BTS Damn it, I just responded to the temp Episode Numbers Thread

Hmm...

Well at least we now know what was on the second page. Not much. At least it's made clear that the Saga was being arranged in 'trilogies' at that stage.

I've bumped the Eps VII-IX thread - I'm still standing by what I said in it. We're going to have to go back & re-evaluate a few things, but I can't see much changing, except that new developments are going to cloud perceptions even further when various statements about the new production claim that it's still all part of the grand plan started in 1973.

 

All the more reason to make sure these discussions remain visible. We may also want to put together timelines as we understand them? (Though Secret History kind of fills that role already.)

Also, the bit about Lucas keeping The Good Stuff to himself while dribbling out drips and drabs of random material is really weird to me. From a certain perspective it makes sense - from another it's just very strange. And incredibly frustrating. People like you and I have spent so much time trying to wring the smallest details from what sources we do have, thinking that eventually we might be able to find something. Then it turns out that he's keeping it close to the vest. We may never find out what was written when.

 

With this circus going on, we definitely need some way of keeping these threads visible & alive, but I'm still unsure of exactly what to request from the admins. Keeping any discussions about the 'original' Eps VII-IX separate from speculation about the new films is going to be virtually impossible (admittedly, separating such discussions now has to be considered personal opinion), and conversations regarding early drafts & early sci-fi influences are going to find themselves bumped out of the way quicker than ever.

Stickying the threads would be utterly inappropriate, but tagging Development threads could work. Perhaps a Saga sub-forum?

Sorry to be such a panic merchant, but it's Day One of a New Era of Star Wars - I don't think it's hysterical to expect page one of this forum to be constantly clogged with "Who Wuld U cast as Thrawn?", "THEY SHLD DO KOTOR!!!" and "Lucus sx, Ja Ja was @#$%, leave Star Wasr alone" threads, no matter how fast they're locked.

Suggestions from the mods would be welcome...

 

Darth_Nub I don't think it's hysterical either because that's essentially what it is turning/will turn into. Development, Creative Process, History, Archaeology, any of those tags might work.

 

BTW everyone (@Darth_Nub, TOSCHESTATION, ATMachine, et al), I'm just going to put this here: a simple explanation of (some of) the history of the saga, targeted to viewers who don't know how it has evolved and take the "Tragedy of Darth Vader" thing literally and wonder what the new movies can be about since "the saga is complete." I've already used it once; I have a feeling I'll be using it a lot more, and soon.

When the original films were made, there was no notion of "The Tragedy of Anakin Skywalker." Circa 1979, there were to be three trilogies, each with a different protagonist: Obi-Wan in the prequels, Luke in the middle trilogy, ??? in the sequel trilogy. In the intervening years, Lucas refocused much of the narrative around Anakin and his fall. This would have always been part of the story, but probably wouldn't have been as much of a central point as it has become. Lucas also repeatedly claimed that there had never been a sequel trilogy, it had all been made up by the media. Given this, I too wonder what new "numbered" movies can entail. There were some plans for sequels at the time Empire Strikes Back was being made - quotes from the era make that clear. But how those plans/ideas can possibly still be relevant is an open question.​

 

Quick bump for the hell of it, also been checking out JW Rinzler's blog on SW.com, plus his Twitter page. Nothing too revealing, but he just finished an interview with Mark Hamill today for the ROTJ book. I imagine with the Episode 7 circus going on, his ROTJ book will be about it when it comes to any new action for some old-school SW development discussions, and it'd be nice to think that something might be revealed about the original ST.

Incidentally, I think our problem's been solved regarding such discussions with the creation of the Episode VII forum. Big thanks to the admins & mods for getting it started so quickly - very glad that the madness going on over there isn't happening here. Just how many "Who should direct Episode 7?" threads can there possibly be?

Probably about the same as the number of "Will Luke be in Episode 7?" threads, I imagine...

 

I was looking through some old Star Wars Galaxy cards recently and found some online that depict imagined prequel-related things. I like finding out how people pictured those things before they were actually shown them, so I'll just put them here.



Anakin with a sort-of moustache (maybe), which would have been an interesting (and perhaps old-timey-feeling) choice.



The artist of this one mentioned Lucas's plans for a scene with wookiees dancing around a fire; he (she? I can't recall) must have seen the interview where Lucas said that. Was that the one Zombie uncovered?

Also, this picture is pretty close to a shot that's actually in ROTS. It's possible the filmmakers took directly from this image, the same way they did from another card in the same set, of a character riding a lizard (which became Anakin, then Ben, on Boga).

 

Anakin with a mustache would definitely have added to a World-War-I-era style feeling for the prequels. Young men across Europe sported mustaches during the Edwardian period and even into the war--it was really the problems of trench warfare (having to seal gas masks properly to your face, and dealing with ever-present lice in the soggy, cold mud of Flanders) that killed that fashion trend. (Not to mention that by 1916, when the British Army abolished its long-standing regulation requiring all of its soldiers to grow mustaches, the latest conscripts were so young they couldn't actually grow one.)

Of course, the artist here might equally be trying to depict Anakin with a goatee... but I do very much like the concept of WWI-era fashions for the prequels.

 

(Actually, I've Googled this particular card for a better look and it doesn't look like Vader has a goatee.... I guess the artist really DID mean to depict Anakin with a mustache. Huh.)

 

Let's not forget this one from Galaxy Series 2 (larger scan from the Topps book, the stuff on the right-hand edge is an overlapping picture of Darth Vader):



Easily my favourite piece of non-canon SW art. I've mentioned this before - at a SW convention I was at around 1996/97, the artist, Hugh Fleming, said that he originally intended to paint The Duel between Obi-Wan & Anakin, but couldn't find a good picture of a young Sebastian Shaw to go off. He went with this instead, envisioning it as a painting that might be hung in the halls of the Jedi Temple.

The card it was released on was also the source of the rumours that Kenneth Branagh would be playing Obi-Wan - there was a quote from Fleming on the back, where he simply said that he believed Branagh would be perfect for the part.

There's also this one from Series 4, once rejected, portraying Jabba as he described himself in the comic book, killing the likes of Luke Skywalker "when being a Jedi meant something":



And, of course, the notorious Yoda painting that made its way into the world via a promo card for Series 2, before it was recalled: