CT The "Other Hope"/Luke making out with his sister

So it's basically agreed upon that when Yoda reminds Obi Wan that Luke is not their last hope, but that "their is another," he is talking about Leia.
It's also agreed upon that when Lucas wrote Empire (V) and had Luke and Leia kiss, he didn't know they were brother and sister.
Who then, is the original "other hope" Yoda is talking about? (assuming Lucas isn't a fan of twin incest.)
Could it be Darth Vader? That doesn't sound likely to me cause Yoda seems convinced that Dark Side = forever. ("..forever will it dominate you..")

What do you guys think?
(also I'm a new member so I hope this is the right forum to post this. Love this site so far though!)

 

Huh. Wasn't their something floating around about having a long lost sister of Luke (not Leia) show up in a later film? Am I completely off base?

Otherwise, I'm going with Han Solo. He cut that Tauntaun open like nobody's business.

 

There was no "another", at the time that he film was released anyway.

Both Irvin Kirshner and George Lucas have said that having Yoda say this was done to make the audience feel like Luke was expendable and could possibly die when facing Vader, as it turns out that he wasn't the last of the Jedi.

 

At the time that the OT was being made, the lead character had a sibling. The names changed, but it was always a plot point. Lucas pushed it to the back burner in late 75, as he was finalizing the third draft. During the making of TESB, the idea for a sibling resurfaced and it was during this that an idea had come up that the sibling was living in another part of the galaxy and was unknown to Obi-wan, but known to Yoda. But Lucas was going back and forth about that idea and it wasn't until he went to work on ROTJ that he had to address it. Because Kershner cut out all the scenes with Luke and Leia having romantic feelings for each other and addition scenes with them kissing, save for the kiss to make Han jealous, he was now left with a backdoor to make Leia the sister.

However, at times during the story conferences for TESB and more so for ROTJ came along, Lucas was starting to lean towards having Vader turn on Palpatine and kill him. By the time he went to work on ROTJ, Lucas had decided that that would be the conclusion of the film and that it wasn't going to be Luke or the sibling. So, retroactively, Lucas has Yoda imply that he is aware that someone else will destroy the Sith. We learn that Leia has the means to do so, but in the end, it isn't either child of Anakin, but Anakin himself.

 

Ah...this clears things up a bit in terms of the whole Luke kissing his sister...
Obviously canonically there's still a bit of an issue. Obi Wan knows about Leia in III and as stated before, Yoda seems to think dark side is forever in both V and III so it can't be Vader, right?
So I guess with episode III, should we revise the "other hope" not to be Leia cause Obi Wan is aware of her? (this is kind of a new topic)

 

I remember reading elsewhere that originally, the whole line about the "other" was put in for the hero of the ORIGINAL ST (not the one we're getting now, the one Lucas originally wanted to do) in case they decided to have Episode VI end differently. In fact, I think the original idea was for Luke to kill Vader then become his replacement, then the new hero would have to take Luke down.

 

Obi-wan knows of Leia, but given that she's in Vader's custody and Luke is going off to either die or turn, Obi-wan feels there is no hope. Yoda senses something will happen, but doesn't know what.

 

I always imagined this dialog took place sometime between Episodes 4 and 5:

"Hey Han, guess what? Leia and I just discovered we were born on the exact same day in the exact same hospital at almost the exact same time..!! How crazy is that..?!?"

 

Welcome to the forums. Also, great thread idea.

My headcanon: the brother/sister kissing, while evidence that the story wasn't totally thought through from the beginning, exposes the basic closeness of Luke and Leia, which in certain instances translates to sexual tension.

 

Darth Eddie I think the general idea was that they felt innate love for each other due to their genetic siblinghood, but decided against their potential mutual sexual attraction once they found out.

Realistically, genetic siblings can be sexually attracted to each other. Incest is morally debatable, but does happen. I won't share my opinion on it, but I certainly believe there was a romantic, and most likely sexual subtext between Luke and Leia.

 

A sibling dynamic was in the back of Lucas's mind from very early on. In the development of ESB, there is a note, "mention lost sister trained Jedi." In Leigh Brackett's draft of ESB, Luke's father (not yet merged with Darth Vader) appears in spectral form with Obi-Wan on Dagobah and explains the existence of a sister, "Nellith," who is undergoing Jedi training at the same time, on the other side of the galaxy. At that point in the evolution of the SW mythos, there would be 12 or more episodes, which might not be chronological, and which might include many "Adventures of Luke Skywalker" before the heroes deposed the Emperor in the final film. The Sister would be sought and found in one of these later movies.

But in subsequent drafts the specific mention of a sister was dropped. But with each successive draft, Yoda built back up to saying there already was 'another,' not just that they 'would have to find' another. Lucas has said that that line was inserted primarily to make the audience root against Luke going to Cloud City, but it seems like it could have been referring to something more specific.

The notion that the Other could have been a protagonist in a Sequel Trilogy comes, I believe, from The Secret History of Star Wars. The above, about the sister-across-the-galaxy-to-be-revealed-later, plus a quote from Lucas in... 1983? ... where he says that the Sequels are about "the character who survives Star Wars III and his adventures," were taken to mean that the ST could have focused on some character or characters being set up in those concepts. I always thought this was an awesome idea.

However, after reading The Making of Return of the Jedi, there doesn't seem to be any trace of this kind of thinking. There are very early one-page outlines for ROTJ, partially quoted but not shown, and in one of these the note "Sister!" is appended to a mention of Leia. And the storylines all end with the Empire being destroyed in Jedi, nothing past that. That's all we know. Plus, the "character who survives Star Wars III" is supposed to be Luke, I think. Star Wars III was a term used for Jedi, and at the time they were promoting the film, they tried to hype up a kind of "there can be only one" "two men enter, one man leaves" notion. Hence why Luke isn't mentioned by name.

 

The thing with the kissing in the final version of TESB is that it stems from the argument Han and Leia had in the beginning of the film. Remember that Han said that Leia is upset that she didn't get a goodbye kiss from him and she said that she would rather kiss a Wookiee, than kiss him. Later on in the recovery room, Han brings up their earlier conversation and they start fighting again, which reminds Leia of how that conversation ended. So she decided that instead of kissing a walking carpet, she would kiss the next best thing which was Luke. She didn't do it because she wanted to play tonsil hockey with him. She just did it to get a rise out of Han, which is exactly what happens as you can see on his face and Chewie's reaction.

 

Word. There is really no sexual tension between Luke and Leia.

 

Did anybody really root against Luke going to Cloud City? I totally always rooted for Luke to save his friends.
It would've been a big let down if we hadn't gotten some resolution to that tease of "There is another".

 

It's just another example of the story being made up as it goes along. It's all part of the charm of Star Wars!

I'm sure someone will blow this out of the water with an official explanation, but maybe the 'there is another' line was a fairly late inclusion in the ESB script when GL was moving towards having Luke and Leia as siblings again, but when they edited it together they just decided to leave the vaguely uncomfortable and contradictory kissing scene in as it flowed better that way.

 

I'm willing to believe that when Lucas was making E4, he didn't have the whole thing mapped out and didn't establish in their minds that Luke and Leia were twins. However, I do not believe that when they included the very cryptic "there is another" line, that it was thrown in there without the plan being mapped out by that point.

 

The specific line was a later inclusion, however, a variation on it did exist in the previous draft - "Now we must find another." GL's own explanation was that it was a way of emphasising the danger facing Luke, by suggesting that there was a very real possibility that he might die:

- From The Annotated Screenplays

- From the 2004 DVD commentary

As to why he changed it to being a far more leading line - stating quite clearly, that there is another - is a matter of debate. I don't believe it's possible that this 'Other' could actually have been Leia at that point, simply because the other hope for the galaxy could hardly be someone in the custody of Darth Vader, quite possibly facing imminent execution (which Yoda was somewhat aware of).
It also doesn't make much sense that Obi-Wan wouldn't be aware that Leia was either this other hope or Luke's sister - but his line, "That boy is our last hope", strongly implies that he isn't aware of anyone else, while Yoda is.

Personally, I don't think GL had anyone specifically in mind at the time, but it certainly wasn't Leia, and she wasn't Luke's sister then, either. At most, it's possible that the vague notion of Luke having a sister who was raised in hiding on the other side of the galaxy (mentioned in Leigh Brackett's draft of ESB) could still have been lingering in GL's mind, but I doubt that he gave too much thought to the specifics of such a plotline which wouldn't be even addressed for at least another decade.