullshit. He had Star Wars and the outline for Empire. Return of the Jedi he made up it seems as he filmed. A film which he decided to use much slapstick (almost like he was trying to make up for the darker Empire ), a hokey romance between Leia and Han, the Ewoks and of course the cop-out brother/sister revelation. As dissapointed as I was by the prequels, Return of the Jedi remains the most dissapointing

That and he wanted to milk Star Wars for all it was worth with Return. At that time he probaly thought he was done with Star Wars, so naturally he wanted to go out making as much money as possible

[HK 47]

As far as I've heard, one of the reasons Empire came out so well is because Lucas was intimidated by Kershner, his old teacher in fact. Lucas simply didn't have the nerve to question his authority and Kershner made a lot of good decisions for ESB.

As for the kiss, calling it incest is ridiculous. Leia clearly does it to annoy Han. The romance in the OT was always between Leia and Han, I never saw Luke as any serious competition to Han in that sense. However, I totally agree with the cop-out of making Luke and Leia siblings though. Stupid on many levels! Especially since it doesn't amount to anything, Leia doesn't use the Force at all!
If "another" has to mean Leia it could have been done way better. For example, it would have meant so much more if she was responsible for the shield collapse on Endor by using her new found powers somehow. She could have been the one who tips the balance in favor of the Jedi. Not some f**king teddy bears.

[Despondent]

and maybe even baby Admiral Akhbar in some stupid contrived scenes that do nothing to further the plot of Episode III.

Well, that spoils the best part of the movie for me.

You know, I'd really like to know more of the "story" behind ROTJ. What happened to make it the way it was. ESB is almost flawless and it's beautifully shot and edited. What went wrong with ROTJ?

And after three years' wait, boy was that a surprise.

so naturally he wanted to go out making as much money as possible

Here's where I'd include some quote from OT yoda regarding being consumed by the dark side. I think we're mostly in agreement on this.

If "another" has to mean Leia it could have been done way better

At that point, if Artoo could suddenly fly to save the day I'd have accepted him as the other.

Or Chewie. He was always there (and now he has a pedigree.)

[nerfherder69]

If anyone watched the documentary in the latest Trilogy DVDs, they talk about how Spielberg was supposed to direct Return of the Jedi originally. Because of Lucas' despute with the Screen Actor's Guild (he refused to run opening credits and was fined for it), he couldn't use Spielberg and had to use a foreign director.

It's a shame, because I don't think Spielberg would have allowed such crappy dialogue, melodrama, and Ewoks in the film. It suddenly turned from an action/adventure epic into a muppet movie in space.

Very depressing.

[barend]

don't worry folks... in the next special editions of star wars (est. 2011) i'm sure luke will kiss first.