BTS SW Saga: Rejected Ideas

For each Star Wars movie, many ideas were thrown around during the initial stages; some were discarded sooner than others for a variety of reasons. Many alternate scenarios and out of character actions could have meant a drastically different series than we're used to. What are some decisions you're glad weren't made?

-Luke nonchalantly punches Leia in an early draft of Star Wars. Just no.
-In the novel of Revenge of the Sith, Vader is cracking jokes while slaughtering the Separatists. Completely ruins the effect of the silent killer in the final film.
-Obi-Wan and Owen were brothers in the novelization of Return of the Jedi. Not a huge misstep, but simply a connection that didn't need to be made.
-Han Solo being invisioned as an alien. I'm not even sure Harrison Ford could pull it off.
-Palpatine carries a lightsaber in Return of the Jedi. Sure, we all invisioned this as we were kids (and he used one by Revenge of the Sith), but his character works perfectly as a character so powerful, he is now above using weapons.
-Boba Fett kills Mace. How old is he by now, like 13?


Mod edit: Thread title changed with OP's permission

 

Well, in the early drafts of TPM Qui-Gon is pretty much a non-character who only shows up in the last act, and Obi-Wan is alone until then. We lose the aspect of Anakin being discovered and mentored by a rabble-rousing Jedi who isn't on the up and up with the status quo, the same status quo that will eventually botch Anakin's training. We lose everything that makes Qui-Gon a cool character. So, good thing that was re-written.

 

Well, if we're going to go back to the very beginning, I think that the Saga wouldn't have had nearly as much lasting power if Darth Vader and Anakin Skywalker had been different people.

In a more recent case, original plans for AOTC had the man who commissioned the clone army (not a Jedi Master) being named as "Sido-Dyas". As much as the final mystery plotline went nowhere, that's just an incredibly stupid alias and I'm glad it was abolished.

Also, I agree with Jedi Ford Prefect: the final character of Qui-Gon was a great improvement over the virtual redshirt in the early drafts.

 

When Han was envisioned as an alien, he wasn't the same character that we now know him to be. And fortunately most of those "decisions" weren't even considered to be used on the movies in the first place (they are either the product of writer's liberty when doing the novelizations or ideas from a completely different script than the one from the final movie).

 

- Luke's knighting on Dagobah by the ghost of his dead father (ESB)
No-brainer. Dreadful scene anyway, probably one of the factors that clinched GL's decision to go with his 'other' storyline regarding Luke's father.

- Obi-Wan, Anakin & Yoda are all brought back from the dead (ROTJ)
Strange, lame, and nowhere near as powerful as that wonderful three-shot of the Force Ghosts.

- Palpatine implying to Anakin that Dooku orchestrated the kidnapping of Shmi (ROTS)
Makes the Sith plans seem far too neat & calculated, rather than being the will of the Force.

- Palps confirming that Plagueis was his master, and that Anakin could almost consider him his father (ROTS)
Same as above, plus I love the ambiguity surrounding 'The Tragedy of Darth Plagueis' - the whole story could just as easily be a lie, an actual myth, or perhaps Plagueis lived centuries before. I know that GL has confirmed that Plagueis did exist and & was Palpatine's Sith Master, but I think it works better just as it is presented in the film alone.

- Han Solo's cameo as a 10 year old on Kashyyyk (ROTS)
Would have been a cheap, pointless gesture, the sort that makes the SW universe seem smaller - constantly dragging in familiar characters when it serves no real purpose other than familiarity (Jabba in TPM, Greedo in the TPM deleted scene, Chewie in ROTS).

 

This one will probably be unpopular, but here goes:

--having Padmé live past Episode 3

I know that a lot of people were unhappy that Padmé didn't survive Episode III to go into hiding with Leia as they didn't like that this seemed to contradict Leia's memories of her mother. Personally, I never had a problem with this as I saw no reason as to why, in a universe where it's possible to unconsciously reach out and see the future, one couldn't reach out and vividly see the past, but I digress. The reason I think it's important that Padmé die was because she was such a central character to the PT and she isn't mentioned in the OT until Episode VI (and even then, not by name). It'd be like if, in the new trilogy, we see Han and Luke basically since the beginning and then, in Episode IX, Luke asks Han what happened to his sister and Han mentions she died when so-and-so kid was born or something. It just wouldn't work for me, personally.

Padmé was always a character strongly associated with the Republic so I always thought her death (along with the Republic's and Anakin's spiritual death) was more true to the character than just withering away on some planet and being mentioned in two lines of dialog.

 

Actually, I think this is something that did happen that ruined TPM. It helps make the case that there is no true protagonist in the film. We spend a lot of time with this character who barely has any personality at all, and Obi-Wan is reduced to the background when he should have been the main character of the film -- since we don't even meet Anakin until an hour into it. And even then Obi-Wan is stuck on the ship reading the Midichlorian Counter. How much more satisfying would it have been for Obi-Wan to make the connection to Anakin and to bring him back to Coruscant, that's what we all imagined in our heads for the backstory.

It should have been Obi-Wan's story.

 

Those are all things that make me glad for the existence of Qui-Gon as the lead, frankly. By using a new character, Lucas was able to make him a little different rather than having to seamlessly match him up with something from the OT, which he would've had to have done with Obi-Wan. By having Kenobi be more of a conservative, stick-in-the-mud Jedi rather than the unorthodox Qui-Gon, we also see just how much Anakin was failed by the Jedi Order, and how much they're responsible for his fall to the Dark Side. It's a lot deeper and more interesting than just having a backstory that perfectly fits with what Ben told Luke in ROTJ about how he met his father.

 

I wanted Boba Fett to kill Mace Windu. But not in Episode III, it should have been an after credits scene where we see Boba Hunt him down and the film end when he offs him. He would have been like 21 at the time I envisaged. And I wanted it even more so when I saw how Windu actually died.

 

Star Wars movies don't have after-the-credits stingers. And when movies do have them, they generally aren't years afterwards, and barely last under a minute. I prefer what we got to quickie after-the-fact fanservice.

 

- Getting Peter Jackson to direct a SW movie.
- Getting Christopher Nolan to direct a SW movie.
- Getting J.J. Abrams to... oh, wait.

 

Well, we'll see...

Just some clarification about this thread - please keep it about actual ideas considered by the SW filmmakers, not rumours or random speculation that has occurred over the years.

But while we're on directors - David Lynch directing ROTJ. Was considered, he did meet GL & discussed the possibility, but turned the job down.
Much as I love Lynch, it wouldn't have worked. He's a genuine auteur, and while he wouldn't have thrown tantrums or walked off, his own talent would have been stifled as his sensibilities don't really run alongside GL's. It'd be like getting Kubrick or Scorsese on board. Not much point.

 

I agree. Same thing with Spielberg would be true, I think, for the most part. Argue any which way you want about ESB and ROTJ, but part of the reason they worked is because Kersh and Marquand weren't auteurs. They were journeymen.

 

And a relationship that was never supported one way or the other in ANH. Obi-Wan had expressed more emotion toward Luke's reluctance to become a Jedi than over the Lars' deaths.

It never made sense to me that Padme would choose to raise one twin over the other. I could see her attempting to raise both twins or giving both of them up. But not choosing only one twin to raise.

 

RoTJ - Luke kills Vader, puts on his helmet and starts firing the laser canon at the Rebel Fleet.

 

I've heard different versions of that. One was that Luke kills both Vader & Palpatine, then takes Vader's mask & declares himself Emperor - the other was that Luke pretended to submit to the Dark Side, Palps gives him control of the DS & Luke uses it to destroy the Imperial Fleet (no Vader mask involved).
Will have to check which ones were actually brought up in story conferences, but they're very reminiscent of an early 1990s comic book, one way or another...

 

I've changed the thread title to broaden the topic somewhat - feel free to discuss any ideas that were rejected, discarded or deleted by the filmmakers, not just any you thought were 'bad'.

 

One I saw on the Star Wars site YEARS ago either said or implied that that Luke burned Vader's armor to release his father's spirit which had become trapped in it.

I don't remember if this one is part of the first one or another one. Either way I read somewhere official looking I read that Anakin and Vader were two separate people AFTER the OT. How is this you ask? Vader was actually the spirit of a Dark Sider that possessed Anakin Skywaler after a certain point.

 

The "decoy" plot twist from ESB, where Obi Wan is revealed to be the person who killed Luke's father, has always interested me. It's a much more basic plot twist than the earth-shattering "I am your father", but it still would have been incredibly shocking, and held some interesting implications for the story going forward.

It's interesting to speculate what the story of the saga would be had that been true. Why would the kindly old man we met in ANH kill Luke's dad? Is it because Obi Wan is actually an evil man, or were there deeper issues at play? Perhaps Anakin fell to the dark side along side Vader. Perhaps this would escalate the risk of Luke falling to the dark side as well. Who knows. It would have certainly been interesting.

That being said, nothing beats what we ultimately got, of course.

 

Well, even if Vader said that Obi-Wan killed Luke's father, what he said would be true... from a certain point of view.

In fact, it's easy to imagine an ESB with ends on the note of Obi-Wan as Anakin's killer, followed up with an ROTJ that spills the whole beans and reveals that Obi-Wan did defeat Anakin and left him for dead... only for him to be resurrected as Vader. It would really only work if Ben were still alive for Luke to be able to confront more than just a ghost, and it would definitely make ROTJ even more backstory dependent than it already is, but it isn't an impossible stretch.

 

It could have been a Mercy Kill. Anakin had been seriously injured and the only options were wait for Obi-Wan to return with help when it was doubtful that Obi-Wan might escape or be captured and tortured until he broke/died.

But the other POV works nd then Obi-Wan has to come clean works great too.

 

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How would a moron like fett kill Mace?? The only being in the universe that can take down sidious, killed by a useless guy like Fett?? lol, never.

 

To answer that question, with the help of a lot of clones. But I'm glad Mace didn't "go out like a punk" as Jackson puts it.

Also, an early idea was to have Revenge of the Sith start with a montage of seven different battles on seven different planets (I can't find more info on the exact details). It sounds overwhelming, but if they gave it the same amount of energy that the final opening had, it would have been epic. To me, the only area where the PT falls short is through the lack of focus on other important Jedi. Aside from Yoda, Mace, and Ki-Adi (to some degree), the Jedi of the high Council are never fully expanded upon in the movies, which would have ultimately made their deaths at Order 66 have more of an impact.

 

Two I can think of that are very similar.

ROTS:
Anakin was originally supposed to accompany Mace's strike team against Palpatine, and instead of using his own lightsaber, Palpatine would have taken Anakin's. In some shots, McDiarmid actually is holding Anakin's saber hilt. I don't know, seems kind of strange, Anakin just standing there and watching the fight like that.

ROTJ:
Luke, while hiding under... whatever he was hiding under, was supposed to throw his lightsaber out to Vader, who would then take it and use it. After Vader says "Perhaps she will!" Luke was supposed to use the Force to pull Vader's saber over to him. I actually kind of like this idea, Luke using his father's red, showing his closeness to the dark side, and Vader using the lightsaber of a Jedi, symbolizing his imminent redemption.

 

Originally Anakin was supposed to be around twelve in TMP. This was changed because they thought it would be more poignant that he's leaving his mother behind as a nine year old child.