CT Did Lucas know Darth was Luke's father in ANH?

What's with people bashing Lucas because he didn't have the entire Star Wars saga written out perfectly since day one? You do realize that script rewrites HAPPEN ALL THE TIME and is perfectly normal...script rewrites even happen on the set while shooting..too much dispositions towards Lucas are misplaced...it's like you all want to convince yourselves that he had nothing to do with star wars and that him taking credit for it is a huge conspiracy..very sad

 

I think GL was brilliant in the way he did the OT... I mean, ANH could've been a stand alone movie if needed and he did it on purpose incase the money didn't start pouring in and the movie flopped. Think about it, the story COULD be wrapped up at the end of ANH; the death star is destroyed, Tarkin's dead, DV's lost in space, and Luke the average farm boy became the hero Obi Wan wanted him to be. I don't think he had all three movies (or six, or nine) clearly written in his head. Probably the skeleton of the plot, but I'm not 100% sure that he was entirely set on the fate of Luke's father, thus why ANH was wrapped up as tight as it was as insurance.

I think the line "he has too much of his father in him" simply meant to refer to the fact that it was established Luke's father was a Jedi, a hero, a skilled pilot, and followed Obi Wan on "crazy adventures." They made him sound reckless and lively, if Luke has those qualities, well he's just not suited for the farmer lifestyle.

I don't think GL had it mapped out in his head, no matter what he says, and that's OK, because he did see the connection that could occur and went with it without missing a beat. It was simply a matter of "Darth Vader's a fallen Jedi who turned to the dark side of the force and was a student of Obi Wans" and "Luke's father was a heroic Jedi who was killed, and also a student of Obi Wans." Not once was it said in the OT that a Jedi Master only had one student, so Darth Vader and Luke Starkiller's father could've been comrades both taught under Obi.

We'll never know though, 'cause GL likes to say tons of things and change his mind constantly.

 

Not sure who you are directing this comment at.
I wrote this for ex.

The argument is about what plot points Lucas had in mind when he made the first film and what came later. The people on my side argue that Lucas didn't have everything mapped and changed things as he went along. But that isn't intended as a bash or anything. Stories grow and evolve, that is clear. And many, including myself, think that the Father Vader plot twist was very good.

The people we argue against are the ones who are convinced that Lucas had almost everything mapped out from day one. That Star Wars was always "The Tragedy of Darth Vader."
Lucas had Vader as Luke's father from the word go and any evidence to the contrary is either Lucas spreading disinformation to preserve his big twist or due to a writer that was, "old, incompetent" and "Lucas hired her because he was sorry for her". And Lucas also lied and mislead her for pretty much no reason. So the conspiracy mostly comes from them. That Lucas knew he had such a great twist in Vader being Luke's father that he went to great length to keep it secret. He wrote scripts that said the opposite, he lied to his co-workers and he misled his script writer for ESB.
I don't believe that, I think that Vader became Luke's father in the second draft of ESB and I don't Lucas would mislead his script writer or lie to the people he worked with back then.

Lucas himself has argued that he had Vader as the father from the very start and we question the validity of that claim. Some of the early scripts of ANH have Vader and Luke's father as separate people and even the first draft of ESB had that. Plus various Lucas quotes from back in the day where he talks about Obi-Wan, Vader and Luke's father.

To sum up, I argue that the story and characters of SW grew and evolved over time. What they were at the start and how they ended up changed a lot. And this is not any kind of bash against Lucas. This is generally how writing works. You start and then story and characters take on a life of their own as you go along. And Vader being Luke's father was one such thing. Vader didn't start out as Luke's father but he became that. And this was a good twist.

Bye for now.
Old Stoneface