The statements are fine. My first one says he didn't write all the details down immediately. My second one reinforces that he didn't make it all up from scratch. He already knew the major plot points and most of the main characters. It was just filling in the blanks when he wrote each script, building off the rough foundation he already had.
It is true, it was in one of the first documentaries on Star Wars I ever saw. I believe it was "From Star Wars to Jedi" but it has been some time so I could be mistaken.
He did have other ideas for "spin off" sequels and such but did he ever say "I made it up as I went along?" I don't recall him ever saying those words verbatim, its an accusation made by some disillusioned old fans.
So tell us, WHICH ideas did he have planned in advance?
That after 1983, in the "prequel trilogy" if he ever made it, that Anakin would fall to the DarkSide and Palpatine would institute the Empire over the Republic, the Jedi would be wiped out, and Vader's children would grow up in secrecy?
I'm saying that the entire backstory that we knew of for the prequels was all spelled out for us in the 1976 novelization. Some different details were also given for the Return of the Jedi novelization in 1983.
But basically all the major plot points of the movies were made up as he went along... the father/son thing, the twins/other thing, yoda, the workings of the jedi & sith, and so forth.
It seems the exception rather than the rule that things were planned in advance.
He didn't plan originally for there to be two death star battles, but one, that he repeated later. The Ewok battle was a wookiee battle on a different planet. Coruscant had a different name altogether.
Precious little was planned "in advance" (and by "in advance" I mean before he picked up the notebook and started writing the script). So you've got it backwards. A minor detail like the word "padawan" referring to a Jedi student was thought of in advance. But the part about Jedi training each one Padawan from birth in a celibate order ruled over by a council of Masters, and Yoda training groups of "younglings" and so forth, that was all made up later. The "jedi code" was made up for the Expanded Universe, but is just some poetry, not like the never-seen but apparently huge manual that is constantly referred to in the Prequels themselves. "The Sith" were created in advance, but what they were (or what he was) and what that meant was totally different in the beginning from what we got in the OT and the later EU and it was changed for the PT.
Some of the names like "Vallorum" existed in the past, but they didn't describe characters anywhere near like what we actually got. So again, it seems minor details he invented in the past, but the stories were written from scratch for the most part and most details invented right there.
The fact is that in 1994 when he started writing Episode I, he DUSTED OFF his old notebook and started on a clean page. He didn't have some old script already ready to go that he just modified in places to create The Phantom Menace.
If the "he had it all planned out" folks are right, then the latter is what we should have seen. Instead, most of the movies were made up in the time right before he released them, not a decade or more in advance.
The story changed drastically from 1976 to 1980, and again from 1983 to 1999. Major plot points and details were invented for each movie that had no precedent.
About the only one of the movies you can say that had a significant part that was "planned in advance" was Episode III. Major portions of it were already created and spelled out for us in 1983 and 1976. Of course major plot points were clearly invented just in time for the movie, like Padme dying in childbirth, Darth Plagueis the Wise and all that crap about the midichlorians creating life, General Grievous, and so forth. In the original story, Luke's father and Vader were different people, and Luke's father was either dead or still alive somewhere and Luke would meet him eventually. Vader was described as crawling out of a "molten pit" or falling into a volcano (close, but not quite what we saw). The EU described various stories explaining his injuries that contradicted what we would eventually see in ROTS. The roles of Bail Organa and Owen Lars changed significantly too from 1976-77 to the time the prequels were made. The roles of the droids were greatly expanded and altered from what they were originally.
It's perfectly clear from early interviews, early scripts and behind the scenes docos that Lucas made it up as he went along, and what little he did plan in advance changed significantly.
The "planned in advance" people I think want to us to believe that Lucas had a stack of rough drafts or a "monster script" that he just carved up, polished a little and that's what we had for each new movie after "A New Hope." Instead it seems his plans were fluid throughout. He made it up as he went along for the regular movies, why not the prequels? He just repeated the same method for those too. Only minor details or extremely vague main themes were planned in advance. That's why nobody anticipated that Episode I would be about a tow headed little kid flying hovercraft, building droids for his mom and the antics of a frog-dinosaur clown and a devil-faced black-clad dual lightsaber villain... in an "adventure" centering around trade taxes and teenage elected queens.
He threw us for another loop with the whole Jedi celibacy thing (which was invented for AOTC, it never existed before), or the stormtroopers being clones of Boba Fett's dad (the Stormtroopers being clones has one precedent, a throw-away story in a magazine from 1981 that the EU completely ignored) and so forth. Since Yoda didn't exist in the original story, obviously his major role in the PT was made up as well. Ditto for Jar Jar Binks. Originally, Palpatine was even force sensitive (this was made up for ESB), much less a Sith Lord.
So how anyone can say that he "planned it in advance" (whether they are saying all of it or even a significant percentage of the later movies) I don't know... only sheer blind fanboyism I guess!
This post has been edited by KurganX: 25 August 2007 - 12:29 AM
Sign In
Register
Help
Add Reply
MultiQuote
