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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Saga SW Saga In-Depth In-Depth Discussion Thread

Discussion in 'Star Wars Saga In-Depth' started by only one kenobi, Dec 23, 2013.

  1. ATMachine

    ATMachine Jedi Master star 4

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    Feb 27, 2007
    Interesting. That's new to me. Where did you hear that?
     
  2. darklordoftech

    darklordoftech Force Ghost star 6

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    Sep 30, 2012
    secrethistoryofstarwars.com
     
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  3. darklordoftech

    darklordoftech Force Ghost star 6

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    Sep 30, 2012
    I wonder if Lucas intended the Sith to be as old as the Jedi. The TPM novelization calls the founder of the Sith "the lone dissident in an order of harmonious followers."
     
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  4. ATMachine

    ATMachine Jedi Master star 4

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    Feb 27, 2007
    « Qu'est-ce qu'un homme révolté ? Un homme qui dit non. »
    -- Albert Camus

    (Translation left as an exercise for the readers.)
     
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  5. only one kenobi

    only one kenobi Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Nov 18, 2012
    ..a bit like...Qui-Gon then...
     
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  6. darklordoftech

    darklordoftech Force Ghost star 6

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    Sep 30, 2012
    Reading the different drafts of ANH, I noticed that things become more straightforward as they get rewritten. "Right hand of Prince Espaa Valorum, Master of the Sith" becomes "Right hand of the Emperor", "The Force of Others" becomes "The Force", etc.
     
  7. Darth_Nub

    Darth_Nub Manager Emeritus star 5 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Apr 26, 2009


    It's not in the book itself (all mentions of Dooku and Tyranus describe them very specifically as being the same person) - quote?

    (I checked the website - I think zombie has either given up or been hacked again, it's all in Japanese)
     
  8. MatthewZ

    MatthewZ Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Sep 21, 2003
    It must have been hacked by agents from Lucasfilm as they realized he's unlocked the great truth and uncovered the grand conspiracy....


    yea uhhhh, NO :oops:
     
  9. Darth_Nub

    Darth_Nub Manager Emeritus star 5 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Apr 26, 2009
    I was referring to an actual hack of the secrethistoryofstarwars site about a year or so ago by malware, which led to the site coming up with warnings by internet browsers as being unsafe. Not an uncommon occurrence.

    Anything genuine to contribute?
     
  10. ATMachine

    ATMachine Jedi Master star 4

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    Feb 27, 2007
    Not related to the disappearance of SHOSW, but the latest issue (#161) of SW Insider had an interesting interview with James Kahn, author of the ROTJ novelization:

    Fortunately for us fans, SW Insider reprints Kahn's typewritten pages of this chapter (actually only two). Kahn describes it elsehwere as "a satiric Leia 'found journal' a la James Joyce."

    Some highly interesting symbolism in there... especially the rather mysterious bit about a "blond and solo coded" secret.

    Elsewhere in the article, some photographs illustrate the sort of reference material which Kahn was provided by Lucasfilm while writing, including Polaroids of Luke in his black Jedi outfit and Lando in the skiff-guard dsiguise.
     
  11. darklordoftech

    darklordoftech Force Ghost star 6

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    Sep 30, 2012
    In which draft or drafts of ROTS does Palpatine say that he influenced the midichlorians to create Anakin?
     
  12. Alexrd

    Alexrd Chosen One star 6

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    Jul 7, 2009
    They were separate characters in the same way Palpatine and Sidious were.

    The Sith originated from a dissident Jedi, so the Jedi are inherently older.
     
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  13. Darth_Nub

    Darth_Nub Manager Emeritus star 5 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Apr 26, 2009
    Pretty much - 'the Emperor' and 'The Master of the Sith' were once separate, but that was in 1970s drafts of SW/ANH, before the Emperor was a Force user. The first draft of ESB began to blur the division by making the Emperor a character who had both Force ability and the power to intimidate Darth Vader, and the characters were quickly merged through subsequent drafts, then cemented as one and the same in ROTJ.
    TPM established the deception behind Senator Palpatine's rise, and his actual status as a Sith Lord.
    For all intents and purposes, the Emperor was always a Dark Force user/Sith Lord - nothing in the films themselves states otherwise or contradicts the notion, even if he mightn't have been intended as such while SW/ANH was being made.

    Still not sure where this notion that Dooku and Tyranus were separate comes from - from everything I've read, the character was created for AOTC, and the two names apply to the same ex-Jedi/Sith Lord. It's not in TSHOSW.


    Yes, maybe no, but yes for what matters - early GL drafts establish 'the Sith' as a mercenary organisation which was instructed in the use of the Dark Side of the Force by a rogue Jedi named Darklighter. 1990s EU changed this concept into the idea that 'the Sith' were actually a Force-powerful species enslaved by a rogue Jedi, and the Sith Order evolved through its experiments and involvement with the alchemy and sorcery this race was able to provide to its ex-Jedi masters.

    This 'Sith' race (or GL's mercenary group) may have technically pre-dated the Jedi, but the Sith Order made up of full-blown Dark Force users, the Dark Lords that were the enemies of the Jedi, definitely came into existence after the Jedi Order - hell, it came into existence because of the Jedi.
     
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  14. Alexrd

    Alexrd Chosen One star 6

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    Jul 7, 2009
    Sorry, I meant regarding the PT. The screenplay differentiates between Palpatine and Sidious, according to the scene/persona he's in. But then again, that's the norm.

    As for the Sith, yes, that's correct. Although the Sith being a race/species comes exclusively from the EU. To Lucas, they were always an organization.
     
  15. darth-sinister

    darth-sinister Manager Emeritus star 10 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Jun 28, 2001

    As I understand it, it was all the way up to the shooting script phase since Lucas filmed the original confrontation between Palpatine and the Jedi Posse with Anakin present. It changed sometime after the scenes were initially shot.

    Exactly. The common person doesn't know all the BTS material, since not everyone is going to read "The Making Of Star Wars" and "The Secret History Of Star Wars".

    The closest thing to that might be the different conceptual designs that were shown in "The Art Of Attack Of The Clones", with regards the new Apprentice for Darth Sidious. I think zombie believed that Darth Tyranus was to be the character now known as Asajj Ventress. While Dooku was just a separate person. Back in 2000-2001, I recall reading that there was a belief that Dooku and Tyranus were separate people. But they were revealed to be the same by the time the first full trailer had been released in theaters.
     
  16. ATMachine

    ATMachine Jedi Master star 4

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    Feb 27, 2007
    Well, according to the Art of AOTC book, the proto-Ventress (actually derived from early Willow concepts, but let's not go there for now) was intended to be in the film at a point before GL came up with the Dooku/Tyranus character. But once he got the idea to cast Christopher Lee as a bad guy, Dooku replaced Ventress as Palpatine's apprentice.

    I will note that Dooku is sort of a riff on Prince Valorum from the 1974 The Star Wars rough draft -- a gentlemanly old warrior with a code of honor, whose ideals lead him to betray the organization he long served. The difference, however, is that while Valorum abandoned the corrupt and hateful Empire, Dooku's disgust with galactic politics leads him to embrace the Sith and the dark side of the Force - rather like a GFFA version of Marshal Petain.
     
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  17. Darth_Nub

    Darth_Nub Manager Emeritus star 5 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Apr 26, 2009
    Here's the passage in question from TSHOSW:

    So yeah, there was a different vision of Episode II's Sith Lord (who may well have been called 'Darth Tyranus'), but this character didn't necessarily exist alongside a version of Count Dooku that wasn't a Sith. We don't even know if it made it into a draft.

    Unfortunately, there's very little available material about the story development of AOTC, much less than the other films, so it's difficult to say one way or the other. Given that GL also spent far less time writing AOTC than he did the other films, I think it's unlikely that Dooku went through much of an evolution - as has already been mentioned, he was probably created after the earlier Maul-like Sith Lord was abandoned.
     
  18. darklordoftech

    darklordoftech Force Ghost star 6

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    Sep 30, 2012
    Why is it that when making ANH, they gave the Imperial ships green blasts and Rebel ships red blasts and yet they gave Obi-Wan and Luke blue sabers and Vader a red saber? Why didn't they use the same colors for a faction's ship blasts and lightsabers?
     
  19. Darth Dreadwar

    Darth Dreadwar Jedi Grand Master star 6

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    Jan 26, 2010
    I wouldn't say exclusively. In original ANH drafts, Lucas describes the origin of the Sith Knights being a fallen exiled Jedi who finds clans of "Sith pirates," which could be a human organisation or a species as in "Wookiee pirates," teaches them the dark side, and so creates the Sith Order. Veitch, who worked far more closely with Lucas than the vast majority of EU authors given the material he was writing (the origins of Jedi and Sith, the rebirth of the Emperor), took many cues from Lucas on the origins of the Sith as described in TOTJ, with a fallen exiled Jedi finding and dominating the Sith people, teaching them the dark arts, the name thus coming to describe an organisation of Jedi counterparts. It was KJA who later explicitly outlined this people as being a separate species, but I doubt it directly contradicted Lucas' vision at the time.
     
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  20. darth-sinister

    darth-sinister Manager Emeritus star 10 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Jun 28, 2001

    Not sure it had occurred to him to do that or not. Lucas didn't really think of blue and red blades until at least January 1977, or whatever point it was decided that ILM would rotoscope blue and red blades. Hence the script and novelization only refer to blue blades in 76. By the time TESB went into production, Lucas had already felt that blue and red blades made sense for Jedi and Sith and expanded it outwards. But take note that by the PT, the Clonetroopers have blue blaster bolts while compared to the Stormtroopers who had red blaster bolts, which the Droid Army also had. So at that point, he saw the symbolism.
     
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  21. ATMachine

    ATMachine Jedi Master star 4

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    Feb 27, 2007
    It's possible - indeed, probable, I'd say - that the "powerful politician" mentioned in that quote was a "political idealist" of Dooku's eventual mold: a revered hero and a powerful leader of mature years. Aas with Dooku, his innate conservatism, increasing with age, would mean that his desire for order leads him down the road to embracing the Sith and the Empire. (As zombie notes, this idea may have been the original conjectured storyline for Anakin's fall when ROTJ was written.)

    It seems then that GL combined the characters of the "traitorous politician" and the Sith overseer when creating Dooku for AOTC. Kind of a neat parallel with how in the OT he combined the "Sith Master" of SW 1977 early drafts with the political figure of the Emperor to create the persona of the Sith sorcerer Palpatine as seen in ESB and ROTJ.


    I'll also note in passing that IIRC the sketches for the "cyborg commander" Sith Lord in the Art of AOTC book showed a decidedly female robot -- another incarnation of the ur-Ventress figure. (Doug Chiang's designs give it a marked Art Deco styling, a no doubt intentional reference of Lang's Metropolis.)
     
  22. Darth_Nub

    Darth_Nub Manager Emeritus star 5 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Apr 26, 2009

    This is, however, entirely speculation on zombie's part. Perfectly reasonable speculation, but there's no evidence that this "powerful politician" existed in any form prior to the creation of Count Dooku, Sith Lord. He's just making an informed guess, based on how the story turned out, combined with logical scenarios that would have resulted after the events of TPM.

    It's just as possible that Nute Gunray was originally the leader of the Separatist movement, having been humiliated ten years earlier, or that the Separatists were led by a bickering council of planetary/guild heads, and had no actual 'leader'.

    All zombie's doing here (and it's not a criticism) is attempting to present a credible storyline in which the Maul-like Sith Lord of Ep II could have fit, but as I mentioned earlier, we don't know if this character ever made it into a draft, or only ever existed in the art department.
    I suspect it didn't make it past anything beyond an extremely rough outline, if that - the similarity to the storyline of TPM (Sidious and a vicious apprentice manipulating an alliance of semi-villainous planets and organisations to undermine the Republic and achieve their own ends) would have been obvious to GL very early on, and I doubt he would have wanted to do something so predictable.
    There's still a close similarity, as it's a continuation of the Sith's master plan, but the character of Dooku takes it to the next level, by putting a Sith Lord into a position of direct power (which, of course, means that the galaxy's two most powerful factions are being controlled by the Sith).

    There is definitely a parallel between Dooku and Palpatine, but I don't think Dooku was ever the result of a 'merge' between two existing characters as Palps was, more likely he was created much as he ended up, and simply replaced the earlier Ep II Sith.
     
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  23. sarlaccsaurs-rex

    sarlaccsaurs-rex Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Apr 10, 2007

    Well, green is a color associated with venom, bio-hazards, and nuclear toxic substances. The tie fighters hiss like a rattlesnake when firing their blasts.

    The color red, while sometimes associated with symbols of evil (Naizs, Soviets, satanic imagery) , can also be a symbol of warmth and comfort. (The color of Love, the warm blood that runs in our veins)

    Red is just a more comforting warm color to see in the coldness of space. Green on the other hand is already a cooler color, and against the freezing vastness of space it looks even more menacing.

    Green is also a more dazzling color to see coming from the bland grey imperial ships, it makes for an interesting, contrasting spectacle.
     
  24. MeBeJedi

    MeBeJedi Force Ghost star 6

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    May 30, 2002
    For a second there, I though that read supershadow, lol.
     
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  25. Darth_Nub

    Darth_Nub Manager Emeritus star 5 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Apr 26, 2009

    That's intriguing that the Sith Lord of Ep II was once envisioned as a cyborg, female or otherwise - there were rumours flying around while ROTS was being made that the character of General Grievous would look extremely similar to Vader, plus I seem to recall a quote from Rick McCallum that the history of Vader's armour would be addressed (unfortunately, I can't find it anywhere, just loads of rumours from around 2002-2003, and it's not mentioned in TSHOSW).

    Obviously this didn't happen, but what it suggested to me was that there was once intended to be a more explicit connection between Grievous and Vader, apart from the fact that they're both cyborgs. Perhaps an early idea was that Grievous' armour would look like Vader's, or even that after Mustafar, Vader would have simply been placed into the armour of the dead General Grievous - a bit of a wacky idea, but if the 'cyborg commander' was once meant to be a Sith Lord, it's not quite as far-fetched as it might sound, particularly if the armour was established as some sort of traditional Sith design.

    As it stands, there's not much of a connection between the two, although there's a definite similarity between Grievous' face and this early sketch of Vader:

    [​IMG] [​IMG]

    Another idea that may well have been floated - maybe the armour Darth Vader wore at the end of ROTS could have been an earlier design, resembling Ralph McQuarrie's 1970s sketches, rather than identical to that of the OT.

    This is, of course, rampant speculation on my part, but if the idea of an earlier cyborg Sith Lord was being discussed during the pre-production of Ep II, it's not much of a stretch to suggest that the connection with Darth Vader's armour and its history would have been brought up.