[Chefelf]

Despondent was kind enough to send me the following scans which show the original prologue for Star Wars: Journal of the Whills:

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[Chefelf]

Page 2:

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[srmoore]

If I read that correctly.. the Emperor is a puppet??!! WTF?

[Chefelf]

Yeah, remember those pale wan looking characters that he was hanging out with in Return of the Jedi? Those were his puppeteers.

[Trouble]

Copyright by the Star Wars Corporation? Nice way of making sure no one person gets credit, I guess.

That looks so strange.

[njamilla]

Palpatine was supposed to be a good guy!

Well, Alan Dean Foster wrote those words, apparently not GL? Or did he?

One thing I liked about the SW novelization it Foster's literary style. "They were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Naturally they became heroes.” What a great line you don’t see in the movies.

None of the subsequent novelizations have this litereary quality. They’re written versions of the script, emphasizing visuals not ideas.

[civilian_number_two]

This is from STAR WARS: THE ANNOTATED SCREENPLAYS (Del Rey, 1997).

" The second draft as well as the third draft began with the following quote: 'And in time of greatest despair there shall come a savior and he shall be known as THE SON OF THE SUN' ('Journal of the Whills,' 3:12)

George Lucas: Originally, I was trying to have the story be told be somebody else; there was somebody watching this whole story and recording it, somebody probably wiser than the mortal players in the actual events. I eventually dropped the idea, and the concepts behind the Whills turned into the Force. But the Whills became part of this massive amount of notes, quotes, background information that I used for the scripts; the stories were actually taken from the 'Journal of the Whills'"

The annotations claim to be based on various materials written by George ucas. A sampling of titles for those materials includes:

Partial handwritten outline entitled "Journal of the Whills" (no date)

THE ADVENTURES OF LUKE STARKILLER. EPISODE I: THE STAR WARS, May 1, 1975 - story synopsis.

FROM THE ADVENTURES OF LUKE STARKILLER as taken from "The Journal of the Whills." SAGA I: THE STAR WARS. January 1, 1976 - fourth draft with George Lucas's original notes.

And according to the introduction to the screenplays, the whole thing began in 1973, when Lucas penned "a forty-page outline entitled 'Jiurnal of the Whills' about 'Mace Windy, a revered Jedi Bendu of Ophuci,' as told by 'C.J. Thorpe, Padawan learner of the famed Jedi."

It's all pretty interesting stuff. What you can get out of it (well, what I got, at any rate) is the way in which Lucas gradually pulled his story together, and the various ways he tried to make it bigger than its source, Kuraswa's THE HIDDEN FORTRESS. In the end, it remains pretty faithful to Kurasawa, mainly because Lucas's original ideas aren't very good. And there are a lot of terrible names in there, worse even than "Skywalker" and "Organa," names that either don't seem to belong to a common universe or just sound too much like the author wanted wild fantasy names. But now you can also see how Lucas is plumbing his source material for the prequels; mostly he's just digging around for names, but there are some story ideas in there as well. Unfortunately, he isn't digging out the better ideas, like having the Jedi play a more active role in society. The yawn and grumble councils of the PT are terrible terrible terrible.

Anyway, it's a good read, and I recommend it to anyone who likes bitching about STAR WARS even half as much as I do.

Mike.

[Despondent]

I picked up that Star Wars paperback today, and found something interesting. there's a plot synopsis written on the 16-page color picture section with descriptions of characters, aliens, the glorification of Lucas. (cheerfully:) the banner on the cover reads "the year's best movie" -Time magazine.

Along with calling Chewbacca a 100-year old, it spells out that Grand Moff Tarkin's insatiable political ambitions TO BECOME Emperor have driven him to use ruthless means to quell the rapidly growing rebellion. Oh yeah, to this end HE has constructed a large and frighteningly powerful NEW battle station, the Death Star, which is capable of blah blah blah.

more stuff for ep. 3 I guess. Wouldn't he need the force, good or bad, to become Emperor? Midichlorians? I don't see it.

Oh! here's what caught my eye: Ben Kenobi, a once respected name in the galaxy is now an outlaw in the Tatooine mountains. The shabby old desert-rat of a man was, before the rise of the sinister Galactic Empire, one of the GREATEST WARRIORS in the Old Republic. blah blah blah.

WTF? oh right. Lucas.

[Jordan]

  'And in time of greatest despair there shall come a savior and he shall be known as THE SON OF THE SUN'   

He keeps on bitting the bible. Change SUN with MAN and you got christ. What a hack. This is not nearly as bad as the virgin birth, but still terrible.

What next, Luke parting the sea?

Or maybe he might dip into some other religon. Buddha Kinghts?

[Just your average movie goer]

Oh shit! The virgin birth! I'd completely forgotten about that....

I wonder if ChefElf remembered to include it in his reasons to hate Episode I. I might have a quick look.

[Just your average movie goer]

Yeah, he brought it up. Chefelf doesn't miss a beat.

[Ferris Wiel]

My GOD!

The whole of the original Star Wars changes in this focus. I mean it! Remember the whole "council of governors" scene? The room on the DS where Motti gets nearly throttled by Vader? Of course, these are all the chief guys. Where's the Emperor? Listen to their words again:

"The Emperor has dissolved (the Senate), permanently. The last remnants of the Old Republic have been swept away... Regional governors will now have direct control over their bureaucracies... Fear will keep the local systems in line, fear of this battle station."

There is no power struggle. Tarkin himself is making these decisions, he speaks casually about the Emperor. "Palpy" is simply the mouthpiece, not some ominous figure orchestrating it all. Tarkin speaks more as if he and a few others told the Emperor to issue the "decree" rather than the other way around.

That is so much cooler.

Damn it, Lucas!

--FW

[Just your average movie goer]

You're right!

And welcome back, Ferris. Long time, no see.

[Just your average movie goer]

I honestly think Lucas is an early poster-boy for ADD.

Ah, that's beautiful!