Saga The Origins of Luke's father - Annikin Starkiller, Anakin Skywalker, or Darth Vader?

I wouldn't take a map to Dagobah hidden inside Anakin's lightsaber as a sign of him being Yoda's apprentice. I'd just assume that Obi-Wan hid it there.

 

Right..but in the second draft - the very draft that first introduces, "I am your father" - Yoda says that he trained both Ben and Luke's father.

 

So Yoda having not trained Anakin was only established/confirmed by ROTJ? Did not know that. It's a pretty significant aspect of Vader's fall in the finished films Imo. Obi-Wan could never open Anakin's eyes in the way Yoda and Obi-Wan do for Luke in the OT.

 

Maybe the idea in the second draft of TESB was that Yoda had trained all Jedi as younglings, as ended up being the case (except for Anakin, of course)?

 

I'm pretty sure it's clear that from the beginning George planned, or at least prepared for Vader being Luke's father.

In the scene where Luke visits Obi-Wan's home, when Luke asks Obi-Wan how his father died, Obi-Wan's facial expression turns to sudden apprehension,and seems very hesitant to tell Luke the truth.

It seems very apparent that Ben was speaking figuratively about Darth Vader killing Luke's father by the subtle movements of his face showing that he knows more than he is letting on to Luke.

Also, when Luke returns to Obi-Wan after discovering his Aunt and Uncle murdered by the Imperials, Obi-Wan has a look of wary silence after Luke declares he wants to become a Jedi like his father, which could be a sign that Obi-Wan was fearful of Luke' incentive for becoming a Jedi, and that wanting to become one out of a desire for revenge could lead him to the Dark Side as did Anakin.

 

I don't really agree.
If we look at the written evidence, scripts, novelizations etc. then this is unlikely.
The ANH novel has some of Obi-Wan's thought and they make it clear that unlike Owen, he isn't lying.
The first draft of ESB still have Vader and Father Skywalker as separate people as the ghost of the latter appears to Luke and Vader thinks back on murdering Luke's father.

But I we start looking at facial expression then what about the slight smile, almost to himself, when he talks about Luke's father and mentions that he was a good friend. That doesn't fit that well with Obi-Wan thinking about this evil monster that betrayed him and all the Jedi.

Also, Obi-Wan looks make perfect sense within the story that ANH establishes.
Luke has been lied to his whole life and now Obi-Wan has to be the one to tell him how his father really died. Add to that, the person that murdered Luke's father is a pupil of Obi-Wan.
So Obi-Wan could be blaming himself here, that since his pupil did this, had he not trained Vader at all or been more careful, then Luke's father might be alive.
This adequately explains his hesitation and uncomfortable look.

[/QUOTE]

But if we go with this reasoning, why did Obi-Wan tell Luke that his father was murdered by Vader?
That could very well set Luke on a murderous path of revenge.
But he tells Luke this and then he asks for Luke to come with him and become a Jedi.
So wouldn't he be concerned that Luke would do so only out of a desire to hunt down Vader?

Plus, revenge is not something a Jedi should do regardless, so Anakin need not to have fallen for Obi-Wan to be worried about Luke wanting to become a Jedi for the wrong reasons.

Bye for now.
The Guarding Dark

 

Bumping this thread....

I've been ruminating on the whole "Tragedy of Darth Vader" titled outline of the story that Lucas supposedly wrote back in 1975 (perhaps in between drafts two and three?). Does this title hint of a alternate-universe Star Wars "OT" - an OT that never was?

 

I don't know of any sources that mention this outline. Could you elaborate?

 

The sources are to my knowledge, mainly the making of Revenge of the Sith book (and doc?). He says it was an eight-page outline that was 'instrumental' in writing (the original) Star Wars. My interest in it admittedly has more to do with the implied story behind the title, than what Lucas says the outline was purportedly about story-wise. For me, "The Tragedy of Darth Vader" brings connotations to the table concerning the Star Wars saga that differ in comparison to what we ended up with (and this even just in terms of the OT by itself, even without bringing TPM-AOTC-ROTS into the picture).

edit to add:

For a long time, I wrote it off as promotional spin on the part of Lucas, but now wonder if it's a (perhaps deliberate?) clue that concerns the very speculations that have been discussed in this thread. I used to think that this outline didn't really exist, but now believe that if it really did exist, the tale it told was of a Star Wars trilogy that was significantly different story-wise than what ended up on-screen.

 

Anyway, I don't seem to recall a specific outline of this sort ever coming up. The 'Tragedy of Darth Vader' label was just something George Lucas liked to spin during the PT era, largely in reference to some gigantic treatment/draft which covered six episodes (which he then split in half, then had to divide into thirds). The idea behind it being that we were introduced to a villain halfway through the story, not realising that he's the hero, and he had twin children, blah, blah, blah.

But hey, you know that already, and I think we've all agreed in these discussions that such a claim is utter claptrap (at least, to the literal extent which GL takes it), and I've never seen 'The Tragedy of Darth Vader' mentioned as a title or summary of anything prior to 1999 or so. In the mid-1990s, GL was a bit more restrained, he simply talked about having 'always' had the idea of the "good and bad fathers", i.e. Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader - and even that was pushing it.

However, I'm assuming that you're referring to the possibility of something else - an outline or treatment that could be just as appropriately titled 'The Tragedy of Darth Vader', but which dealt with this earlier vision GL was describing in 1975 as "the soap-opera of the Skywalker family", and where "we learn who Darth Vader is." One with a shocking revelation regarding Vader, but not the one which has been established. Brother Skywalker, Darth Kenobi, maybe even Rhaegar Vader to Luke Snow .

OK, but I don't seem to recall any mentions of such a document. I've taken a look through my electronic copy of Rinzler's Making of ROTS (it's a scan, so I can't do a search) and can't find anything. Unlike his OT publications, Rinzler's ROTS book is more of a production journal than a full-blown chronological history of how the film came into being.

GL has made some funny comments in recent years which let slip how he was really making it all up as he went along (there's that letter to the producers of Lost, plus a good interview with Hayden Christensen where he actually talks about his first draft of SW in some detail, and also how Yoda was virtually a last-minute substitute for Obi-Wan in ESB, with no real backstory) - but TBH, if he ever mentioned an 'eight-page outline' which was 'instrumental' in writing SW, I suspect he's just referring to the 1973 Hidden Fortress-inspired treatment, and got the number of pages wrong (or not - he might have originally fit it onto eight, and the official typewritten version was thirteen). There's quite a bit in that treatment which made it through to the final Saga, particularly the redemption story, which skipped a few drafts.

However, if there is such an outline which was created around 1975/1976, between Drafts 2&3, you'd be talking about something which came about during one of the strangest periods of SW's development, but which led to the story finally finding its true structure. Draft 4 (1976) is basically a thorough rewrite of Draft 3 (1975), then the shooting script is Draft 4 with some modifications.
The first two drafts, however, are something else altogether, and it was between Drafts 2 & 3 that some of the wackier ideas for SW were brought up that never made it into any scripts - the female hero (let's call her Lucy Starkiller), who even received some concept drawings from Ralph McQuarrie, the 'hobbit' vision, the whole story being told as a bedtime story by a Wookiee, the all-Asian cast, etc.

 

This 'eight-page outline' has been nagging at me a bit, as it did ring a bell, so did a bit of digging. Took a closer look through Rinzler's Making of ROTS - nothing there, there's virtually nothing about the original evolution of the story, and just out of interest, the phrase 'Tragedy of Darth Vader' doesn't come up once.

So I went back to an old source, the one which can probably be credited with taking these discussions about the development of SW to the truly in-depth level to begin with - The Secret History of Star Wars. Here's the most relevant quotes from GL that I found in there (or it pointed to), and interestingly, they're from very different times, not just the release of ROTS (bold mine):

- Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays (1998), p120

- interview with Johnny Vaughn on The Big Breakfast, BBC Television, July 16th, 1999

- Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope DVD commentary, 2004


zombie does also include this outline/collection of notes in his appendix listing the scripts - he labels them as undated, but places the background notes between the Third Draft outline (May 1st, 1975) and the Third Draft (August 1st, 1975), and estimates them as being between 7 and 12 pages long.
He makes another entry following the Third Draft - 'Undated notes. Lucas also says that sometime around the third or fourth draft, he also sketched out sequel plot points. My estimation is that it more likely occurred during the writing of the fourth draft.'

Something to chew on. Reading these quotes back, I now don't believe (as I suggested in my previous post) that he's referring to the 1973 treatment. In fact, I'm inclined to believe that such material exists (or once did), but unfortunately, it's almost definitely something no one other than George Lucas himself has ever laid eyes upon.

It's also possible, and quite likely, that there were multiple versions of this outline, which changed as he took the story in different directions. The one he refers to in the 1999 interview could be completely different to the original that he drew up in 1975, i.e. it would resemble the actual PT which was made, whereas whatever he put down in 1975 could have included what Tosche_Station first suggested - "an OT that never was."
Another such outline, or outlines, could have existed between the completion of the OT and the beginning of the early stages of writing the PT - it was revealed a while ago that GL once considered a Kagemusha-style plotline in which the Obi-Wan Kenobi who trained Anakin Skywalker was really Qui-Gon Jinn, the real Obi-Wan's apprentice, who took on his master's identity after he was killed.

So yes, if one could get a hold of the 1975 outline, if it still even exists, no doubt it'd have quite a few surprises.

 

This was from the "In A New Hope, was Grand Moff Tarkin a higher rank than Darth Vader?" thread in the CT forums:

This has got me thinking: instead of looking for reasons why Lucas decided to make Vader Luke's father - which of course assumes that this hadn't occurred to Lucas prior to TESB - one should instead look for a reason why Lucas would make it look as though Vader was NOT Luke's father. To which the bold part above seems to be the answer.

 

edit to previous post:

Nibelung:

Re: your post #31 from the CT thread @"In A New Hope, was Grand Moff Tarkin a higher rank than Darth Vader?"

Your post has got me thinking about another story aspect: instead of looking for reasons why Lucas decided to make Vader Luke's father - a question which assumes that this idea hadn't occurred to Lucas prior to TESB - I submit that one should instead look for a reason why would Lucas purposely script and film the movie to make it LOOK as though Vader was NOT Luke's father, when he really was supposed to be* (in-universe and behind the scenes)? A question to which the bold part - "But he also reworked the story of the film, so that it could serve as a standalone movie in itself if necessary." - seems to be the answer.

*according to Lucas, by that point in time of making SW

 

It's been quiet for now, but:

I don't know if it was in another thread that one or several posters brought up the idea that Vader being the same person as Anakin was probably already in place by Spring of '78/Lucas's (Second) draft(s); I think the fact that in the very same (second) draft where Vader's shocking revelation makes it's first appearance, Yoda tells Luke that both Ben AND Luke's father* were students of his (Yoda), imho tends to exclude the probability that Lucas had already intended for Vader and Annikin/Anakin to have been the same person by that time period. My personal estimation is that this wasn't in place until he started writing what would become ROTJ.

*Annikin, the man presumed to be Luke's father that Ben spoke about in the first film

 

But in the filmed version of ESB, Yoda refers to Vader as "Obi-Wan's apprentice." Worth keeping in mind.

 

You are correct. In TESB Yoda confirms what Ben had told Luke in the first film, that Ben taught Vader. But in the second draft, where "I am your father" first appears, Yoda tells Luke that he taught both Ben AND Luke's father. To make a long story short, if (at this juncture of the writing process) Luke's father was Yoda's apprentice, then he couldn't be the same person as Vader.

 

Totally agree and on the same page. Anakin would even go to Yoda on occasion for advice and spar with him.

 

Most likely not. "Younglings" didn't come into the picture until Lucas made the PT. In the draft I was referring to, Yoda said that Ben and Luke's father trained "here" on the bog planet.

 

Lucas certainly did tweak and move things around during filming. Think about all the changes to StarWars would've had, if Lucas would have filmed it from his original draft ideas

I need to look this up for myself and see how different is the original draft. I know he had different ideas from interviews with Lucas.

 

"I am your father" doesn't mean "I am Anakin Skywalker." tosche_station has a point in suggesting that there very likely was a time Lucas considered a storyline where Darth Vader (whoever he was) slept with Anakin's wife.

"Only guarantee my cuckoldry the safety" indeed.

 

The thing is that it could have been at that point, that Yoda did teach Anakin/Vader and Obi-wan, but felt that the former was becoming too dangerous and thus Obi-wan decided to complete his training. Only for him to go bad.

 

Possible. Still, Lucas was clearly keeping his mind open to several answers to the question of "who is Darth Vader" while making the first film. Luke's older brother? Luke's uncle, Hamlet-style? Luke's illegitimate father? Ben Kenobi's son? Luke's father, Anakin, who was enslaved by the Emperor using an evil Force spell?

Lots of answers there that don't lead to the story we got in ROTJ.

 

Lucas intended them to be separate people in the beginning. The real question is when did he start to make them the same man. There's hints of it in the third draft, but he's kept it vague as to when he decided that they were the same man. From all accounts, he started going that way between February of 78 and April of that same year. They were separate when he and Brackett first met to discuss the story and she wrote her draft.

 

They were, at least, still potentially separate, as Brackett wrote it that way in her script. We know Lucas and Brackett discussed the issue of Luke's father, thanks to The Making of ESB, but the transcript, the substance, of their discussion was omitted.

 

Right. It seems likely that they were still separate, otherwise she would have written them as the same man in her draft. Lucas himself has also said that his thoughts weren't fully formed during the 77 meetings.