"No, there is another" ...

I am a firm opponent of the idea that Yoda was referring to Anakin as the "other". It's evident that Yoda and Kenobi had both given up on Anakin's potential for returning to the good side. ("Luke, I don't want to lose you to the Emperor the way I lost Vader.")

 

DBrennan, I think we'll just have to agree to disagree. None of the events you cite is compelling evidence for a sibling element in ESB, IMO.

1) Leia is Luke's only possibility for aid, and there is no on-screen rule that dictates Jedi must speak telepathically only to Force-users and/or relatives.
2) Yoda's "melodramatic aplomb" does not indicate anything beyond a momentous foreshadowing of some kind. Given that, according to Lucas, it's a ploy to keep the audience guessing about Luke's fate, it makes sense that this must be made to seem momentous -- when at the time of its writing, the authors had no idea where the line would eventually take them.
A. The line is designed to put that wish in the audience's mind, not to actually suggest that Luke might turn the ship around and forego his rescue attempt. It's designed to create doubt and introduce the idea that the hero might die/fail/be captured.
3) The Vader-as-father subplot had been devised, of course, but it does not logically follow that the Leia-as-sister subplot had also been written. If anything, it speaks against it, revealing a series of steps or revelations in the minds of the authors. (1978: "I know! Vader is Luke's dad!" 1981: "I know! Leia is Luke's sister!")

 

All of this is subjective, so I guess that we will have to agree to disagree, but I'll take a few parting shots.

First off, the notion that the audience was going to seriously believe that Luke Skywalker was going to die before this PG-rated trilogy - of which he was the hero - concluded is naive at best and totally idiotic at worst. Since neither Lucas nor Kershner are naive or idiotic, I just can't buy that explanation. It's just a flagrantly silly claim by Lucas, similar to when he says that the entire saga is really R2-D2's story. (I think he says these things only half seriously, with playful retrospect.)

And while you're correct in saying that there was no specific laws about the Force-users only speaking telepathically to other Force-users....every previous instance of telepathy had occurred directly between Force-users: (1) Obi-Wan talking to Luke on the Death Star and in its trenches and (2) Vader talking to Luke at the end of ESB. So you're right: it's not a law, but it's definitely a trend. (Also, note that when Luke called to Leia, he didn't know that Han had been kidnapped at this point, so he could've called to him or to both Han and Leia.)

Hey, I think that the brother/sister element is pretty lame, but I would bet heavy money that Kershner, if directly asked, would confirm that the intention of these parts of ESB was to hint that they're siblings, which would be a big reveal in ROTJ.

 

You assert that audiences were/are too smart to buy that Luke is going to fail, but guess what? He did! If Leia had not escaped on her own initiative (or rather, via Lando's change of heart), Luke would have failed to rescue her and himself as well. Introducing the possibility of "another" increases dramatic tension any way you slice it. Luke might fail (not necessarily die, but he and everyone else might remain captured and at Vader's mercy), opening up the chance for this "other" to come in and rescue him. This is not nearly so naive or misguided a plot element as you depict it.

As to the telepathic link, it might be argued that the Jedi mind trick is a form of telepathy ("mind trick" indicating that a mental connection is occurring), in which case the recipient of the telepathic communication need not be telepathic/Force-sensitive him or herself.

 

Look, now you're just contradicting yourself and stretching desperately. Earlier you suggested that Yoda's line "There is another" was simply injected in there as a red herring to dupe us into thinking that Luke "might not make it". Now you've downgraded that to saying they were just trying to show that he was going to be in danger. Either way, it's an absurd claim. First off, we already knew that Vader and the Emperor had set a trap for him and that Yoda and Obi-Wan didn't want him to go. This was firmly and entirely established, so the red herring would be totally redundant.

But even if we suppose that the primary purpose of the line was, as you say, to concoct tension, well it would still had to have a plot point. They can't just arbitrarily have melodramatic shots with revelatory lines and say, "Just kidding! That was just to trick you!" The purpose of killing off Aunt Owen and Uncle Beru might've just been to get Luke off of Tattooine....but they still did die.

Think of it this way: If that line were in the ESB as is, but the Leia revelation had never occurred, wouldn't people be looking back on ESB going "WTF was that all about?"

Then your post just got inane. You said the Jedi Mind Trick is the equivalent of telepathy. First off, they're materially different things. Secondly, they explicitly establish that such connections only work on the weak minded, and I don't think that the feisty Princess Leia, who stood up to Vader's torture, is supposed to be like a faceless Stormtrooper.

Look, to say that Yoda's line was just an arbitrary red herring defies all logic and even your tortured logic doesn't make sense in any scenarios. Hey, think what you want. Maybe you feel empowered by "deconstructing", you feel like you've pulled the cover off Star Wars and shown the rot underneath.

All fine and dandy. But you're going nowhere with this particular claim.

 

You are aware that according the IMDB entry on Return of the Jedi, that in one of the early drafts for what would become ANH, Lucas had already written in that Leia was Luke's sister? The idea of Luke and Leia being siblings was in Lucas's head well before he even filmed Star Wars in 1977, its not something that he just made up in 1980 or 81. So, it seems rather likely that when he wrote "There is another" he knew full well that he was going to reveal Leia as his sister in Jedi, even if he didn't actually write it out until after TESB was completed. Now, he may have changed his mind any number of times in between, however he had already toyed with the idea before Star Wars was ever put to film, it was there, floating around in his brain.

I wouldn't dismiss the telepathy angle, either. the ONLY time we ever see telepathy at play involves two force users. We only see telepathy in the entire saga a few times, and it always involves two force users, dead or alive. (if you count Force ghost appearances, etc) Never do we see a Force user communicate with a non-Force sensitive. Her telepathic link with Luke is Force powered...which means she must have had some latent Force ability...which further strengthens the argument that Lucas did plan to reveal her family lineage already by the time he filmed TESB. Otherwise he wouldn't have shown us Luke communicating with her telepathically, in the exact same manner he communicates with Darth Vader a few shots later....

 

DBrennan3333, I have put forward neither inanity, desperation nor contradiction. Please desist from derogatory comments of this kind in future posts. Nor is my logic "tortured", since it rests upon a verbatim quote from the author explaining his motives in writing the line.

I stand by my original claim that the "other" line was devised to create doubt in the audience's mind that Luke might fail/die/be captured and perhaps have to be later rescued by this "other". This is a simple writer's ploy to make the audience think "Oh, gee, maybe the hero won't make it after all!" Whether you personally buy into the ruse is immaterial. Of course the other would have to be introduced as a plot point in the next film; why you believe I suggested otherwise is a mystery.

What a "mind trick" might consist of, if it is not telepathy (a non-verbal link between two minds) is also beyond me. Feel free to disagree with every opinion I ever formulate, but don't you ever call me inane or desperate again. This is a forum for discussion among friends, and fans of the Saga which I cherish to the core of my being.

MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU.

 

Darth_Davi, I realize that the official LFL line is that Leia was "always" considered Luke's twin, but Gary Kurtz contradicts this and there is a wealth of evidence (see my earlier post about the Leia-as-sibling matter, above) to indicate that the link was not made until 1981, well after the release of ESB. I don't know to what early draft of the original 1977 film the OS is referring, since I've read all the original drafts, and/or summaries of them in the LFL-published Annotated Screenplays, and this so-called sister connection is nowhere to be seen.

For now I'll let the argument go, since as I mentioned before it's really the subject of zombie's Secret History thread, specifically p. 70.

 

Well I think that is to brush off Yoda's other statement when Luke told him Vader had told him he was his father.
"Unexpected, this is" followed by his normal wiser than thou look - what did he mean by that?

One could say Yoda was just making conversation, but first, he rarely does just make conversation and second if you watch it, they made his face pensive and quizzical. Finally, Yoda, it seems to me, would have taken that moment to tell Luke that his father was trying to seduce or trick him or something - but he says nothing more about it.

I am not sure if it is only in the final release, but Yoda says "there is another SKY" before he dies. That would almost make you feel he was talking about Leia, but on the other hand, it could also be Anakin. The thing is, one must ask if Yoda was indeed as short-sighted as Obi-Wan when it came to Vader. Obi-Wan had reason to be, his thoughts were clouded by many emotions. But Yoda wasn't so clouded on the topic.

 

xx_Anakin_xx, Yoda actually finishes the sentence as he dies: "There is another... Sky... walk... er." (It was in the original 1983 release, and remains today, though you might have to turn the volume up to hear it all.) Then Obi-Wan tells Luke: "The 'other' Yoda spoke of us is your twin sister."

I don't understand why there is so much confusion on this score. At the time ESB was scripted, the authors might not have known it would be Leia, but certainly by the time of the early drafts of ROTJ, Leia had been clearly and inarguably designated as Yoda's "other".

 

darth davi
You are aware that according the IMDB entry on Return of the Jedi, that in one of the early drafts for what would become ANH, Lucas had already written in that Leia was Luke's sister?

Actually, that's not the case. Which draft of SW specifically had her as Luke's sibling?

Another final word against that whole myth is that Lucas himself concocted a potential backstory for the other Yoda speaks of in ESB. It would be a jedi on the other side of the galaxy. This was done during story meetings with Leigh Brackett.

So, Lucas himself didn't consider "another" to mean Leia at all at the time of ESB. And definately no talk of her being his sister.

 

I had never heard it before either, however if you go to the FAQS section on the IMDB entry for Jedi, it mentions it...Which is why I only said "according to IMDB" and didn't assign it as rock solid fact that I was stating for myself. The truthfulness of the statement is on IMDB, I take no responsibilty for it myself, as I was unable to verify it with a secondary source...thus, "according to IMDB".

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086190/faq

 

Here's the IMDB quote (see my excoriation of its errors, following):

Was Leia originally supposed to have been Luke's sister?

Yes. While some ambiguity remains over whether or not Vader was intended to be Luke's father from the start, an early draft of the film that would come to be known as Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope depicts a young Luke Starkiller living on Utapau (a planet which would eventually appear in Episode III) with his two younger brothers, Windy and Biggs, and his sixteen year-old sister, Leia. In this version of the story, Leia is a character of little importance who never leaves the homestead; rather, it is Luke's older brother Deak who is kidnapped by the Sith Lord Darth Vader. Therefore, even though her relationship to Luke is not revealed until Return of the Jedi, it's clear from this older draft that her role as his sister was in Lucas's mind from very early on.

This is a convoluted mishmash of the actual contents of several early drafts. In the story treatment (May 1973), Princess Leia does indeed have two brothers, Biggs and Windom, but "Luke Starkiller" has not been invented yet; here Annikin Starkiller is the hero, and "Luke" is the name of the elder warrior General Skywalker. Luke Starkiller is first seen in the second draft (January 1975), in which Leia's character function (a dignitary kidnapped by the Empire) has been replaced by Deak Starkiller, Luke's older brother. Also in ths second draft, Deak and Luke have two little brothers: Biggs and Windy Starkiller. But here in the second draft, Leia appears only briefly as the inconsequential daughter of Owen Lars (who is just a middle-man between the droids and Luke); she is just a name and not the captured princess seen in the other drafts, and moreover, she is not related to the Starkillers at all!

The above is summarized from the Lucasbooks-published Annotated Screenplays, edited by l. Bouzereau, pp. 3-27. It flatly refutes the erroneous belief that Leia was ever considered a sister to any Starkiller or Skywalker.

 

Ah yeah...forgot about that bit. Well then I can't cut any slack for Yoda except his statement "unexpected, this is" may mean that he wasn't 100% certain about Anakin after all. But maybe he was and had lost hope just like Obi-Wan. It is not at all hard to believe Obi-Wan would feel that way as like it or not, the whole topic was an emotional roller coaster for him. But I would have expected the ever wise Yoda to have contemplated the impossible and seen possibilities...

But yeah, Leia is who Yoda meant then.