Full Series Darth Maul Lives!? (spoilers allowed)

Tell that to those kids on Raydonia.

 

"What I say is true from a certain point of view." - Obi-Wan Kenobi

 

Regarding the theory that Vader was not originally intended to be Luke's father when ANH was created... Obi-Wan's look and hesitation before answering Luke at 1:35 to 1:37 in THIS CLIP has always made me doubt that theory. If it's a true retcon, someone please explain Guinness' great acting there.

 

I would say that the Darth Maul that Savage finds on Lotho Minor is a destroyed version of the Darth Maul we see in Ep. I. And depending on how strictly one chooses to define who is and isn't a Sith, Darth Maul isn't necessarily a Sith still.

None of the actors or actresses knew Darth Vader was Luke's father until the end of Ep. V being made, it was kept a secret from as many people for as long as possible once GL decided on it (which was in a late draft of the film). There's a whole story to the lengths they went to to keep it under wraps. It's already known that Alec didn't know during the filming of Ep. IV.

 

I have to say to me personally these last two episodes don't effect how I view TPM or any part of the saga at all. That's not because I don't care. I just don't see the big fight at the end any differently. It still ends with Maul vanquished, Obi-wan the hero, and Qui-gon's tragic death paving the way for the rest of the Saga. Maul not actually killed in the battle and crawling out of the junk pile only adds to the journey that is The Clone Wars. It'll make no difference to the saga for me.

 

That's the thing, his acting laid the groundwork for GL to fill in nearly effortlessly. He didn't know the backstory, but hinted at it.

 

Just watched the Season 4 finale and I have to say, though the concept as a whole is completely ridiculous, they got Maul down pretty well, both in likeness and in personality. Witwer even did a good enough impression of Serafinowicz. Do I like that Maul and Obi-Wan are having conversations as if they're life-long rivals when they've only met once before? No. Do I like that Maul is back in the first place? No. But for what it is, they did it well, and it's nice to view it more as a "what if" than as actual canon, that makes it easier to accept.

If anything, they need to give Maul a double bladed saber again, that's for sure. He also didn't ask enough questions. I love how they hinted at him knowing Sidious' whole plan, but he didn't ask who the Chancellor was, or more specifics on the War, etc.

Strangely enough, I'm looking forward to seeing how they deal with this Maul turn of events in Season 5.

 

Yes, Alec most likely didn't know about Vader being Luke's father. But who's to say GL didn't direct him to insert a little doubtful pause there in the middle of his line? Make it seem like there might be more to this story.

 

I agree completely.

Even if he did, that pause could have meant anything to be explained in the next installment. It's just a pause. Obi-Wan's history with Darth Vader/Luke's father could have been developed differently and you could still point to the pause as significant.

 

Yes...




...so? That means it's a retcon?

 

David Prowse didn't know either when they were filming the scene.

I have heard Lucas say that he had a few ideas of how to end ESB and he decided to go with what he claims was his original plan of Vader being Luke's father over the other options. Considering that Mace Windy(iirc) was the main character in his initial draft of Star Wars I think its safe to assume that the story morphed a great deal before it went to film.

Neither Lucas writing the OT by the seat of his pants or the Darth Maul return are retcons where G-Canon is concerned.

Whatever Lucas intended, in the story Obi-Wan simply lied to Luke. Case closed, not a retcon.

Whatever Lucas intended in 1991, Maul never died. Case closed, not a retcon(at least in G-Canon.)

To me the first was, albeight maybe accident, an interesting story telling twist that helps highlight some of the flaws of the Jedi. It ended up working well imo.

 

I didn't say that. It's a retcon because it wasn't part of GL's continuity until he started working on the script for ESB. It's a retcon because there was a Star Wars community and fan base from 1977 to 1980 whose Star Wars continuity had Darth Vader and Luke's father as separate characters.

 

That's not a retcon. All that wasn't established as in seen before.

 

The continuity established by Star Wars in 1977 held that Darth Vader killed Luke's father. Luke's father was dead. Empire Strikes Back retroactively altered this continuity to make Darth Vader Luke's father. Luke's father became alive, or was brought back from the dead as folks have been saying of Darth Maul.

 

Thats not what a retcon is. Obi-Wan in providing his lie is giving us an unreliable character POV. Nothing about his statement equals fact, thus when the truth actually comes out no retcon is required. Even if it was a running change by George Lucas it still isn't a retcon. Its about how it was presented.

A retcon needs to be a change to a diffinitive fact thats been confirmed by what we the viewers would see on the screen, something that does not involve an unreliable narrator. Any character could considered an unreliable narrator.

Based on just the films(G-Canon itself) what comes to mind is the Han shoots first situation. Thats a retcon because it changes that scene into something that we didn't physically see the first time around. It doesn't rely on a second hand account of the situation. We all saw the situation, we all knew that Han fired the only shot - then George retconned that to make it different.

As a further example I'll toss in Mace, Yoda and Obi-Wan. They all assumed Maul was killed when he actually wasn't. They were wrong thus their characeter POV's were unreliable. We as viewers may have believed that Maul was dead(I wonder why? ) but in bringing him back it just proves that we were all wrong. Thus its not a retcon, just an explainable change to the overall story.

 

You are correct, Tarkas, Lucas changed Vader's character to be Luke's father by the time of writing Empire. The Making of Star Wars book released in '07 proves that he had a different idea about Vader when he wrote that movie. From page 111 as part of George's development of a "Man-machine" character:

The Empire book talks about George developing the twist as part of the script and keeping it a secret to most everyone. These are really great books, if you haven't read all the way through, check them out! One of George's outlines for the series as he began writing Empire (page 6 of Making of Empire) has an eight episode series, with Ep 1 being the prelude, Ep 2-4 being the "Clone War Trilogy", Ep 5 being an Epilogue, and Ep 6-8 being the Classic Trilogy as we know it! Sorry for the tangent but i thought this was interesting... and that "Clone War Trilogy" has now become (soon to be) 5 seasons of Clone Wars on TV!

 

You only know the statement to be unreliable because of the retcon. Before the retcon it wasn't a lie. Like it or not, character dialogue is used to establish facts. Even though a film's backstory is often not visually shown, it is usually intended to be accepted by the audience regardless.

That's what the word means.

That's more than a retcon, it's an alteration of the original work. The definition of retcon is not limited to that.

 

It is intended to be accepted, unless the character POV is proven to have been false. I'll give you that its murky. To me the entire point of a retcon is to fix continuity issues that can't be altered sensibly within the narrative of the work.

Tarkus's use of the term falls within these definitions so I'll begrudgingly accept that he has used the term correctly. To me the definition is just too broad at this point. It bascially has two seperate meanings according the the ever reliable internetz:

For instance under this broad definition it could be argued that huge sections The Empire Strikes back itself is one big retcon just because it fills in some of the backstory from ANH that we the viewers didn't know, even though there are no gaps in the internal logic of the work. For instance the introduction of Yoda, while it contradicts nothing, is a retcon by that #1 definiton.

I didn't say it was limited to that. None the less I think its a solid example.

 

I'm not so sure Vader as Lukes father was as much as an afterthought as made out to be. I've been involved in enough feature film productions to not always believe behind the scenes events as played out in articles, making ofs and statements by producers.

Prowse seemed too know about the twist well in advance of filming Empire as is evident by this magazine clipping from 78 which completely discredits the official story of no one knowing until a few moments before when Hamill was told.

http://www.retroist.com/2010/11/08/1978-style-star-wars-spoilers/

 

See thats interesting. I've actually talked to David Prowse in person about this and he specifically told me that he didn't know that reveal was happening when they filmed the scene in ESB.

Perhaps he just knew that it was a possibility but didn't know that was the final route Lucas decided to take.

Thanks for sharing that. Assuming that the article is authentic it kinda illustrates that no matter what we get told the truth has a lot of muddle to it. We might never know the real story.

 

I wonder if it was when he took the part, I'm guessing Lucas wasn't so guarded before ANH hit the big time so quite likely chatted through where the character was going with Prowse . Both of them over time likely just forgot

Just reading through some of the comments on that page and heres another from 78 http://i.imgur.com/PLjU9.jpg

 

Guys, this is from THE making of book that Rinzler wrote a couple years back with cooperation from Lucasfilm. This is the real deal! Go read it, its awesome!

As far as Prowse goes, yes, he wasn't told that Vader was Luke's father because he kept leaking the story to the press while they were filming. The line he read on set was "Obi-Wan killed your father!" instead of "I am your Father." They kept track of who leaked what, and saw Harrison Ford leaked a couple of things... well Prowse leaked info to the press a total of nine times. So, yeah, they didn't trust him. They had to tell Mark the real line while they were filming so he could act accordingly when they shot the scene.

 

Yeah, this has nothing to do with Maul.

http://boards.theforce.net/live_action_clone_wars_classics/b10467/31733190/p1/?504

 

I still don't see anything saying he had no idea whatsoever that Vader might be Luke's father by the time Ep4 was released. Sure, it wasn't part of the early drafts, and couldn't be a part of the Ep4 script, so he only got to develop the twist by the time he was writing Ep5. That's not the same thing as saying he retconned the story after Ep4 was released.

 

I don't have it committed to memory, or own a copy, but inclusion in the book isn't equal to 100% fact. Lucas is a known revisionist. What he said in the late 70's, as opposed to what he offered for the Making of Book, could very easily be two different things.

I'm leaning towards how Gry feels about the situation. Not only Obi-Wan's behavior surrounding Luke's father, but the behavior of Owen as well. As if Luke's father is some big secret that Luke shouldn't know about. Like the line where Owen says he's worried that Luke has too much of his father in him, it read easily both ways.