BTS Did Alec Guinness know about Luke being Vader's offspring in 1976?

Hello everyone.

There's a question that's in my mind since i was a kid...

During the ANH scene in Obi Wan Kenobi's home on Tatooine, when Luke asks Ben about how his father died… I've always found the facial expression of Alec Guinnes exceptional… because he gives a quick look at Luke on his right and you got the bizarre impression that his answer kinda hides something. You can really feel he's not telling Luke the whole story…

He's basically telling the kid that some bad guy killed his father: well, normally anyone would do it with some compassion and sweetness, but he's clearly not doing that and you can notice that, right when he's speaking, he's searching in his memory the words he probably have prepared for a long time to fake up the truth….

Don't you agree? How is that possible? Did Lucas by any chance secretly told Sir Guinnes that Luke was Darth Vader's son since the shooting of Episode IV?

Or it was just a 100% fortuitous acting by Guinness?

What do you think?

[I've had the opportunity to ask the same question to someone who has worked for George Lucas and has written books on SW... and his answer has been: "I think the viewer is free to make up his or her own mind."]

 

No.

When Star Wars first hit the theater, it was a self contained movie and the characters of Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader were 2 separate characters all together.

 

No, and neither did George Lucas.

 

Ok... but don't you find that Guinness acting was perfect in retrospective?

 

In answer to the original question - no. There's plenty of evidence from the time which shows that GL considered Vader and 'Annikin' to be separate characters, and clearly regards Luke's father as literally dead - some of which was never for public consumption. Exactly when he came up with the 'Father Vader' concept isn't 100% clear (sometime between mid 1977 and April 1978), but it was definitely following the release of SW/ANH.

It was a lucky coincidence that Guinness' performance in the scene happened to lend itself to him perhaps hiding something - in a similar way to Owen's line "That's what I'm afraid of" - but the hesitation Obi-Wan shows is simply his steadying himself to reveal a painful and difficult truth to Luke, something he's not completely over, either.
(And Owen was simply afraid Luke was going to run off and get himself killed, just like his father did)
But yes, it was perfect in retrospective.

 

Thanks. I see what you're saying.

I've read also extracts from the various draft prior to the final releases and there was no mention about it.
So i just thought that maybe the idea was just already in the mind of Lucas who shared the concept to Sir Guinnes as a secret.

This little 'coincidence' is another gem embellishing the original SW.

 

The man was a legendary actor. I mean, he was nominated for an Academy Award for his role of Obi-wan.

 

I think this is a testament to the acting abilities of Alec Guinness. As Darth_Nub mentioned, the way Owen delivers his lines, in retrospect, can also imply that he knew the truth about Vader. But in 1977, it could have equally meant what it was intended to... that Owen didn't want Luke to go get himself caught up in the excitement and get killed. That's great acting on the part of Phil Brown. Like with Obi-Wan, the audience knows there's history there and that we're not getting the full story. And it lends credibility in the subsequent films when we learn Vader is Luke's father.

 

Source?

From all the interviews and documentaries I've seen, GL had a lot of this mapped out. I'll grant you that a lot of was flipped around and isn't what we see in the movies today, but it was there in some form.

To say that Anakin was just some guy that was killed by Vader makes it questionable why Luke would be the focus of the story. Or why Leia would be important, or why Obi-Wan just happened to be on Tatooine. There is too much to suggest otherwise for me to believe that GL didn't know that he was going to connect all this.

But an interesting question, how much from IV had to reconciled by V due to the popularity of the franchise.

 

Some Sources, in no particular order:
The ANH novelization which said that Obi-Wan didn't lie to Luke when he talked about Luke's father.
The first draft of ESB, which had the ghost of Luke's father make an appearance on Dagobah.
Several quoted Lucas made around the time when the first movie were made, like about the battle of Condawn where Luke's father was killed.

Also, earlier drafts had the first film have the subtitle, "Saga one." And the initial draft of ESB has chapter II as subtitle.
No doubt Lucas had ideas for more films but those initial ideas were very much in flux and changed a lot over time. At one point, the first film was episode six.

As for Luke and why Obi-Wan was on Tatooine. Luke's father was a good friend to Obi-Wan so it fits that Obi-Wan looks over his son. And since Luke' father wanted Luke to have his lightsabre but was unable to give it to him while he was alive, then Obi-Wan feels an obligation to honor that wish.

It is a fairly common staple in fantasy/mythic stories that the hero has a famous father/ancestor and the hero sets out to honor their name and see if they can live up to the name of their father/ancestor.
And having Vader be the guy that murdered Luke's father sets up a goal for Luke, to settle things with Vader. Add to that, Vader killed Luke's new father figure, Obi-Wan. Vader is the one bad guy that is still alive at the end of the film and now Luke is set on his path, learn to become a Jedi but he also has to deal with Vader.

As for Sir Alec's acting, it is indeed very good and rightly recognized by the Academy.
But his hesitation can easily be explained by what we learn in the film. Luke's father was a good friend and he was murdered. And not just by some guy, by a pupil of Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan could very well blame himself. Had he not trained Vader or kept a closer eye on said Vader, then Luke's father might not have died. Obi-Wan is also aware that Luke has not been told the truth about his father, he didn't know he was a Jedi, Owen lied about that. So he has to tell Luke exactly how his father died, that he was murdered by one of Obi-Wans pupils. Obi-Wan doesn't know how Luke will take this, will he blame Obi-Wan, will he want revenge on Vader? All plenty of reason to weigh one's words carefully and also be pained about the subject.

Bye for now.
Blackboard Monitor

 

spacename_the_name Find as many sources as you want of George saying it was all planned from the beginning, none of them are true, except the one where he congratulated JJ Abrams for "Lost" and talked about how he came up with SW since the beginning and evolved the idea beyond his original scope

 

The novelizations are dubious when it comes to sources.

 

This novelization has Lucas name on it. I know it was ghostwritten by Alan Dean Foster and he had access to the shooting drafts as well as other scripts and treatments. But at the very least Lucas would have read through it before it was published.

Alan D. Foster was also hired to write a script for a low budget sequel to the first film if it didn't do that well. That eventually became "Splinter of the Mind's Eye" on of the first EU in Star Wars.
There Luke and Vader fight but no paternity revelation is made.

Since the novelization fits with other scripts, the first ESB draft and what Lucas himself said, I see no reason to question it on this issue.

Bye for now.
Blackboard Monitor

 

A lot of stuff was perfect in retrospective. That look Ben has on his face. The fears Uncle Owen has about Luke turning out like his father. Even the fact that Darth Vader is clearly an exceptional pilot, just like Luke's father is said to be.

All these coincidences are what make Lucas's claims to having the twist planned out so plausible, even though most of the evidence is against it.

 

It's quite possible that these performances even inspired GL to take the storyline to a deeper level, once he was viewing them in post-production - or, at the very least, made him realise that he could proceed with this sci-fi story in a more serious fashion, rather than as a mere New Hollwood reinterpretation/deconstruction of 1930s Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers serials.

It's most likely that the eventual merge of the characters of Darth Vader with Luke's father began with the construction of a more elaborate backstory for Darth Vader - which came about in audio post-production of SW/ANH, with the breathing effect. No longer just a fearsome Imperial/Sith warrior, he became a "walking iron lung" due to his battle with Obi-Wan Kenobi on the lip of a volcano. The revelation that he was the man who murdered Luke Skywalker's father was brought forward to the episode at hand (rather than the next one to be told on book form) when it looked like this film wasn't going to go anywhere.
Combine that with an old concept from the first draft of a Sith Knight who turns good and you've suddenly got a major idea banging on the door of GL's mind like angry debt collectors.

However, this perfect storm only occurred well after everything for the first film was shot in 1976. Some of the ingredients had been around for a long time (Prince Valorum's redemption, the 'rogue' Kane Starkiller being a cyborg), but it wasn't until after the first film was completed that any twisting of the plot to such a ridiculous degree even occurred to GL.

My own theory is that he regarded Luke's father as a bit of a third wheel when he was dreaming up the volcano battle between Darth Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi (by all accounts, Vader killed Annikin, then fights Obi-Wan), and so he resolved this issue prompted by the very early idea inspired by Kurosawa's Hidden Fortress of a noble warrior (General Tadokoro in HF, aka Prince Valorum in the Rough Draft of SW) who was simply fighting for the wrong side and could turn good.
However, the volcano duel wasn't something that was there from the very start, it was an idea originally inspired by the mechanical breathing that Ben Burtt gave to Vader in post-production of SW/ANH - Burtt devised the effect simply for atmosphere, GL then came up with why Vader breathes like that. And thus was born 'The Tragedy of Darth Vader', as GL likes to call it.

 

Lucas has often talked of a "light father/dark father" dichotomy operating within the story of Star Wars, roles which Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader, respectively, came to occupy for Luke after Episode V. Is it possible Lucas had always intended the Darth Vader character to act as a sort of "Dark Father" figure who tempts Luke with false promises of power, even if he wasn't yet literally his biological father in the story? It would explain yet another curious coincidence--the fact that the name "Darth Vader" sounds so close to "Dark Father."

It would even make sense metaphorically. By killing Luke's father, Vader would have symbolically taken over that role, as an evil version.* So Lucas would have simply changed the literal murder into a metaphorical one, while conversely changing his metaphorical fatherhood into literal fatherhood. Maybe Obi-Wan's half-baked rationalization in Episode VI was actually a summary of the creative evolution that took place in Lucas's mind.

*Compare: Vader kills Luke's "father" Obi-Wan at the end of Episode IV, and in the next movie he becomes a dark version of Obi-Wan, offering to rescue Luke from death, become his teacher, and team up with him to save the galaxy. And a similar concept seems to re-emerge in the prequels: Dooku serves as a Dark Father to Anakin in Episode II, in that he's in many ways an evil reflection of Obi-Wan, and springs up late in the story almost as if he was bodily incarnated as a culmination of Anakin's building resentments toward Obi-Wan over the course of the film. Anakin's duel with Dooku in Episode II is of course a mirror of Luke's duel with Vader in Episode V. Dooku comes to embody the Dark Father role required for this mirroring by defeating Anakin's Light Father in combat (though coming short of killing him). Anakin and Obi-Wan can't yet come to blows at this point in the story, even though structurally it is all but required--therefore, Dooku is used as a stand-in.

 

This topic is mired with old interviews and "he said ____ said".

HOWEVER it is worthy to note that Darth Vader's character did a lot of evolving. At one point 'Darth Vader' was assigned to a priest or another like religious figure where the name would make sense "Dark Father" since I am pretty sure that he was evil or the religion was. I read/saw another point there was an Imperial general that was a cyborg called simply 'General Skywalker'. And we can't forget that originally Vader didn't wear the iconic suit all the time since the suit was originally meant to help him travel through the vacuum of space to board the enemy ship.

There were rumors that George always intended for a family connection between the two Force Users. From what I heard George didn't like the first script AT ALL for ESB to the point that only what he had given the original writer to work with survived.

And supposedly David Prowse said in 1977 that Vader was Luke's father in an interview not long after ANH came out. The interview might have been in 1978 but someone said something and supposedly he was infamous for spilling beans.

 

Lucas wasn't satisfied with Brackett's draft due to it containing little action sequences and some ideas just didn't work out. She passed away after finishing her draft and he kept her name out of respect for her work. As to the origins of Vader and Anakin, going by official documents, the story was quite clear. Vader is a combination of different characters and ideas developed over a five year period. In 1974, Darth Vader was an Imperial officer and nothing more. There was a Jedi turned Sith named Valorum who becomes a Jedi at the end of the first draft. The main Jedi character is Annikin Starkiller and his father was Kane Starkiller, a Jedi who is more machine than man now. But he was not evil. He had a lot of cybernetic parts replacing his organic parts. You can read this draft online and a comic adaptation by Dark Horse Comics.

In 75, Vader became a Sith but he was still human. Luke's father has no first name, but he's much like Obi-wan is later on. The cyborg is a character named Montross who is a friend of Han's. Later in the third draft, Luke's father was a friend of Obi-wan's who was the same age as him and Vader was the younger apprentice to Obi-wan who went rogue. The closest to an actual idea of Vader being related to Luke comes in the scene where Vader senses the Force in Luke as he's about to destroy the Death Star and notes that he feels as if he should know the pilot. But it is a phrase that could mean a lot of different things. This third draft became the fourth draft and the film that we now know.

In interviews from 77 and 78, Lucas says that Vader fought Obi-wan and Anakin atop a volcano and Anakin died, while Vader was injured. In 77, Lucas turned over his ideas for a low budget sequel to Alan Dean Foster who wrote "Splinter Of The Mind's Eye", the first EU novel. Vader confronts Luke and there is no hint or preview that they are related. In 78, Lucas starts considering the idea of making them related. But he doesn't make this public. Only Kasdan, Kershner and Kurtz knew this in 78. Outside of that, his wife knew it. In 79, Hamill was added to the list when he was pulled aside before filming the scene and told the truth. Jones didn't find out until the start of 80.

In later years, Lucas would talk about it, but he did lie. Mostly because he didn't want to go through the whole process of explaining how it worked. And partially because he didn't want to appear as if he was pulling this out of his ass.

 

No, I really dont think he knew. George was still having all different ideas in his head and I dont think having Vader as Luke's father was one of them at the time. I also agree when Luke's father is mentioned he does have a strange face he pulls like he is hiding something. Now with the PT you can just attribute that he knows, but at the time it was just Alec's acting. If that makes sense lol

 

Excellent post. I remember the good father / dark father comments from the interviews GL had with Leonard Maltin on the 1995 video release of the OT, and while he was spinning it slightly on the literal level, he wasn't yet saying that "it was like that all along" as he would a few years later, and I do believe that this dichotomy existed in a very vague form as early as the Rough/First Draft of SW, exemplified by both the 'two fathers' the hero (Annikin Starkiller) had in that draft, along with the Sith Knight Prince Valorum who defects from the Empire to join the good guys.
In the Rough Draft, Annikin's biological father was Kane Starkiller, a rebellious Jedi who was also a cyborg aware that he was dying. He places his son in the care of his old friend and fellow Jedi, the noble General Luke Skywalker (basically the equivalent of Obi-Wan Kenobi). Kane Starkiller isn't exactly a 'dark father', but with his rebellious nature, he's a contrast to General Skywalker (it foreshadows the relationships between Luke Skywaker and Han Solo in the OT, then Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi in the PT). Kane eventually sacrifices himself for the greater good.
At the same time, there's a Sith Knight in this draft by the name of Prince Valorum who serves the Empire, but redeems himself for personal honour (this was a direct adaptation of the character General Tadokoro in Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress).

These themes of contrast and redemption are somewhat absent from the further drafts of SW (apart from Luke vs Han), but would eventually intersect very dramatically with another pattern evident through the various drafts, which concerns the 'father figure'. The father of the hero fades into the background further and further with each draft, yet GL seemed somewhat compelled (however unconsciously) to fill this void repeatedly with various devices and new characters:

*Rough / First Draft - Annikin Starkiller's father, Kane, is dying. Kane entrusts his son's future with his friend and ally, General Luke Skywalker. Kane Starkiller dies.

*Second Draft - Luke Starkiller's father is a legendary Jedi known only as 'The Starkiller'. Luke's quest throughout the entire story is to find his father, which he does at the end, and they are reunited.

*Third Draft - Luke Starkiller's father is dead, although he remembers him from his childhood. In the mission to fight the Empire, an old friend of Luke's father, the addled Jedi Knight in exile Ben Kenobi (who has a cyborg arm) takes Luke under his wing and becomes his mentor.

*Fourth Draft - similar to the Third Draft, except that Luke has no memory of his father. Ben Kenobi no longer has a cyborg arm, and is somewhat less of a crazy old desert hermit.

*Revised Fourth Draft / shooting script - much the same as the Fourth Draft, but during the shooting of the film, it is decided that Ben/Obi-Wan Kenobi will die on the Death Star. It is also revealed for the first time that Luke's father was betrayed and murdered by a former pupil of Obi-Wan Kenobi's, Darth Vader.

Fine. The story works perfectly, Star Wars becomes a massive success, and it's time to continue in the form of sequels. However, what seems to have concerned GL is the absence of Luke's 'father figure' or mentor, having killed off Obi-Wan at the last minute, who was originally to have continued Luke's training as a Jedi. The role of teacher was filled by a newly devised character, known as The Critter/Buffy/Minch/Yoda, but in keeping with pushing the narrative to a new level, this was a strange, alien being which, while acting as a mentor, did not serve as a relatable father figure in the same way that Obi-Wan Kenobi did.

In the first draft of ESB (the 'Brackett Draft'), a very clumsy attempt at filling this void was made with both Luke's father (only named as 'Skywalker') and Obi-Wan appearing as ghosts on Dagobah to give Luke advice and knight him as a Jedi. With the Yoda character also present, it's as awkward, silly and unnecessary as it sounds - and that's not even counting the lightsaber duel between Yoda and Obi-Wan's ghost.

/1960's Batman series voice - Meanwhile, the character of Darth Vader has become more and more important. The revelation that he was the man who murdered Luke's father - originally slated for a later episode - was moved forward to the first film, and despite his role as a 'henchman' in SW, it's quite clear from inner musings in the novel and his gigantic presence on posters that he's the real villain of the story, not the uniformed Imperial goons. In this new episode, he will attempt to seduce this new Jedi recruit to the side of evil. In the Brackett draft, he does so in a bizarre, hallucinogenic scene where he duels with Luke, then shows him the universe and all he could have - and it would have worked beautifully if this was a Pink Floyd rock opera film. For the sequel to Star Wars, though?

There were problems with this new story. Fortunately, there was also a solution, which GL may have been toying with as he developed a more elaborate backstory for Obi-Wan, Vader, and Luke's father, one which involved treachery, tragedy, a lightsaber duel on the lip of a volcano - and perhaps one character too many. Thus...



'Father Vader' wasn't just a great new plot twist, it resolved a number of problems. Now:

- Luke's father was back in a mortal and very dangerous form, serious competition as a father figure to a cantankerous gnome and a ghost;
- there was a very convincing reason for Luke to turn to the Dark Side;
- with the next episode in mind, the theme of redemption (absent since the First Draft) could return to the storyline;
- the pantomime villain of Darth Vader took on a new layer of complexity;
- the backstory became even more tragic, and eliminated a somewhat redundant character.

With each new draft and rewrite, GL almost forced this new twist upon the story by creating dead ends and sacrificing important themes along the way in service of the immediate narrative.
In a way, Darth Vader always was Luke's father - George Lucas simply didn't know it yet when he began writing 'The Star Wars' in 1972. All it took was an abandoned, incoherent outline, a new treatment based on a Kurosawa film, four drafts, a revised draft, a film shoot, rewrites, a finished film, then a treatment of the next film and a finished draft by someone else to figure it out.

 

Darth Vader also can sound like Dark Invader, and Lucas went to School with a Gary Vader and as other have said, the first appearance of Darth Vader was an Imperial officer and a fairly minor part.
It is possible that Lucas made up the name with no "Father" ideas but then when working on Empire and thinking about where to take the story and characters, that Vader's name might have given him ideas.

[/QUOTE]

I don't really see much of this in Dooku, mostly because while the character had potential, I felt he was underused and under developed. Anakin and Dooku haven't got much if any history between them. Dooku has a connection to Obi-Wan through Qui-Gon but little is made of that. Why Dooku turned isn't explained in much detail. To Anakin, Dooku is just an enemy, nothing more and he is angry at him for the Jedi he killed and then because he lost his arm to Dooku.
Luke has a much more personal connection to Vader because he murdered his father and his new father figure. Then Vader is revealed as Luke's actual father.
Palptine would instead be the Dark Father to Anakin because he plays that role over the films, except Anakin doesn't know it until RotS. Palpatine is a Dark mirror to Obi-Wan, Palpatine flatters Anakin and strokes his ego, unlike Obi-Wan who is demanding and tells Anakin what he needs to hear instead of what he wants to hear. In a way, Palpatine is the kind of parent that spoils their children and never puts down rules.

Bye for now.
Old Stoneface

 

You're right !

Didn't remember this (..."Kenobi was unable to take refuge in a comfortable lie").

 

If there was indeed no knowledge (among Lucas or the cast) at the time of ANH that Anakin Skywalker was to be anything other than a Jedi hero, Obi-Wan's reaction to Luke's question about his father's death and Uncle Owen's "That's what I'm afraid of" comment turned out curiously well. It certainly looks like OWK is a bit caught off guard by the question and improvising an answer that's not quite the truth. And when Owen makes his comment he doesn't say it like someone who is merely afraid Luke has inherited his father's adventurous spirit and is worried about him getting hurt. He seems concerned in a much deeper way, which makes perfect sense if he's aware of Anakin's true fate.

 

Some things that I think are overlooked here.
Prior to Owen saying his line, Beru says with a slight smile "Luke is just not a farmer Owen. He has too much of his father in him." If she knew that Luke's father is now the second most evil man in the galaxy, why would she smile when she said that?

Also, this line implies to me that Beru knew Anakin quite well and could recognize his traits in Luke.
Which would require more than the 15 minutes Anakin spent with them in AotC.

Also, how would Owen know that Anakin is now Vader? Only if Obi-Wan told him. And why would he do a stupid thing like that? It was vital that Luke be kept in the dark about his father's true fate. So why would he tell them and risk them mentioning it to Luke?

Owen and Beru do care about Luke and they don't want him getting killed. Of the two, Beru seem to be more understanding of Luke. She realizes that most of his friends are gone and he isn't happy here. Owen is more gruff and a bit more focused on the practical use of Luke. But he isn't uncaring and he says that he will make it up to him next year.

About Obi-Wan, when Luke is with him, Obi-Wan mentions that Luke's father was once a Jedi Knight and Luke says "I wished that I'd know him." And Obi-Wan says his bits about best star pilot and all that. Then he also smiles to himself and quietly says "And he was a good friend." That smile doesn't really fit with Anakin now being Vader and the second most evil man in the Galaxy.

And to me, in ANH Obi-Wan speaks more warmly about Luke's father than he does in RotJ.
So if we are to judge the acting here then ANH suggest an Anakin that Obi-Wan remembers fondly while RotJ is much less so and Obi-Wan is quite dismissive about Anakin/Vader. That he more machine than man, twisted and evil etc.

Bye for now.
Mr "Insert-Name-Here"

 

Thanks everyone... brilliant answers and thoughts!