CT What if Luke/Leia had happened?

If, obviously, they had not become siblings and had not been separated in part 2?

The big three had continued together, or it had been Han who had been temporarily cut off, somewhere else, but Luke pursued Leia and she fell for him?

How different might Luke the aspect of having more Jedi training have gone and what other story elements might Han instead have gone through?

 

Ooh, that's a very interesting question!

Well, Star Wars as we know it would probably be very different. An important question here is context - what's the reason Luke and Leia aren't made siblings in this alternate timeline? Did Lucas not suffer from the burnout he did when making ROTJ? What other factors might've changed? I guess, just for simplicity's sake, let's say everything stays the same that can stay the same, aside from Luke/Leia getting together instead of turning out to be siblings

Off the bat, the PT would be relatively the same, I think. The only things that'd really need to change are the end of ROTS and I suppose a few Padme/Leia parallels wouldn't work so well anymore

The ST would be a very interesting thing to explore, though. Hell, maybe it would've been made before the prequels, even? Does it follow some of the early ideas from the 80s? Do we meet Luke's "real" sister, Nellith? I feel like Han would just be too important of a character (not to mention popular) to drop completely without good reason. It's possible, if the character became irrelevant, he might not show up in this alternate ST. They could just say he's off doing his own thing. I do get the impression Harrison Ford genuinely likes the role - I think he said something about agreeing to his TROS cameo because it benefitted the story? Though I'm sure he's also not exactly likely to turn down a $15 million+ contract if he's called on for it lol

I guess in this alternate scenario, Luke and Leia's kid would end up a central character, and I don't see why they wouldn't be able to make that character pretty much the same as Ben Solo, just he'd be named Skywalker. That still leaves pretty much the same character arcs for Luke and Leia to go through, but without as personal a connection to those events, it would be interesting to see how Han plays into it all

Now that I type this all out, I feel like that really is the biggest mystery that you could take anywhere. Maybe he would be an uncle-like figure who could have pretty much the same character arc anyway? Maybe he'd just stay uninvolved? Some other generic heroic death? Who really knows

 

Read Splinter of the Mind's Eye.

 

Or better yet, don't.

 

We do! She's Rey! Well if you ignore the sister part of it, but she's otherwise more or less who the sister was gonna be (in the times when the "other" was really going to be his blood sister, but sometimes she was not and then it's even closer still). Kira (original name for Rey and still the name used until sometime after Lucas and Arndt dropped out or working on TFA)/Rey seems something drawn from some various early ST thoughts. The girl with immense force powers on the farthest edge of the galaxy, in the middle of nowhere, the original "no, there is another" other. Sometimes Luke's sister, sometimes a Skywalker just by the force alone, sometimes just her own thing. The ST we got didn't give us the former (his sister) but did give us most of the rest. Interesting that Solo had a Qi'ra in it (wild speculation was that she would be Rey's mother).

 

Hm, I personally have my doubts that Rey (or as Lucas/Arndt conceived her, Kira) was directly inspired by the old Nellith idea. Aside from being a human female Force user, that's pretty much all the two characters have in common - not that we know all that much about what might or might not have been planned for Nellith, aside from being Luke's long lost sister

I also might be misremembering a few details here, but at the time of TESB's writing, I know the "other" didn't originally refer to Leia as we got in reality, nor was it necessarily referring to Nellith, but just the then-undecided protagonist of a potential ST that might've been made had it been decided that Luke would fail in his mission (now there's an interesting thought - imagine an Episode VI that concluded with a failure for the heroes and overall downer ending!)

 

Lucas had already leaned into Han and Leia by September of 77, well before making Leia related to Luke. So it was never in the cards. And if you Krutz into account, it definitely seems true.

 

You could still play out a lot of it the same. Endor doesn't have to change at all. Luke can go as Leia's love interest and then surrender to Vader to protect her. Han can still step aside. Vader can still goad Luke by threatening Leia. It's ESB that needs to be figured out.

 

There’s a deleted scene from TESB where Luke and Leia almost kiss before the actual kiss, only to get interrupted by C-3PO. To my surprise, the chemistry between the two of them was really good.

As for the topic of this thread, I’m assuming this is in a scenario where Lucas didn’t get burned out making Star Wars films and therefore didn’t condense four movies worth of story into ROTJ. In which case, I imagine the film wouldn’t feel as rushed which means it wouldn’t need to have Yoda and Obi Wan dumping a bunch of exposition on Luke to quickly wrap up all the plot points from ESB. I could see Luke actually completing his training when he returns to Dagobah while Han and Leia go on a mission, which may or may not involve Ewoks in this hypothetical scenario. Vader would still have his redemption but the Emperor would not appear in the flesh as they originally wanted to save him for episode nine, which likely would have come out in 1992. Similarly to ROTJ, Han Solo would step aside and Leia would end up with Luke. Even if Lucas didn’t get burnt out making Star Wars films, I doubt he would change his mind about killing off Han Solo.

Regarding the sequel trilogy in this scenario, it would probably play out the way Gary Kurtz described; with Luke continuing his journey as a Jedi, finding and training his sister, and the two of them defeating the Emperor in episode nine. I can easily see Han ending up with Luke’s sister, whatever her name would be.

So in this hypothetical the couples would be:
Luke and Leia, Han and Luke’s sister.

As for beyond the films, characters like Jacen, Jaina, and Anakin Solo, and Ben Skywalker could still exist. The only difference being they would have different mothers.

 

Ben might've had three eyes.

 

JediAvatar said:

"So in this hypothetical the couples would be:
Luke and Leia, Han and Luke’s sister.

As for beyond the films, characters like Jacen, Jaina, and Anakin Solo, and Ben Skywalker could still exist. The only difference being they would have different mothers"

I like to continue down this rabbit hole of post ROTJ of what might have been or in our case, should have been as Luke shouldn't have been Leia's brother.
Again, ROTJ is a great movie and I'm fine with the way it went down.
The way everything tied together and closed out was wonderfully done. Or we can say a little too neatly tied up. Luke had this sister...we are saying it's this Nellith and Luke decides to save his father and right after credits roll in ROTJ, finds out from Obi Wan and Yoda Force spirits that he has a sister. Anakin Force spirit has a jaw dropping moment.
After hearing the stories of the PT (which we could always change also) Luke decides Jedi can marry. He marries Leia while Han and Chewy set off to help him find his sister.
Luke and Leia give Han a lead and leave the rest to the Force.
Han finds the sister without knowing it's her. They fall in love, and we can keep certain EU stories in tact. I never read any post EU stories but they have a strong connection to so many fans. And they made Thrawn canon so why not?
Han and Luke's sister have three kids (maybe no twins as twins I think skip generations) keep the names in EU, Luke and Leia have Ben and start the academy. Later it is revealed Han has married Luke's sister and Thrawn and the Empire Remnants attack with the Emperor either finally revealed or shown as a clone like TROS.
The Rebellion is now the New Republic and join forces with other cells around the galaxy to fight off Thrawn and the Empire in Episodes 7-9. The intriguing story line would focus on the children with Anakins Force spirit playing a huge role.

 

All it really added to the original films was giving Vader a way to bait Luke into attacking him. However, they don't need to be siblings for this to work. If you go by what the first two films say about the Force, there's no reason Leia couldn't still have it. You did not originally have to come from a Force-sensitive family.

Leia being not only Luke's sister but, by extension, Darth Vader's daughter, only subsequently contributed to Kylo Ren's story.

 

Luke Real Sister would then be Nellith Skywalker

 

One of the other elements of the original outline for ROTJ (again according to Kurtz) was Leia becoming Queen of the remaining people of Alderaan, and grappling with her new duties. I know this would sound strange to some people but it’s survivors from an entire planet, so there’s likely to be a fairly good number of people who survived, even if it was only a small percentage of the planet’s population itself.

Building off from this, I could see Han and Leia naturally splitting up as a result of Leia being too busy for Han’s liking, even though she was Chief of State of the New Republic in the EU/Legends timeline, in which they stayed together. But there’s also the factor of Luke in this case, so yeah. Unless of course George Lucas agreed with Ford, Kasdan, and Kurtz to kill off Han Solo, in which case the love triangle would end with that. Although I have to say I’m glad that Lucas decided not kill off Han Solo.

I’m assuming that the reason Leia would become a queen in this scenario would be to rally the remaining people of Alderaan, and also to be a symbol to other planets/systems either fighting against the Empire or those who wish to but are still a bit frightened to do so. While she is doing that, Luke would be searching for and training his sister, and they would get back together either during that time or after the defeat of the Emperor.

I see where you’re coming from but the name ‘Nellith’ was from Leigh Brackett’s original draft of TESB. There is a chance that they would have used that name for Luke’s sister but part of me doubts it considering that Yoda’s name was ‘Mitch’ in Leigh Brackett’s draft of the script, and he was blue instead of green.

 

They would need to follow up on Yoda's line a different way, one way would be to make it so that when Luke comes back to Dagobah his secret sister is there, having been secretly training with Yoda the whole time.

Her thing could have been that she does not believe Vader to be redeemable and wants to kill him.

However, if the trilogy is to end with Luke and Leia together, then it would probably make no sense to have those Han/Leia moments in TESB. A bit difficult since that's the emotional core of the movie's B-Plot. But since Han is in his mid-30s and Leia 20s perhaps it could be, well not quite father-daughter, but a different kind of friendship that's developed.

You'd want to keep that deleted Luke/Leia scene from Empire and give them a more romantic reconciliation at the end of the movie, so by ROTJ they're basically a couple.

 

Agreed. "Nellith" is rather an awkward name. But since it has an interesting suggestion of Lilith, the mother of demons in Jewish folklore (perhaps suggesting that Luke's sister might be turned to the Dark Side?), had Lucas et al. introduced Luke's sister as a separate character, they might've opted for another name that has a similarly dark real-world referent, but one that's easier to pronounce.

Maybe something taken from Buddhist mythology, since Yoda is so Zen. "Mara", perhaps...

 

It would make for some awkward dinner parties