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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

    Registered:
    Feb 27, 2007
    Fair point. :)

    According to the Making of ROTJ, the Owen-as-Kenobi's-brother notion originated in Lawrence Kasdan's second-draft screenplay from September 1981, which was the first script written after the big GL/Kasdan/Marquand/Kazanjian story conference in July. The idea of making Owen Lars into Obi-wan's brother probably came up at some point in that meeting, but Rinzler doesn't include the pertinent bits from the transcript. So Kasdan as the first to put the notion on paper in screenplay form, but as for whose idea it was originally, the jury's still out.
     
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  2. Darth_Nub

    Darth_Nub Manager Emeritus star 5 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Apr 26, 2009
    The 'Owen as Obi-Wan's brother' development has always been a sticking point for me - because I think it would have worked perfectly in the post-ESB 'Father Vader' context, rather than the clumsier route GL was forced to take by making Anakin a Tatooine native, then dumping Luke on his step-family.

    I've always maintained that only one of the two great Republic-era Jedi Knights we knew of - Annikin/Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi - ever came from Tatooine, and the story developments changed to reflect this, particularly in who Owen Lars was related to:

    - In the pre-'Father Vader' storyline (Star Wars, 1977), Annikin Skywalker was brought up as a farmer on Tatooine. At some point, he abandoned this life to follow a Jedi Knight called Obi-Wan Kenobi on a damn-fool idealistic crusade (probably the Clone Wars), became a Jedi himself, and was eventually betrayed and murdered by a former Jedi apprentice of Kenobi's when the Empire rose to power. Annikin's son, Luke, was raised on Tatooine by his brother, Owen, and Owen's wife, Beru. Obi-Wan Kenobi watched over Luke from a distance, while in hiding/self-imposed exile on Tatooine. Luke Skywalker was of no real concern to Vader or the Empire, as they a) didn't know he existed, and b) was just the son of another random Jedi they killed - at this time, Force power/potential wasn't meant to be hereditary, so the child wasn't necessarily a danger. Vader's former master doesn't have any actual connection to Tatooine, apart from a dead apprentice;

    - in the OT-era 'Father Vader' storyline (ESB & ROTJ), Obi-Wan Kenobi, perhaps a one-time native of Tatooine, had an apprentice called Anakin Skywalker (heritage unknown), who turned to the Dark Side of the Force and was further known as Darth Vader. Anakin/Vader's twin children - the very existence of whom he was apparently ignorant - Leia & Luke, were hidden respectively with the Organa family on Alderaan and Obi-Wan's own family on Tatooine. Republic leader Bail Organa, one of the founders of the Rebel Alliance, raised Leia. Obi-Wan watched over Luke from a distance. Exactly why Vader never hunted down Kenobi's family is unknown - Owen & Beru may have been forced into hiding on Tatooine as well;

    - PT-era - well, we've all seen this - Anakin Skywalker originates (for all intents & purposes) from Tatooine, Obi-Wan Kenobi doesn't. Following Anakin's fall, Luke (a child Anakin believed to be dead) is dumped on Anakin's step-family, while Leia goes to live with the Organas on Alderaan. Obi-Wan watches over Luke from a distance. General thinking is that Vader would resist any reason to return to Tatooine, as he refused to acknowledge his past, and didn't want to confront it. Believing his unborn child to have died with his wife, Vader has no reason to search for him.
     
  3. Tosche_Station

    Tosche_Station Jedi Master star 2

    Registered:
    Feb 9, 2015
    Upping the thread:




    My take on Scenario B, is that it only became canon with ROTJ. I believe/maintain that circa TESB, Lucas hadn't established that Anakin/Annikin/Skywalker Sr. had turned to the dark side. Father Vader, at this point, didn't yet mean what it would come to mean as of ROTJ. The 'shocking revelation' for all intents and purposes, may have been initially intended to mean that Luke was Vader's son, and not Skywalker's (whatever his first name was). This is entirely speculation, but not inherently implausible: in the very same draft that introduced the Father Vader claim, Lucas has Yoda say that he taught both Kenobi and Skywalker...while Vader was still supposed to have been Kenobi's student. Edit: Granted, this was changed in the subsequent re-write to Kenobi having taught both Skywalker and Vader, but even this doesn't mean Skywalker turns to the dark side and becomes Vader. That plot point may seem 'inevitable', but that's due to hindsight.
     
  4. ATMachine

    ATMachine Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Feb 27, 2007
    I do think Vader being Annikin/Anakin was one possibility for "who Darth Vader is" that GL was already considering at the time of ESB, but he hadn't definitively settled on that idea yet -- albeit it made most sense with the foreshortened narrative of the 3-film OT, so he went with that.

    Even if Annikin Skywalker had remained a separate character from Vader, though, I think we'd have seen the elder Skywalker revealed in later films to have been a fallible human being, not the demi-god figure Luke thinks of him as in the first film. Think of James Potter in the Harry Potter books: while Harry's father was clearly on the side of good and justice, he had a mean streak and wasn't above taking pleasure in bullying people whom he didn't like.
     
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  5. {Quantum/MIDI}

    {Quantum/MIDI} Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Dec 21, 2015
    only one kenobi great posts. I see great and thought out insights from you and many others.

    Underrated post IMO.
     
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  6. darklordoftech

    darklordoftech Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Sep 30, 2012
    If Palpatine was Nixon, who were Vader and Tarkin?
     
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  7. CT1138

    CT1138 Jedi Master star 4

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    Sep 4, 2013
    Agnew and Kissinger respectively.
     
  8. darklordoftech

    darklordoftech Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Sep 30, 2012
  9. ATMachine

    ATMachine Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Feb 27, 2007
    It's a matter of record in the 1974 rough draft (and its revision from later that year) that C-3PO was originally chrome in color, rather like U-3PO. Later scripts from the second draft onwards changed this to bronze, as seen in most of Ralph McQuarrie's pre-1977 concept art. Probably this reflects GL learning that the Maria robot in Fritz Lang's Metropolis, though appearing silver on black-and-white film, was actually painted bronze on the set.

    In actual film, C-3PO was gold in color, and from ESB on the script descriptions reflect this change.

    The Wookieepedia article for the RA-7 series notes that Marvel Comics' adaptation of SW 1977 used this instead of the film's Imperial torture droid. Interesting detail; I'd forgotten that (though I did remember the humanoid-alien Jabba used by Marvel).
     
  10. ATMachine

    ATMachine Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Feb 27, 2007
    Actually, I just realized that Jabba's protocol droid in the Clone Wars CGI series, TC-70, has the same bronze color described for C-3PO in GL's early scripts and shown in Ralph McQuarrie's paintings:

    [​IMG]
     
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  11. darklordoftech

    darklordoftech Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Sep 30, 2012
    The Legnds EU made U-3PO and the RA-7 droids Imperial spy droids (U-3PO for Vader, RA-7 for the ISB). How does this compare to the original intent?
    Great observation, ATMachine!
     
  12. ATMachine

    ATMachine Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Feb 27, 2007
    He even has 3PO's silver leg (albeit the mismatched part is in a different position).
     
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  13. Lt. Hija

    Lt. Hija Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Dec 8, 2015
    I always liked the insectoid look of "5D6" or 4-LOM. The allusion I got from the first moment were worker droids. Probably the kind of droid you send into reactor cores to do maintenance since these are probably radiation proof.

    In contrast there are protocol droids with a "human face". I also liked the secretary droid (according to the OT Visual Dictionary) we saw in the sandcrawler, Mos Eisley and in the corner of Jabba's robot torture room (although I think he's still kind of scary looking).

    [​IMG]
     
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  14. darklordoftech

    darklordoftech Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Sep 30, 2012
    If ESB and ROTJ had stuck to what Obi-Wan told Luke in the hut, would TPM have given us "I'm a person, and my name is Darth"?
     
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  15. darklordoftech

    darklordoftech Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Sep 30, 2012
    Could the Sith (as they ended up being developed in I-VI) be compared to extremist anti-smokers? They seek to "fix" the galaxy, "save" people, "cheat death," "stop people from dying." Palpatine aging so badly and having such bad teeth and fingernails and Vader's injuries that made his armor neccesary could be said to be a case of "becoming what they swore to destroy." Nobody remembers what a Jedi is thanks to the Empire, and nobody remembers when high schools gave smoke breaks.
     
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  16. ATMachine

    ATMachine Jedi Master star 4

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    Feb 27, 2007
    Nobody remembers when a SF film like Star Wars could contemplate putting actual naked human bodies on screen, either.
     
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  17. darklordoftech

    darklordoftech Force Ghost star 6

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    Sep 30, 2012
    How are people supposed to remember a film that was never made?
     
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  18. ATMachine

    ATMachine Jedi Master star 4

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    Feb 27, 2007
    There's this thing called a "book". But given the elaborate lengths Rinzler et al went to to sidestep that issue in The Making of SW, it's likely that Lucasfilm doesn't want people to remember.
     
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  19. darklordoftech

    darklordoftech Force Ghost star 6

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    Sep 30, 2012
    People generally don't read books about topics that they aren't interested in.
     
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  20. ATMachine

    ATMachine Jedi Master star 4

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    Feb 27, 2007
    I had no idea people weren't interested in The Making of Star Wars. Shows what I know.
     
  21. darklordoftech

    darklordoftech Force Ghost star 6

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    Sep 30, 2012
    I meant people who aren't Star Wars fans. Us fans are definitely interested.
     
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  22. ATMachine

    ATMachine Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Feb 27, 2007
    So I just watched The Silver Chalice (1954), aka the film leading man Paul Newman once took out a full-page newspaper ad to urge people to not watch during its first TV showing. As I understand it, this movie was based on a novel by Thomas Costain, though I haven't read it yet.

    The plot is about a Romanized Greek sculptor named Basil, who is hired by Joseph of Arimathea to forge a silver reliquary-type covering to hold the Holy Grail. Specifically, Joseph wants Basil to carve the likenesses of the Apostles and Jesus into the silver cup.

    Naturally, as a handsome young man played by Paul Newman, Basil is pursued by not one but two lovely ladies: the buxom blonde ex-slave Helena (Debra Paget), whom he knew as a child, and who is now concubine to the evil magician Simon; and Joseph's petite brunette granddaughter Deborah (Natalie Wood with an outrageously fake accent). Honestly, t he love-story plot feels rather like someone re-writing the love triangle of Sigurd with Brynhild and Gudrun from Norse mythology, only IN ANCIENT JUDEA!

    Meanwhile Simon, an alcoholic with delusions of grandeur, conceives a scheme to discredit Christianity by turning himself into a messiah figure who performs miracles (re: magic tricks) in public. Chief among these are to be stealing the Holy Grail and crushing it in his hands (because: evil!) and pretending to fly around a tall tower using cleverly hidden wires and a palette-swapped Superman costume.

    However, just before a scheduled demonstration of his "flying" for Roman emperor Nero, Simon gets so drunk that he decides not to use the harness and fly via his own magic. Pavement gets splattered. Nero, ever villanious, has Helena pushed from the tower as well to see if she can do what Simon could not.

    The film is notable in a couple of respects: one, when Basil travels to Rome to meet St. Peter and model his likeness for the Grail, he stays at a hostel maintained by Cephus the innkeper. Cephus evidently knows Peter, and promises repeatedly to introduce him to Basil.

    However, delays keep piling up, and finally Basil asks why Peter won't meet him. Cephus replies that Peter will see Basil when he's ready. You've probably guessed by now that Cephus is actually Peter himself. ("Yoda. You seek Yoda.")

    The other notable thing is that, after Simon's death at the tower, the citizens of Rome start a riot and begin looting houses. During the melee, the Holy Grail is stolen from Peter's inn, and Basil is left with only the carving of Jesus' face which he had been ready to attach to the silver chalice. Very Last Crusade.

    Also, according to The Complete Making of Indiana Jones, an early draft of LC had the Grail Knight knock off one edge of the wooden chalice found by Indy to reveal a golden inner core. This was probably inspired by the Paul Newman film, though it kind of spoils the moral.

    Rating: 6.75/10 wax apostle heads.
     
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  23. ATMachine

    ATMachine Jedi Master star 4

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    Feb 27, 2007
    I forgot to mention that early in the movie, young Basil carves a wooden ring with a lion-head crest for young Helena, and that's how he recognizes her years later. I guess GL was still borrowing from this movie come the prequels.
     
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  24. ATMachine

    ATMachine Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Feb 27, 2007
    I posted a new thread on the Anthology Spoilers forum about my thoughts on the possible major plot influence of LucasArts games on anthology film Star Wars: Rogue One. I'd invite you guys to post in it, but the first reply I had was a mod telling me the thread was not notable enough and would be locked.

    And frankly, if that's how semi-intelligent commentary is treated around these parts, I don't think I want to spend much time on this forum anymore.
     
  25. darklordoftech

    darklordoftech Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Sep 30, 2012
    I think the Lit forum would be more welcoming to that topic. http://boards.theforce.net/forums/literature.10003/
     
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