BTS Recycled Ideas

It's used in drafts 2 and 3 -- the same drafts in which "Utapau" refers to the desert planet with twin suns. In the rough draft, though, the desert planet is called Aquilae, and "Utapau" is used for the dusty planet where Annikin's brother Deak is killed in the opening scene. (The dust-planet is a bleak, Moon-like dunescape of gray rocks and sand in the rough draft; however, in the revised rough draft, Utapau's surface is dotted with a bunch of red and green lakes.)

 

In a 1977 interview, Lucas said he wanted to film a closeup of Darth Vader's horribly disfigured face (the lava backstory was already planned), but decided against it, fearing it would ruin the character's mystique. By the Empire Strikes Back, the concept was seen onscreen for the first time; the scene of Vader without his helmet was put in by Kershner because there was some confusion as to what exactly Vader was (if I recall correctly). His face was still a secret. It was finally with Return of the Jedi that we finally see Vader's scarred face onscreen.

 

^ "Are you a robot? Are you a cyborg? And what's with this cape? Are we going to the opera? I don't think so."

 

Sung to the tune of, "Iron Man".....

 

....by William Shatner

 

Watching a behind the scenes documentary, the Coruscant Guards from The Phantom Menace were designed with a dark visor before it was decided to hold off and have a slow evolution of the guards up to Episode III with the advent of the Emperor's Red Guard's (we see the dark visor Coruscant Guard in Revenge of the Sith).


When the design for Grievous was being brainstormed, Lucas was in favor of one particular sketch, but favored the suggestion of a cyborg General.

The design influenced the final look of General Grievous, but also went virtually unchanged when it was re-used for his Magnaguards.


Also, there were tests done where the Jango Fett armor was stark white. Not only as a link to the Clone/Stormtroopers, but revisiting the original idea for Boba Fett's armor. The idea was that Boba would inherit his father's armor and add his own paint scheme to it. I actually wish I could've seen this.

 

Well, virtually every idea in TFA is recycled from ANH, TESB, or ROTJ! (I'm sorry. I can't help myself.)

-- In addition to all the obvious OT elements re-used in TFA, there were actually a couple unused Lucas ideas that appeared in TFA. One idea Lucas came up with for TESB was that there was a star map hidden inside Luke's lightsaber. (This idea may have even been included in Lucas's TESB first draft that is pretty similar to the final film).

It would've worked something like this. The star map was first a mystery to Luke that he discovers and then later after Obi-Wan appears and tells Luke "You must go to Dagobah," Luke would've put two and two together and used the map to go the Dagobah. I thought they should've kept the idea.


-- Boba Fett was originally thought up to be a "super" stormtrooper. Captain Phasma's armor design sort her sets her apart from other stormtroopers in the same way, though there was nothing super about her.


--Han's backstory was that he was a former Imperial officer who left after becoming disillusioned with the Empire. This is Finn's story.


--One possible backstory for Palpatine was that he was centuries old. (Others were that he was a Nixonian politician without Force powers; another that he was a Nixonian politician with Force powers, which is what we got in the PT.) Snoke's backstory is that he is very old, so old that he saw the Rise and Fall of the Empire as well as the 30 years of the New Republic. Assuming he was an adult for that entire period, that would put him at minimum 87+ years old. (I wonder what he was up to for most of those 67 years.)


--When writing ANH, Lucas toyed around with the idea of a Jedi hunter. Kylo Ren was first described this way in The Art of TFA, and perhaps that's still what he is -- he did wipe out Luke's apprentices and we don't know much about his backstory.


--Also, in Rebels, Chopper is based on an early design for Artoo.

 

In the unrevised fourth draft of ANH, Motti says, "It won’t be long before the Death Star is completely operational, then we will easily be able to destroy a planet or an entire system… possibly even a sun." In TFA, we have Starkiller Base.

 

Some more from Screen Rant:

For Sidious' second apprentice, the crew envisioned the new Sith as a woman before evolving into Dooku. The same concept evolved to become Asajj Ventress, who became Dooku's apprentice.

Poe Dameron's Blue Squadron was very close to appearing in the original Star Wars, but the blue screens made the change to Red Squadron necessary.

 

With all the hoopla about the Star Wars Rebels finale, I noticed that the elite Inquisitor guild (apparently now largely destroyed) has, besides the Grand Inquisitor, two other members whose names contain numbers. "The Fifth Brother" and "the Seventh Sister."

This may be inspired by GL's early idea from around the third-draft SW script of 1975, that although there was a Sith Order, there were "only seven Sith" with "one in each sector." If so, it's likely the Inquisitor order on Rebels is meant to have consisted of just seven members.

However, it's also possible the Grand Inquisitor position might be an overlord figure who stands above the numbered hierarchy. This reflects the Biblical conflation of Death and the Seven Deadly Sins, perhaps most notably expressed on film by Fritz Lang in Metropolis.

Likewise, it isn't easy to imagine the Empire being divided into seven sectors -- that's an odd number and hard to make work on a galactic map. It'd make more sense to imagine an eight-sector Empire, carving up the GFFA galaxy like a 3D cube. But with only seven Sith in this early conception, they'd presumably be assigned to pacify the outlying reaches: the eighth sector would probably be home to the Emperor and the Imperial capital. (I wonder if the "seven Sith" idea was one factor that spurred GL into making the Emperor into a Sith sorcerer rather than the slimy politician of early script notes.)

 

Actually, there is an Eighth Brother in the Inquisitor Guild, apparently, so the number of Inquisitors is evidently more than seven. Maybe it's nine, like the number of Dante's circles of Hell (and possibly with one grand poobah overlooking them)?

 

In the rough draft of TPM, Maul can disappear and teleport. TCW reveals Maul to be a Nightbrother and that the Night rothers live with the Nightsisters who disappear and teleport.

 

Well, the OT references and cameos range from surprising, to gratuitous, to impressive and then even kind of creepy in Rogue One, but as I haven't been following the film's development, I can't say I was ever expecting this old concept to find its way in, and got quite a kick out of it:

Spoiler

Star Wars Sequel, February 1978, by Leigh Brackett
(The Empire Strikes Back, First Draft)

Pity they thought the gargoyle-feeding could have been a touch too naff...

This very distinctive design concept from ROTJ even makes an appearance in the castle:

 

What about

Spoiler

Saw Guerrera's robotic limbs? He's got two mismatched droid legs and a mechanical left arm, plus presumably some droid bits in his torso - leaving only his head and right arm organic, just like Kane Starkiller in the 1974 rough draft.

And then there's Alan Tudyk's droid character drilling with an an electronic probe into the head of another droid of the same make. I recall GL had a similar idea for Princess Leia's interrogation back in 1975, inspired by Metropolis and the Ganesh Machine.

Also, since Rogue One writer Gary Whitta was the editor of PC Gamer back in the 90s, there are naturally a bunch of references to classic Sierra and LucasArts adventure games in the film. But I can't be bothered to recall them on this forum right now.

 

Another thing in Rogue One that struck me as apparently from early SW drafts:

Spoiler

the way Director Krennic wanted above all else to retain command of the Death Star, because he saw it as the vehicle to realize his ambitions to rise up in the Imperial hierarchy. That's very much how Tarkin himself is portrayed in the January 1976 fourth draft: he believes that the success of the Death Star could result in him even becoming Emperor eventually. (This shows the degree to which GL's early conception of the bureaucrat-Emperor still prevailed, rather than the Sith sorcerer of later films.)

 

this shows how much the story group cares about all the original and unused material from gl, mcquarrie, johnston, cantwell, tippet and all the rest. all new sw since the disney deal has been built with the materials of sw's founders. i love it.

 

I love it when they pay homage to the God of Star Wars.

 

Great new ones from Rogue One

 

Could Scarif have been inspired by the original plans for Alderaan? The planet was supposed to be an Imperial stronghold originally.

Also, the Turbo Tanks in Revenge of the Sith were based on Imperial vehicles designed by Joe Johnston for The Empire Strikes Back (10-wheeled tanks). While they were replaced by AT-AT walkers, the Turbo Tank lived on for the Battle of Kashyyyk for the Republic and later in Rogue One, finally as an Imperial vehicle (transporting prisoners, including Jyn, on Wobani).

 

The "Alderaan" that was an Imperial stronghold was actually a cloud planet with a floating city, a design that was reused for Bespin in ESB.

 

I used to think the recent retcon that Boba Fett might not be a Mandalorian was utter nonsense. But an early biography in Bantha Tracks #5 (1979) actually casts the same doubt; Boba Fett wears the armor of the Mandalorian (here called Shocktrooper), but he may not have been one himself.
https://www.bobafettfanclub.com/multimedia/galleries/?p=2452

The character's progression is long, and his credentials go back and forth. But it's interesting to note that his armor design was tied back to Imperial Stormtroopers from the beginning. Originally, he was to be part of new elite division of "Supertroopers". Then by the time of this article, the group was still a branch of Stormtroopers (Shocktroopers), but they predated the modern incarnation and only existed at the time of the Clone Wars. By the time Empire was released, the Mandalorians were named as a unique group that was not a branch of the Imperial Army (Boba Fett was also undeniably a Mandalorian at this time).

The Mandalorian armor being a precursor to the Stormtrooper design works great in the current movie canon; Jango's armor was the basis for the Phase 1 clone armor, then onto Phase 2, and then a perfect transition into the Imperial armor. Also note that here that the Mandalorians/Shocktroopers were a large part of the Clone Wars, perhaps even being the aforementioned clones themselves. This prophecy of course becomes scarily accurate in Attack of the Clones. Though as we know, it was not as straightforward as the Empire versus the Jedi. By the time the Clones and Jedi did formally square off in Revenge of the Sith, the Clones ironically were the ones that wiped the Jedi out. The event of the Mandalorians being wiped was never fully fleshed out in the films, and has been attempted a few times in supplemental sources.

Now the term "Imperial Shocktrooper" itself has branched out from the association with Boba Fett and found its way into canon. The early use of the name seemed to only borrow the name (Dark Forces II, etc) as heavy artillery Stormtroopers. But in the current canon, they have a lot more in common with the description of Boba Fett; they are an small, elite division of Clones/Stormtroopers meant for specialized tasks and security.
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Imperial_shock_trooper

 

As contentious as this detail is, it only really vindicates what I've said in the past when it comes to midichlorians not changing much about the Force in any way that we've known since A New Hope.