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Darth Father ...was lucas planning the twist while writing ANH?

#31 User is offline   Moyale Icon

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Posted 03 January 2007 - 01:01 PM

Hi, can I join in?

"Back to the Future" was not an art house film, but in that movie we have a mother with the hots for her own kid. Nobody freaked out about that, weird as it is.

I agree with everyone that Lucas decided to make Luke and Leia siblings much later on, but even if he had decided that in Empire, there's no reason he wouldn't have them kiss before we and they knew about it. Wasn't there supposed to be some tension and a question about which of them she might choose?

I disagree with Johnny Cancer though about audiences thinking Han and Leia made a better couple. Luke was in love with Leia from the start, Han never really cared. I think everybody assumed Luke was the hero and Han was the cool pirate, the kind of guy who shows up and helps and then disappears again kind of like Clint Eastwood or whoever.
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#32 User is offline   Despondent Icon

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Posted 03 January 2007 - 01:02 PM

Yeah, you get over that (sigh).
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#33 User is offline   Cyzyk Icon

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Posted 03 January 2007 - 01:46 PM

The first time I read that, Despondent, I saw "off" instead of "over". It really changes the implications of the statement.
Tolerance is another word for Apathy
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#34 User is offline   johnnycancer Icon

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Posted 03 January 2007 - 08:01 PM

QUOTE
"Back to the Future" was not an art house film, but in that movie we have a mother with the hots for her own kid. Nobody freaked out about that, weird as it is.


Nobody freaked out about that because Marty McFly's reaction to this is basically disgust, which is a culturally acceptable response. If Marty McFly had sex with his mom and loved it and saw nothing wrong with it, I'm pretty sure people would have freaked out.

All I'm saying with Star Wars is that it's a weird element to include in the movies, especially with no sort of follow-up and no real justification for it; Luke and Leia being brother and sister only serves two purposes; 1) it resolves the Luke-Leia-Han love triangle; and 2) it allows Yoda to say that there is another Skywalker. But neither of these are particularly important for the overall story since Leia being the other hope for the Jedi doesn't really matter in the OT and the Luke-Leia-Han thing could have been resolved any number of ways.

QUOTE
I disagree with Johnny Cancer though about audiences thinking Han and Leia made a better couple. Luke was in love with Leia from the start, Han never really cared. I think everybody assumed Luke was the hero and Han was the cool pirate, the kind of guy who shows up and helps and then disappears again kind of like Clint Eastwood or whoever.


Actually I wouldn't disagree with that statement; I was just trying to think of some reason that might have prompted Lucas to make Luke and Leia related.

QUOTE
Sorry, it just seemed for a moment that there was a glimmer of actual planning in Star Wars and depth of plot


There is an element of planning and depth to Star Wars, it's just not very well executed all the time. I think that the basic conceit of the PT is really fascinating: that there's this one guy who's going to bring balance to the force, except the Jedi don't know instead of killing off the Sith, he's going to reduce the ranks of the Jedi to just two people; and there's only two Sith; so balance is brought to the force because now the numbers are equal, but that's not how people interpreted the prophecy. That's some dramatic irony there, and it seems like there'd be plenty of room for complexity and subtlety in the way the plot is advanced; sadly, that's not the case.

Do the movies leave a lot of room for speculation? Sure, go look at the Shmi Skywalker thread on the Episode I forum or the "Vader/Tatooine Connection" in the Episode IV forum.

And Luke and Leia being brother and sister probably is in there as an allusion to certain literary traditions, although I would venture a guess that Lucas was thinking more along the lines of Greek tragedies as opposed to Roman poetry. But it's still a dumb element to have if you're not going to follow up on it at all; I'm pretty sure Luke would have mixed feelings about being sexually attracted to his sister; and I doubt that Leia would have been just fine with it either. Surely a couple of minutes could be shaved off the ewok battle to let the characters at least have a line or two to address this. Again, the basic conceit sounds kick-ass: brother and sister fall in love while plotting to kill their father and gain control of a galactic empire. Throw in Leia's attraction to Han and Luke having to complete his Jedi training and you've got some good stuff there. But the execution of this concept manages to dillute some of the core concepts enough where you begin to wonder why they were included in the first place.

johnnycancer

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Welcome to the forum Moyale!

This post has been edited by johnnycancer: 03 January 2007 - 08:02 PM

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#35 User is offline   Casual Fan Icon

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Posted 04 January 2007 - 12:46 AM

I never liked the plot twist that Vader was Luke's father. Its the main reason why ESB is not my favorite "Star Wars" movie.

The original movie was pretty much about a ragtag group of rebels fighting off an evil empire, and one rebel, in particular, discovering himself in the process. That sounds simplistic, but there are a lot of Westerns which are basically about how the law abiding townspeople/ sheriff fight off the bad guys. After the revelation that Vader was Luke's father, the series became mainly about the Skywalker's, how Vader turned, and Vader's relationship with Luke.

Probably the ragtag rebels fighting the evil empire theme had run its course, but the Skywalker saga was simply not enough to sustain more than one movie at the most, and of course it was the main focus of the prequels. Even Lucas has more or less admitted that he had to stretch the material to cover three movies. I think some of the problems with "Return of the Jedi" stem from this. I'm not sure what theme could have been used instead, but I don't think the Vader turning to the dark side, then turning back worked well to provide material for four and a half movies.

The twist also introduced major, probably unfixable plot problems. Why did Obi Wan lie to Luke? Why did he hide Luke on Vader's home planet? Why did Anakin Skywalker give his lightsaber to an infant? There is also the problem of how can a "good man" join the empire (which we have to take mostly on faith that its evil, the empire isn't painted in the OT with much complexity).

Its hard to criticize this plot development, since it pretty much became the theme for about 40% of the OT, and is the thing people remember about "Empire Strikes Back". However, it can't be a good idea to throw into a sequel something that contradicts much of the original movie, and completely changes the direction of the series, without putting more thought into it.
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#36 User is offline   civilian_number_two Icon

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Posted 04 January 2007 - 04:05 AM

QUOTE (johnnycancer @ Jan 3 2007, 08:01 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
All I'm saying with Star Wars is that it's a weird element to include in the movies, especially with no sort of follow-up and no real justification for it; Luke and Leia being brother and sister only serves two purposes; 1) it resolves the Luke-Leia-Han love triangle; and 2) it allows Yoda to say that there is another Skywalker. But neither of these are particularly important for the overall story since Leia being the other hope for the Jedi doesn't really matter in the OT and the Luke-Leia-Han thing could have been resolved any number of ways.


Agreed of course that Leia being the other hope for the Jedi never amounts to anything, which is of course what makes it lame. Yoda for the record said there was "another" to Ben's "That boy is our only hope." As in, there is another in whom we can place our hope. Syntactically even, the suggestion is "another boy," but some fans at the time all speculated that the other hope, presumably a Jedi or Jedi potential, might be a woman. Anyway, Yoda never said "another Skywalker." Making Leia the other hope is about the weakest thing he did with any of his films ever, and in that assessment I'm including casting Jaek Lloyd as Darth Vader.

What is weakest about Yoda's comment is that Luke refers to it in the third movie as though he heard it, and of course he was taking off from Dagobah at the time, with his helmet on and the roar of the engines and whatnot, while Yoda and Ben were sharing some private misgivings that he could never have overheard (please nobody say "The Force").

Actually no, that's not what's weakest about it. What is weakest about it, like the revelation of Luke's parentage, is that the promise is made of some big changes - if there's another hope, Luke might die or turn to the dark side. The later revelation ("I am your father") promises that Luke may need to kill his father, or die trying. ESB set up some big expectations for its sequel, and there was really no payoff. Luke didn't face Vader in a finale showdown; Luke faced the Emperor and Vader stepped in and killed him for him. We were then asked to forgive the mass murderer because Lucas thought that was the sort of thing you could forgive, even though later he'd say Han shooting Greedo would have been a bad thing had Greedo not shot first. The "other" hope never emerged as anything, drawing screaming attention to the fact that Lucas made the series up as he went along, all the while pretending that he'd researched myths and Greek Tragedies. etc etc. I don't want to stir up all this stuff again, but Lucas scuttled his fun adventure films by promising that they'd be more than that, and then not paying off.

But hey, he promises that the next Indiana Jones movie will be "really cool." Remember, this is the guy who had Jones exchanging relics for diamonds in the sequel, and running around with comic-relief sidekicks. I'm looking forward to it the way you look forward to the dentist.
"I had a lot of different ideas. At one point, Luke, Leia and Ben were all going to be little people, and we did screen tests to see if we could do that." -George Lucas, in STAR WARS: the Annotated Screenplays (p197).
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#37 User is offline   johnnycancer Icon

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Posted 04 January 2007 - 05:41 AM

QUOTE (civilian_number_two @ Jan 4 2007, 01:05 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Agreed of course that Leia being the other hope for the Jedi never amounts to anything, which is of course what makes it lame. Yoda for the record said there was "another" to Ben's "That boy is our only hope." As in, there is another in whom we can place our hope. Syntactically even, the suggestion is "another boy," but some fans at the time all speculated that the other hope, presumably a Jedi or Jedi potential, might be a woman. Anyway, Yoda never said "another Skywalker." Making Leia the other hope is about the weakest thing he did with any of his films ever, and in that assessment I'm including casting Jaek Lloyd as Darth Vader.


Thanks for pointing that out actually. I'm the one usually going on about looking at exactly what the dialogue is, so, I probably should have researched that better before I posted it.

But, this goes back to the point I'm making about the depth of the movies; there's a lot of speculation you can do; but eventually they kind of smack you in the head with a storyline and there's only so much you can really read into it.

johnnycancer
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#38 User is offline   Moyale Icon

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Posted 05 January 2007 - 12:42 AM

Though Star Wars was a one-off movie, albeit with the possibility of a sequel, The Empire Strikes Back was clearly part of a two part enterprise. Therefore, it is hard to believe that the script was written without any thought given to how to resolve the questions posed. Is Vader really Luke's father, who or what is the other hope, and what is going to happen to Han.

I cannot belive that Lucas didn't have at least a general idea as to the plot of Return of the Jedi. And, unless there was going to be some new character suddenly introduced in the last installment who was going to solve everything, the last hope could only really be Leia. I mean, was Yoda about to say, "if Luke fails, I can always call up Joe the Super-Jedi. I haven't mentioned him before, but I'm pretty sure he can sort it all out."

The problem is that while Star Wars made a ton of cash, most of it didn't go to Lucas. Empire was made from Lucas's own money, and was still a risky investment for him. It had to be solid, and had to lead to the final episode. However, Empire proved that anything Star Wars was going to make money, and for the next film I don't think he really cared any more. Get the rescue of Han out of the way, introduce some new action figures (Jabba's palace) for the older toy buyers, introduce some teddy bears for the kids, and don't spend any more money on the final film than the bare minimum. Millions of dollars will pour in no matter what.

I think that is why from Jedi onwards, nothing makes any sense.
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#39 User is offline   civilian_number_two Icon

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Posted 05 January 2007 - 07:28 AM

QUOTE (Moyale @ Jan 5 2007, 12:42 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Though Star Wars was a one-off movie, albeit with the possibility of a sequel, The Empire Strikes Back was clearly part of a two part enterprise. Therefore, it is hard to believe that the script was written without any thought given to how to resolve the questions posed. Is Vader really Luke's father, who or what is the other hope, and what is going to happen to Han.

I cannot belive that Lucas didn't have at least a general idea as to the plot of Return of the Jedi. And, unless there was going to be some new character suddenly introduced in the last installment who was going to solve everything, the last hope could only really be Leia. I mean, was Yoda about to say, "if Luke fails, I can always call up Joe the Super-Jedi. I haven't mentioned him before, but I'm pretty sure he can sort it all out."


I appreciate that you can't accept it, as it does seem crazy, but there you have it. Lucas had no idea what he was going to do with the "other hope" promise, and the proof of the pudding, as they say, is in the eating. Leia did nothing in the third film to indicate her "other hope" -iness, and that's a fact. If by "there is another hope for the Jedi" Yoda meant "Luke, who is a goddamned prodigy even though I said he was too old, may fail, but if that happens we can also look up his sister, the exact same age and with no apparent Force talents ... " Well, I'll start over: if that's what Lucas says Yoda meant, then Lucas is a big fat-necked liar. Meanwhile, Vader's turn "back" to the good side is so hamfisted it stinks of last-minute: am I really to believe that Vader redeemed himself by murdering the man he had plotted to murder in the second film? And with the help of his son, no less, the son he'd tried to include in his treachery? The son having to kill the father, let's be honest, would have been a more interesting ending, with or without all the teddy bear crosscutting.

Yeesh, I reel just thinking about it. Lucas had in mind when he made EMPIRE that he would make an ongoing series of sequels, with no number in mind and no long plot. By the time EMPIRE was released he came up with this fiction of three trilogies, a fiction he later altered. Pray he doesn't alter it further.
"I had a lot of different ideas. At one point, Luke, Leia and Ben were all going to be little people, and we did screen tests to see if we could do that." -George Lucas, in STAR WARS: the Annotated Screenplays (p197).
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#40 User is offline   Vesuvius Icon

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Posted 05 January 2007 - 10:10 AM

QUOTE (civilian_number_two @ Jan 5 2007, 07:28 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Pray he doesn't alter it further.



laugh.gif Best friggin' thing I've heard yet on this extensively drawn out thread! laugh.gif
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#41 User is offline   johnnycancer Icon

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Posted 06 January 2007 - 05:41 AM

QUOTE
I mean, was Yoda about to say, "if Luke fails, I can always call up Joe the Super-Jedi. I haven't mentioned him before, but I'm pretty sure he can sort it all out."


Oh that just makes me happy for some reason. Again, welcome to the forums Moyale.

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#42 User is offline   Gerhard Icon

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Posted 21 January 2007 - 07:24 PM

QUOTE (Moyale @ Jan 5 2007, 05:42 AM)
"Back to the Future" was not an art house film, but in that movie we have a mother with the hots for her own kid. Nobody freaked out about that, weird as it is.


In the DVD documentary there is the information Disney turned down BTTF because of that mother/son plot device. They did not found it appropriate for a family Disney Movie.

QUOTE (Moyale @ Jan 5 2007, 05:42 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
I cannot believe that Lucas didn't have at least a general idea as to the plot of Return of the Jedi. And, unless there was going to be some new character suddenly introduced in the last installment who was going to solve everything, the last hope could only really be Leia. I mean, was Yoda about to say, "if Luke fails, I can always call up Joe the Super-Jedi. I haven't mentioned him before, but I'm pretty sure he can sort it all out."


Don't underestimate Lucas capacity to make it as he goes along, during production for Attack of the Clones, the ILM team showed Lucas some demos of a CGI Yoda, (this is in the AOTC Extras DVD) so at that time (pre-production?) one would expect that the script was already written, but if it was decided not to make Yoda CGI, he could never fight with Docku and Palpatine (in ROTS), that would be pretty major changes in both scripts.

And the apparent changes between ROTJ and ESB don't surprise me at all, everything was rushed to close the story there. At shotting time of ESB there were plans for an entire movie (the next one) with Luke looking for his sister. I think the sister idea was always there (the twins concept was there from the very early drafts of SW) but the Luke-Leia connection was apparently forced for ROTJ to end the trilogy.
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#43 User is offline   KurganX Icon

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Posted 25 July 2007 - 01:46 PM

While Lucas claims the twins concept was "always there" I don't see any evidence for it myself. The early scripts all posit a group of BROTHERS (boys), not twin siblings one boy one girl, who both have the Force and are the children of the bad guy who turns good (Vader and Anakin being the same person).

Lucas is full of hot air, and he made it up as he went along...
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#44 User is offline   Bond Icon

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Posted 25 July 2007 - 06:26 PM

"Dark Father" is a load of bollocks.

George Lucas called his villain (who, in the first draft, was a toadying, non-Sith henchman similar to Motti in the final film) "Darth Vader" simply because, in his high school in Modesto, one of the jocks who bullied him was named Gary Vader.

End of story. wink.gif
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#45 User is offline   georgelucas4greedo Icon

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Posted 30 July 2007 - 02:54 PM

I's more powerful than Darth Vapor!
It seems like everyone is over the nitpicking. Too bad.
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