CT Did a lot of fans hate the reveal of Luke and Leia being siblings when it was first revealed in VI?

I absolutely agree with that.
For the record, I'm totally fine with the Leia/sister revelation as it is in the movie.
And it works just beautifully with the ending of Empire, in which Leia is able to "hear" Luke's call.

 

I turned 13 in 1983. I did not like Luke and Leia being siblings then, and I do not like it now. I do not remember any of my friends thinking it was cool (unlike Vader being Luke's father, which plenty of my friends [but not all] thought was cool).

 

If the memory I have is correct-I don't recall being shocked by the twins reveal. I thought it was fine as, in my prepubescent stage, I'd never put the two together romantically (although... I was at the time, and still am a bit, twitterpated for Agnetha from ABBA ). I do recall being resistant to seeing the movie initially because I didn't believe it would be as good as ESB, which I lived and breathed. I mean, snowspeeders and the AT-AT... Come on!

 

It's really silly and it brings the movie down.

 

It does seem to nudge the story into parody territory. It was perhaps a revelation too far. Don't worry though, JJ Abrams will outdo it.

 

Thank you and I mostly agree as well.

But to me, the ESB thing was not a factor to me.
Because Luke is the one doing the work. He is contacting Leia.
He isn't just hanging there and Leia senses him. That happens in RotJ when she knows he wasn't on-board the DS2.
But Luke is reaching out and speaking in her mind.
To me, that did not imply Force-sensitivity on her part.
In stories with telepathy, the telepath is the one doing the job.
The person hearing the voice in their head, they don't need to be telepaths as well.

Bye for now.
Blackboard Monitor

 

It doesn't imply that, but it works even better with the revelation.
The same thing happened with Uncle Owen's line "that's what I'm afraid of". It works even better with Luke's father being Vader, even though it had a different meaning originally.

 

In some stories, yes. In others, certain telepaths can only "Mindspeak" to other telepaths.

 

luckily Leia's head didn't explode like Scanners.

 

A nod to Dune of course. Camie probably lived in some kind of settlement, while Luke lived out in the deep desert, the place where Shai Hulud is most likely to appear.
Yes, it seems in the novel Luke was actually interested in Camie, until he discovered his sister! I still think the sister should not have been Leia, nor that introducing a new character in ROTJ would have harmed the movie. This way it just feels a little too "inbred", with everyone being related. But of course they had to overdo that in TFA as well, with the main villain (of course!!) being the son of OT heroes.

 

That's a decent bandaid though Luke and Leia being siblings was not the original idea. GL just went with it because he needed time to get his private life in order and wanted some kind of closure to the story and made them siblings.

I do not recall much talk in 1983 concerning the matter. I recall anti-Ewoks comments which sounded exactly like Jar Jar comments.

 

It definitely wasn't the idea during ESB. By that point Lucas had decided to pair up Leia & Han, no doubt because of the real-life chemistry/affair between Carrie Fisher & Harrison Ford. But both characters would likely be killed off during the third SW film.

Nonetheless, having Luke & Leia be siblings, complete with incest plotline, was likely an idea on the table during the writing of the first film. This was back when Lucas almost certainly assumed that Luke rather than Han would "get the girl". Hence why Ralph McQuarrie's 1975 third-draft concept art varies between depicting Leia with long dark hair or a blonde bowl cut almost identical to Luke's, while Luke's own character design is invariably in the sandy-haired Flash Gordon mold.

Of course, siblings doesn't mean twins. The 1975 third draft specifies Luke's age as 20 and Leia's as 16. But in both the Ring Cycle and Arthurian mythology, the incest is between half-siblings born at different times, rather than twins.

 

Lucas had been preoccupied with ideas about twins and sibling pairs going back to early drafts of the original Star Wars. At one point the story was about a younger brother going to rescue his older brother, then it became about a younger sister going to rescue her older brother, then it became about a boy going to rescue an older girl. But all the while there was this idea of a hero split in two, an older half and a younger half. Eventually this morphed into a female half and a male half. So in this sense Leia was always Luke's female "twin." But at this point Lucas had apparently decided to make the female "twin" the hero's unrelated love interest rather than his biological sibling.

While drafting the first sequel Lucas toyed with the idea of introducing a literal, biological female twin, maybe having regretted establishing Leia in the role that he had in the first film instead of sticking with the sibling motif. But of course this never came to pass. When Jedi rolled around Lucas still felt this desire to create a biological twin for Luke, but of course he had no time to introduce a whole new character like that, and so the only remaining choice was to make Leia the biological twin. She was the obvious choice, of course, since she was already his figurative twin.

This is the real reason Leia became Luke's sister despite there being little seeming plot necessity. The idea of twins was important to Lucas, and was in fact already a fundamental part of the symbolism behind the Luke/Leia dynamic.

(At the same time, it must be noted that Han Solo was in some ways filling the role of the older brother from previous drafts, and so in this sense could also be termed a "twin." But of course he wasn't exactly relevant to the male/female duality which Lucas had become increasingly preoccupied with.)

 

The problem with shoe-horning it into ROTJ was that to me it simply felt like having another go at trying to get another <audience gasps> type revelation in, but which felt contrived and underwhelming after the killer revelation from TESB.

Lucas may well have had this idea toying around in his head for years, but perhaps he should have looked at the two movies already released and considered whether slotting it into the third actually served the story or whether it may have been (as I often mention) more aesthetically pleasing from an artistic point of view to just step back and refrain from putting it in. I think it would have been. The story would have felt leaner and more focused I think

 

As @The_Phantom_Calamari points out, in the 1975 third draft, Leia took over the role of Luke's older brother Deak Starkiller from the second draft. So it's hardly surprising that even while making the first film, Lucas considered retaining a biological relationship between Luke & the character he rescues from an Imperial prison.

However, the idea of Luke's "lost sister" from the ESB era has a huge hold over the imagination of SW fans, in part because ROTJ does a very clumsy job of fitting Leia into that role. (And in part because Lucas has gained a reputation as a colossal liar, so anything he says is taken with an automatic grain of salt.)

But as mentioned above, the concept of Luke having a sister "out there somewhere" apart from Leia was an idea that came in during the making of ESB, rather than before. Much like Vader being Luke's father, actually.

 

I don't mind the idea per se, I just think that it was badly handled in ROTJ. The other point being is that if you have got two thirds of your trilogy in and you haven't really resolved it, is it worth adding in at all, especially if that addition is going to feel a bit ham-fisted? It didn't really improve the narrative.

 

I totally agree. In ROTJ the idea felt shoehorned in and undermined the narrative. But a lot of fans think it was made up specifically for that film, as a way of quickly resolving the Luke/Leia/Han love triangle, when the truth is its origins go back to the very foundations of SW.

 

I don't know, if I must be honest. It didn't bother me. I think it's because their connection was somewhat hinted in "TESB" in a comment that Yoda had made to Ghost Obi-Wan.

 

At the time, "the Other" was meant to be a lead-in to the idea of Luke's lost sister "out there". The idea was this lost sister would appear along with Luke in a Sequel Trilogy, set after a third SW film where Darth Vader, Han, and Leia died.

When ROTJ came around and Lucas decided to wrap up the SW series with one film, the sister role was shifted -- or rather, restored -- to Leia.

 

Mmmm.. that's all speculation on your part, isn't it?
The idea that the Other refers to Luke's lost sister is defended by zombie in The Secret History of Star Wars, but there is no way of actually demonstrating that.
And Han and Leia dying on Jedi… where does that come from?

 

Logical analysis and extrapolation from archival sources. Vader and Han dying in the third SW film is something Gary Kurtz mentioned frequently. He also said Leia would become "queen of her people," but I think in that case Kurtz may have been confusing ideas for a third film that concluded the series versus one that segued into a Sequel Trilogy.

And Lucas described the ST in 1980 as dealing "with the character that survives Star Wars III and his adventures," which almost certainly refers to Luke Skywalker. With the roster of heroes cleaned out in such a manner, the "lost sister" plotline seems like a logical follow-up.

 

Allow me, then, to argument against your logic

You are giving credit to Kurtz, and at the same time doubting some of his statements. Either he is right about Han dying and Leia becoming "queen", or he's wrong in both cases.
In my opinion, I doubt it very much that Lucas ever envisioned Leia or Han ever dying at the end of the trilogy. That's just not the kind of fairy-tale "magic and swords" storyline he was writing. He has often talked about how, as a kid, he hated it when the good guys died in the movies.
As far as we know, Leia dying in ROTJ was never even considered.
And Lucas was very much against Han dying either, from the very begining (you can see in the story conferences how he never even allows for that possibility).
In any case, I think all this talk about "Han dying" comes from Harrison Ford, who likes to say that he didn't want to do ROTJ, and from Kurtz, who wanted a different kind of film altogether.

Lucas very clearly described the ST being set about 30-40 years after the OT, and being a different story ("someone else's vision"). It's very unlikely that the main hero of the trilogy was meant to be Luke's long-lost sister, because the sister would be about 60 years old!
I agree that Luke was "the character that survives Star Wars III", but he'd be a sort of Obi-Wan, passing the torch to a new generation (NOT to his sister).

 

In the final draft of A New Hope, Leia wasn't literally Luke's sister. But, as a character, she filled the same role that the older brother filled in an earlier draft. In one incarnation of the story, when the main hero was to be a girl, the movie was even about a brother/sister pair, with the sister rescuing her brother from an Imperial prison. So the concept of a sibling counterpart was part of the nebula of shifting ideas which gave rise to the Leia character (in her final incarnation). That's what I'm referring to when I say that Leia was in some sense always Luke's twin.

I think this is what Lucas is referring to, as well. He does have a tendency to mythologize the development process, but I think that's in large part simply because all this stuff would be too complicated to explain in a way that the average person would easily understand. If he says Leia was always the sister, that is, in a creative sense, somewhat true. If he says Leia wasn't originally the sister, that's not necessarily any more true, because it gives the impression that he just pulled the idea out of thin air for Return of the Jedi, which would be misleading for the reasons I've explained.

The point is, when Lucas says Leia was always the sister, he's not just totally B.S.'ing us like many people think. He is actually referring to a documented history. And I think he has tried to explain this:



"The original concept really related to a father and a son and twins--a son and a daughter. And it was that relationship that was the core of the story, and it went through a lot of of machinations before I even got to the first draft of the screenplay. And various characters changed shapes and sizes, and it isn't really until it evolved into what is close to the Star Wars now that I began to go back and deal with the stories that evolved to get us to that point. It's hard to say really how it evolves into a piece, because it evolves into various scenes and various moments, and when you're creating something like that the story itself takes over and the characters take over and they begin to tell a story apart from what you're doing, and you kind of go with it, and you have to go with it, and it sends you down some very funny paths, and you have to figure out how to break that apart and put the puzzle back together so it's cohesive. But that's the adventure of writing--is the fact that you're not sure where it's going to go. And I think it took a while--I mean I worked on Star Wars for a couple of years before it evolved into what it is."

Provided you take "original concept" as what he actually means by it--which is the core hodgepodge of motifs and themes which served as the skeleton for the various drafts leading to the final draft of Star Wars--this is essentially true. The spirit of it is true. The rough draft is about a father and son and twins; the father even sacrifices his life for the twins in a pivotal moment of the story. It wasn't actually about a son and daughter at this point, but a couple drafts later it was, and it was this draft that gave rise to the basic story as we know it, with the roles played by the son and daughter now being played by Luke and Leia. But try explaining all this is in an economical and easily-digestible way. That's the problem Lucas has.

 

I agree the "lost sister" plotline would make little sense in an ST set decades after the OT, where Luke acts as an Obi-Wan figure. Likewise, Han & Leia dying would hardly be something Lucas wanted as a finale to a generational trilogy of SW films.

But Lucas also said Luke would have "adventures" in the ST, which doesn't sound much like an Obi-Wan figure. And the lost-sister plotline is the most logical explanation for what Lucas was thinking with the "Other" in ESB.

An ST set only a few years after the OT would allow for all these elements: Han and maybe Leia dying in the third film, a still-young Luke having adventures in the later films, and the lost sister/Other showing up to help bring down the Empire. That way, the third film in the OT wouldn't be the end of a generational trilogy, but the midpoint of a larger six-film arc.

 

An ST set only a few years after the OT would allow for all these elements: Han and maybe Leia dying in the third film, a still-young Luke having adventures in the later films, and the lost sister/Other showing up to help bring down the Empire. That way, the third film in the OT wouldn't be the end of a generational trilogy, but the midpoint of a larger six-film arc.[/QUOTE]

Ah, but Lucas was very clear about his intention about each trilogy being separated in time by a generation, and featuring different characters. He never talked about a "six-film arc" comprising episodes 4-9, as far as I'm aware.
And as you said, Lucas never said he wanted Han or Leia dying either.

I sort of agree with you, but let's not fool ourselves: Lucas has very deliberately mislead fans about having the whole story figured out from the beginning. Even if I agree that the "father-son" and "brother-sister" motifs where there, and are essential to Lucas' understanding of the STORY, it is also true that, when it comes to the actual PLOT of the films, Vader wasn't the father and Leia wasn't the sister.
(The economical and easily-digestible way of explaining it would be to say exactly that: the story elements where there in his mind, floating from draft to draft in different ways, but the plot was decided and altered as each film was being made).