BTS JW Rinzler's 'Making of Return of the Jedi'

Absolutely nothing surprises me when it comes to the rumour mill, be it today or the 1980s.

From the article, it looks like we're in for a good few more surprises we've probably never heard of - I don't recall that one about Luke chaining Han up - and hopefully there'll be plenty of the ones we want, like "going back to early handwritten scribbles, in which Lucas muses that Luke might have a sister". At the very least, I think we might get confirmation that Leia as Luke's sister was something GL came up with post-ESB.

 

I mean, George Lucas has stated that Boba Fett was the other half of Vader when they were split into two different characters... but that's taking things a bit too literally.

 

in the latest issue of Empire there's a great extract from the book of the lengthy discussions between Lucas Kasdan and Marquand about the script , Lucas says that in the backstory Leia was 2 years old when her mother died .

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^^^^^
(Whoomp!!!..there it is...)

 

Boba Fett was rumored to be...just when you thought you've heard it all

Padme or Breha?

 

She might still have died in Episode III... because circa 1979, Luke was to be "three" or so in the last of the prequels. They could have been born in Episode II, and then hidden. If I were going to speculate, I'd think that the story at that point involved Anakin turning/leaving Ben in Episode II, with the twins being born perhaps after he leaves (maybe he doesn't know his wife/girlfriend is pregnant when he leaves). I'd imagine an arc for the Anakin character very similar to Luke's in the original trilogy, except when offered power in the second episode... he caves.

 

I think these little bits about Luke & Leia at the age of 2-3 were probably once intended for the 'Epilogue' that appears on that handwritten outline of the 12-film plan. When it was whittled down to 9 episodes, the vague intention of featuring the twins as infants in Ep III probably hung around, but was quickly jettisoned once it came to actually writing the PT.

As a result, GL no doubt realised that Padme was going to have to die much earlier - as opposed to just fleeing to Alderaan with Leia. Having her alive at the end of ROTS would have been way too much of a loose end, and Anakin's direct involvement in her death cements his fall that much more.

 

You may be right, but given the level of detail Lucas had for the political backstory... I would think he might have vaguely plotted out/outlined the events of the prequels, even if it later got changed. Then again, the films clearly evolved a lot in the 90s/00s, which would mean that if he did have plots in mind back in the day, he would have really had to throw much of them out... I dunno.

 

Well, I just received my copy of the book. It all looks very good so far. Lots of new concept art, and plenty of excerpts from the draft scripts.... much more than the ESB book had--it's more like the ANH one in that regard.

Rinzler does acknowledge early on (thankfully) that Leia was not always Luke's sister and that Lucas came up with this idea while brainstorming ROTJ.

As far as other script ideas go, I haven't delved fully in yet, but I did notice one rather alarming passage in the second draft--Kasdan's first version--from the scenes at Jabba's Palace. In earlier versions of the script Leia never went to Tatooine, so this is the first draft of the scene in which Jabba captures Leia:

Later on the script describes Leia's slave outfit thus: "dressed in the skimpy costume of a dancing girl; a chain runs from a manacle/necklace on her neck to her new master, Jabba the Hutt."

It's rather disturbing that the script actually invokes the old fairy-tale euphemism "a fate worse than death" right before Leia's forced offscreen costume change.

 

Definitely by 1993, the idea of testing for Jedi was in place as Kevin J. Anderson began writing "Jedi Search" and introduced the methods of detecting the Force in people. So whatever point Lucas had moved over to that idea, it was definitely before he started on the PT. And yes, by Lucas's own admission in 1999 and 2005, some people are more attuned to the Force than others.

"We also get into this thing of what are Midichlorians, how they work which advances a little bit of the story of the Force, and how does the Force work, how we come to know the Force which is part of Anakin’s training in learning to become a Jedi. And take the idea of the Force one step further. The Midchlorians are kind of a side issue. Not in a sort of spiritual, metaphysical part of the Force, but the more practical, biological, physical part of the Force, or how we come to know the Force, which has to do really with the genetics of why some people have more in tune to the Force than others."

--George Lucas, Star Wars-The Phantom Menace: The Annotated Screenplays, 1999.

"It was a virgin birth in an ecosystem of symbiotic relationships. It means that between the Force, which is sort of a life force, and reality, the connectors between these two things are what we call Midichlorians. They're kind of based on mitochondria, which are a completely different animal, that live inside every single cell and allow it to live, allow it to reproduce, allow life to exist. They also, in their own way, communicate with the Force itself. The more you have, the more your cells are able to speak intuitively to the Force itself and use the powers of the Force."

--George Lucas, Feburary 2005 issue of Vanity Fair, page 117.

Taking this in context with what was said in 81, this is where Lucas was going with it. The EU just worked off of what Anderson had come up with for his work.

 

What is this actual source?

I'm so, so impatient to find a copy myself. Were the first ideas much different than what ended up on screen? (I mean there's stuff like the Jawa hotel, Had Abbadon, and Sicemon, but I don't know just how early those are in comparison to, say, plot meetings.)

 

"Definitely before he started on the PT" was, as you stated, 1993....so, that's still some 10 years after ROTJ was released.

Thankfully, like you say. For a minute there, I thought Rinzler was just going to 'side-step' the issue, given how he presented some story-related issues with the last book (for TESB).

I can't wait to find out, either. My copy arrives Oct 5th/Saturday, or so.


edit:

 

Had Abbadon, the Jawa hotel, and Sicemon are all from really really early on--as in Lucas's first two rough drafts before he held the story conference with Kasdan and Marquand. Not much seems to have changed from the point of the story conference onward in terms of plot or design, but the conference itself seems to have been a rather contentious affair.

I actually have transcribed some of the most interesting bits from the story conference (which is really quoted quite extensively--it's worth buying the book for that alone). It's a bit long though, and would take up a post by itself. Let me know if you want me to post it here.

Rinzler shows a photo of the handwritten outline of notes (predating any finished draft) where Lucas first scrawls "sister" next to Leia's name--but it's very clearly an outline for the final act of ROTJ.

I haven't found any discussion about prequels. Not surprising given current developments. Of course, it's also well worth remembering how much wearier Lucas was of SW by this time (in contrast pre-production on ESB, when he was excited by the prospect of a twelve-film franchise), and how he really just wanted to get this last lousy darn film done.

Currently I'm delving into the bits later in the book--one thing that becomes painfully apparent is that the camerawork on principal photography was astoundingly incompetent.

Among other things, Richard Marquand and Lucas clashed over the issue of how many cameras to use. Lucas preferred to keep several cameras running at once, so as to maximize his options in the editing room. Whereas Marquand generally tried to determine how he wanted to shoot a scene in advance, using only one or two cameras, leaving little fallback option if the results proved unsatisfactory later.

Also, apparently some old film stock was used that resulted in many scenes having an uncomfortably bluish tint. ILM ended up having to fix the color timing on numerous shots, putting further pressure on an already hectic post-production schedule.
The book also makes clear how much Lucas controlled things during shooting: he was always on set, and not infrequently offered the actors advice that was contradictory to that of the director. Marquand's personality didn't help: he seems to have been very meek and introverted, and never really bonded with many of the actors.

Other bits are interesting too--like the confirmation that Lucas wanted Luke to be dressed in black because at the time he imagined this was the costume of the Jedi Knights:

Also we get to (finally!) see the second-draft script excerpt in which Obi-Wan refers to Owen Lars as his brother, as in the novelization:

 

Pre-ordered the Kindle edition from Amazon. Not sure about the "enhanced features" part, but it saves me about US $70, so.

...And there it is.

 

Are those the bits on OT.com?

An outline... that seems to be early in the process? Late? In other words, do there seem to be any clues as to at what point in the process this comes from, even if it's undated? I'm leery of asking about stuff like this, because I'd like to discover it myself, but...

Is there any mention at all of anything that might have to do with the sequels? Like... anything about an Other, or any vague notions of future events in the galaxy? These seem like a long shot, but they could be in there.

Well... Mark Hamill says it there. It makes sense, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's a Jedi outfit (though I could totally believe that that was the intent).

 

Yeah, the excerpts on OT.com were the ones I was hoping to also post here. Is that OK?

The outline I mentioned above is apparently from early in Lucas' brainstorming process on ROTJ, before he turned out a fully fledged draft script. The plot of the outline doesn't really diverge too much from the final film, at least not in ways we're not already familiar with. At this stage there are both "Ewaks" and Yuzzem (from Splinter of the Mind's Eye) on the Forest Moon as native species.

I've seen no mention of sequels, or any alternate plans for the identity of "the Other." Kasdan, however, complains in the story conference that, given the plot twists of ROTJ, Ben must have been very dense in ESB not to realize Leia's potential as a Jedi.

 

I guess? I mean it's not really up to me?

Aren't there some Yuzzem designs from early ESB? Looks like I have some stuff to look up...

EDIT. Yep. From Making of ESB, a McQuarrie sketch from October 19, 1977. I guess that's not necessarily relevant though.

Hah!

 

OK, here are the above-mentioned selections from the book's excerpts of the George Lucas/Lawrence Kasdan/Richard Marquand story conference. (Mods: If this is too much blockquoting feel free to take it down.)

It's interesting how argumentative Lucas and Kasdan seem to be--Kasdan objected to a lot of Lucas's ideas, and vice versa, while Marquand tended to be a mediating voice. Overall, Kasdan clearly wanted a more adult film, while Lucas pressed for just the opposite, a pure children's movie.

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Kasdan apparently had some trouble detecting when Lucas was kidding around. For instance, when Lucas suggested facetiously that Luke should put on Darth Vader's mask at the end of the film and declare himself Emperor, Kasdan said he liked the idea, but Lucas was actually horrified that he did.

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Kasdan also really wanted to kill off a hero--possibly Luke, so that Leia would be left as the sole Jedi, or possibly Lando. Lucas objected strongly to this:

Interesting that Lucas is complaining that Kasdan is too modern in his outlook on cinema.

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From the start Lucas had three poles he wanted the movie to revolve around:

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Some discussion on Luke's new lightsaber and how to integrate it into the film:

(Kasdan's suggestion wouldn't be taken up until post-production, and then only because the original blue saber blade effect didn't stand out against the California sky of the sail barge scenes. However, the change to green allowed Lucas to delete the poor-quality expository scene early in the film--shot entirely in pickups and completed with trims from ESB--of Luke completing his lightsaber and giving it to Artoo.)

Later, Lucas says of Anakin, "Now, when he falls into the pit, his other arm goes and his leg and there is hardly anything left of him by the time the Emperor’s troops fish him out of the drink."

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In discussions about Luke's legendarily recondite "plan" to deal with Jabba the Hutt, Lucas suggests that Luke's overall goal was always to lure Jabba and his cronies out on the sail barges over the Sarlacc pit, where they would be trapped in a confined space. There Luke and his friends who had infiltrated the palace could take them on more equally. Bargaining for Han's life was not the primary plan, but it would've been a nice bonus if it actually did work.

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When Lucas and Kasdan discuss Vader's motivation for bringing Luke to Palpatine, Kasdan wanted to make sure it was consistent with the previous film (where Vader hoped to turn Luke himself and overthrow the Emperor). However, Lucas wanted to downplay this idea because he feared it would telegraph the ending. Notably, however, Vader's old motivation was not dropped entirely:

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Lucas' original plot had the Death Star in orbit around Had Abaddon, the Imperial capital planet. The shield generator was sited on the lush forest moon orbiting this world, the home of the Ewoks. But Lucas obviously realized this was too complicated a setup--combining the destruction of the Death Star and that of the Imperial nerve center--and agonized about how to pare it down:

In Lucas' view the audience needs something simple and gripping, like a big explosion, to tell them evil has been defeated.

Eventually Lucas decided to jettison Had Abbadon altogether:

Lucas apparently thought that he had to choose between one of two set-pieces going into the film: either the immense Imperial capital world-city of Had Abbadon, or the lush primitive jungle world of the Ewoks. As he put it at one point, "I went through the whole thing and I wasn't very successful in coming up with another idea of how to finish it off and still keep my Ewoks going."

We know which option Lucas ultimately chose, but Kasdan repeatedly argued for going the other way--keeping Had Abbadon and dropping the Forest Moon (and the second Death Star) entirely.

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Interestingly, Kasdan argued that Luke should take over the Empire at the end of the film and become the benevolent ruler of the galaxy--an idea straight out of SW's inspirations John Carter of Mars and Dune, in both of which, at the end of the book, the protagonist is proclaimed Emperor due to his valor and heroism. Lucas rejected the idea as out of keeping with the political ideals of the SW universe:

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Lucas worried that Billy Dee Williams would be upset that his part wasn't larger; Kasdan accused Lucas of having "misled" Williams into thinking that he would have a larger role in the third film (what with Han Solo frozen in carbonite). The discussion segues into the possibility of Lando being killed. Lucas categorically rejected it, but Kasdan worried that this would make Lando's role in the story inconsequential:

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There was considerable discussion on the appearance of Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker when unmasked. Kasdan encouraged Lucas not to "wimp out" with the scars and gore, but Lucas worried about upsetting little kids and repelling them instead of inspiring sympathy. In fact, he says he very much disliked the scarring of Vader's head seen in ESB.

Interestingly, despite Vader having been deep-fried in a lava pit, they consider the possibility of him growing a beard. In Kasdan's subsequent second draft, the unmasked Vader is an elderly man with a white beard. "His eyes do not focus. But the dying man smiles at the sight before him."

Incidentally, there was also an version of the script with a fake ending distributed, which was meant to throw leakers off. In this version it is Luke who, after he goes limp while being electrocuted, suddenly rises up to throw the Emperor down a shaft. Later, during the unmasking scene, we get this patently false tidbit:

The Annotated Screenplays mistakenly reported this as a real variant of the ending. In this respect it's not unlike the shooting script for ESB, which omitted both Vader's revelation and Luke's loss of a hand. (Instead of outright severing his hand, in this version Vader merely nicks Luke's forearm, causing Luke to drop his lightsaber. Later, On the medical frigate later Luke is seen getting patched up after receiving "a nasty scar" on his arm.)

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Lucas mused about the possibility of cutting away to other planets during the ending celebration scene:

Given Lucas' ambivalence about how the film's closing scene should be treated, perhaps it's not surprising he opted to revise it in 1997.

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Marquand's role in all this appears almost sycophantic--in these transcripts I don't think he even once expresses disapproval of one of Lucas's ideas. Kasdan on the other hand challenged Lucas all the time, and Marquand seems to have been rather annoyed at their constantly butting heads: "I am surprised at you guys--you spend a lot of time throwing scorn on each other's ideas."

Elsewhere Marquand provided this interesting anecdote that really sums up Kasdan's thinking as contrasted to his own:

Kasdan wanted to surprise and shock the audience, Marquand not to upset them.

 

ATMachine I don't understand why Lucas thought it was either the DSII/Sanctuary Moon or Had Abaddon. Why would the planet have had to blow up, exactly? I wouldn't it be enough for the Emperor's lair, or Imperial Garrisons, or whatever, to be destroyed, and a celebration/riot to erupt? Obviously these are things you can't answer because they're things that only 1980-George Lucas could speak to... but I still wonder. Just because there wouldn't be a single Earth-Shattering Kaboom?

 

There is actually a section of the transcript where Kasdan proposes exactly that solution--blowing up the Imperial Palace or another evil government building--and Lucas doesn't seem very enthused. Apparently he really really wanted a single Earth Shattering Kaboom (because kids would apparently be too stupid to understand the Empire was destroyed otherwise.)

There was apparently also discussion (mentioned but not given verbatim in the book) of igniting the planet's atmosphere or knocking it off its axis Lensman-style, but it seems Lucas didn't like either of those ideas.

In a passage elsewhere Lucas suggests that the real reason may have been budgetary. After the huge cost overruns on Empire, I would guess he was afraid of the enormous expense involved in depicting the aerial bombardment and destruction of an entire city-planet.

 

Meh!

My own concern would be... isn't the point to free the people of the Empire? I guess you could say they're complicit, but blowing up the whole planet? Sounds pretty Alderaan-esque. So I can see why that might not be a good solution. Still don't understand why the 'smaller scale destruction' wouldn't work. Though perhaps Lucas truly was thinking in an Evil Empire vein (like they must be totally destroyed) while Kasdan, et al, think in less fantastical/simplified terms. Perhaps?

EDIT. You could even do the Death Star(s) above Had Abaddon or its Green Moon, having them be symbols of the Empire's might (as spoken of by Tarkin in Star Wars) - or even have them be the only thing keeping the Empire in absolute, strong power - and their destruction (pretty much just like in the final film) trigger the riots on the planet below, etc. Whatever, I guess.

 

Underlining mine. I find that part - and the idea that it was always his intention - very interesting, given how widely agreed-upon it seems to be that this is how the final film turned out. Of course most fans would phrase it differently, but it's still interesting and a little surprising to see that tonal distinction was intended right from the start.

 

I can tell you that I ABSOLUTELY believed that was the intent back in the day. It was simply understood, based on statements like this, that the Jedi back in their prime wore a simple and effective black tunic with boots and, when needed, an outer cloak. The decision to ditch that concept for the prequels, and establish that all Jedi actually wore what were essentially clean versions of the hermit robes Obi-Wan was wearing in ANH, was one of the first things that made me go "Huh? What?"

 

"Lucas: There are three parts to the movie: Jabba, the Ewoks, and Luke and the Emperor. Luke and the Emperor are not fun and the other two are."
This was a very smart idea. I love how the movie changes tone. I also think it’s interesting how he’s so against overly depressing endings, and then later on goes to work on the prequel, which is almost too depressing an ending where practically everyone dies. It’s like, all or nothing in either direction with no ambiguity whatsoever (which really works for this series.)

"Not only did Luke lose his weapon and was castrated" K Shortly after insisting this was intended for kids, Lucas goes all weird on us.

 

The 'castration' GL refers to is merely metaphorical - Luke loses his sword hand, a symbol of his potency. Nothing particularly weird about it at all, or even uncommon in fantasy tales - in LOTR, Sauron has his finger cut off, Frodo has his bitten off by Gollum, while in the saga of A Song of Ice and Fire (better known as Game of Thrones), Jaime Lannister has his sword hand cut off. I'm sure there's a good few broken wands in the Harry Potter series, too. It taps into a primal fear - losing one's fireman.
It's similar to the Oedipal theme - killing your father in order to make love to your mother - it isn't completely literal when used to describe a storyline (well, apart from Oedipus Rex, of course).

ATMachine - great work, and welcome back! Stand by regarding your extensive transcripts of the book, I'm consulting with other JC staff to see if there might be an issue, but I'll leave them there for now.