CT Earlier drafts of OT films

I just finished reading the screenplay that Leigh Brackett wrote for TESB - it didn’t have a title besides “Star Wars sequel.”
Obviously there are elements that Lucas kept; the swampy planet later called Dagobah where Luke goes to train (although this time he stumbles on it after an encounter with Vader), ghost Obi-Wan, a planet like Hoth, and Bespin- although Bespin is called Hoth.

Other elements are very different and make me think about how the saga would have gone if they had been incorporated. The big elephant in the room is that Luke’s father appears as a Force spirit, also naming Luke’s non-Leia sister who is yet to be met. Similarly, Han has a powerful relative who he sets off to recruit at the end, not being captured.
There is a heavier emphasis on the love triangle between Han, Luke and Leia, and Vader is aware and tried to use it to unlock Luke’s dark feelings. I suspect this would have persisted in the next sequel. Luke and Vader’s final duel is very similar to the final product, except obviously no father reveal, and Luke escapes by jumping instead of having his hand severed.
Generals Dodonna and Willard reappear in this draft, though I’m sure actor availability would have affected this onscreen. We see the Imperial capital which is neither Coruscant nor the Had Abaddon that appears in ROTJ’s early drafts/ I want to talk about that too.
Finally, the entire main cast is together for the majority of the film, except for Luke’s adventures with Minch, Obi-Wan, and Skywalker sr.
The characters often talk in ways they never would in canon, most notably Threepio, Vader and Luke. You’d have to see it to know what I mean, it’s hard to explain.

 

Vader telling an Imperial officer "Leave me, you incompetent idiot," stands out as a case in point. No wonder Lucas and Larry Kasdan's subsequent drafts doubled down on the Force choking.

On the other hand, Vader does say to Luke at one point that "I can no longer go as a man among men," which is a pretty cool line with its Biblical-sounding resonance.

One of the most unintentionally funny things in Leigh Brackett's draft IMO is the death of Wedge (whom the script consistently mis-names as "Sedge") as he's boarding a fighter in the Echo Base hangar when a chunk of snow from the roof falls on him and freezes instantly.

Still, a lot of the structural weaknesses of the script - in particular its lack of urgency and danger for the main characters - stem from Lucas' original outline. But Brackett's script made them glaringly obvious when Lucas saw the results, like a customer trying on a badly-tailored outfit in a mirror, and it made him realize crucial bits of the storyline needed rethinking.

 

I feel like that kind of death could have been retconned if George had really wanted to for the hypothetical Part 3. That is funny though and not how I think he’d have done it.

Threepio is never so emotionally sensitive as he is in this draft, nor does he have such a sense of humor (teasing Chewbacca for being jealous of Han and Leia).


I also have to note that the way Minch talks is far different from Yoda- although he has a similar physical description, he comes off as more crotchety- I hear the voice of a grumpy leprechaun who gets a little snarky sometimes when I read that character’s lines; think Han in TFA maybe, or Haymitch from The Hunger Games.

 

The first ESB draft had a few interesting bits.

1. There is more about the overall political situation. They mention that over a 1000 systems have rebelled against the empire, tying things back to the loss of the DS. But that they are scattered and dis-organized so they are not a strong fighting force yet.
This ties in with Han and him leaving to find his step-father I think, who runs a powerful business.

2. The sister is said to be in another place and also being trained by another Jedi Master. That makes some sense, the children are split up, hidden from the empire and each other. And then they are both trained but in separate locations. So if one is caught, they can not tell the empire much about the other. But both are trained, so if one falls, there is another getting ready.

If Brackett had not fallen ill and kept working with Lucas, what would have happened? Lucas was not happy with the first draft so there would have been changes. Would Vader be the father? If the sister would get set up more clearly and not be Leia, then what?
If Han has no problem with Jabba and just leaves to find his step-father then there would be no rescue needed in a third film.

Bye for now.
Blackboard Monitor

 

I would like comic adaptations of “Star Wars Sequel” and “Revenge of the Jedi” like there is for “The Star Wars”.

I guess Lucas would tell Brackett that Vader is Luke’s father and to rewrite the script accordingly at some point. The reference to Luke’s sister would be removed if Lucas wanted it to be Leia.

 

The earlier drafts of the CT prove that Lucas made up some major things as he went along. Now I'm not going to get into a ST vs. CT debate here, but I'm just saying there is sometimes hyperbole used that the CT trilogy was very planned out from the beginning.
I do appreciate that George made sure to credit Leigh, as the broad strokes of her script did make it into the picture. But on the other hand, it was from George's outline. And I'm pretty sure ESB already had elements from the middle third of George's original massive script of Star Wars. I find it interesting that George is uncredited for the screenplay of The Empire Strikes Back, despite the fact that he is just as important, if not more important for the writing of the script as Lawrence Kasdan.
I do want to read Leigh's whole script soon, considering Empire is my favorite film ever.

 

But did Lucas have Leia as the sister at any point in the making of ESB? I do not think so.
Leia was made into the sister with RotJ and Lucas being tired of SW and wanted to wrap everything up.

It is possible that the sister would just be the "another" like the current version of ESB.

There is hyperbole about the CT yes, one of those is that was very planned out. Not exactly true.
A fair bit was made up as it went along.
An other is the "Big script" that Lucas has talked about. The one he said had the title "The Tragedy of Darth Vader". The one that Lucas said was cut into thirds and ANH was made from the first part, ESB from the second part and RotJ from the last part. This is also likely not exactly true as this mega script has not seen the light of day. And while Lucas used stuff from his earlier drafts of ANH, it is not accurate to say that he cut a big script into parts and made films from each of them.

As for credit, there is a lot about credit when it comes to writing that I don't know and from little I have read, they can be complicated. But a script and screenplay are different things, a script is a draft, outline while a screenplay is the finished product that is used in production.
I have seen credits that has "Story by:", "Script By:" and "Screenplay By:" each crediting different people.

Bye for now.
Old Stoneface

 

I also was interested in bringing up the draft for ROTJ. Something notable about it for me is that Leia is not present at all during the Han rescue mission. She, Wedge, and other Rebels are taking a mission to the forest moon, although it's the moon of the Imperial capital rather than Endor. She doesn't reunite with Luke until almost the end, while Luke gets captured and separated from Lando, Han and Chewie.

Also; I saw that Yoda first appears in the film as a Force-ghost (there is no return to Dagobah, while Obi-Wan reveals himself to have come back as a physical being, accompanying Luke to the final throne room battle. The one thing that would feel jarring (besides Force-ghosts coming back from the dead straight up). is that Obi-Wan and Palpatine are both basically standing to the side and giving commentary as Vader and Luke fight. There is no closure conversation between Luke and Vader, the latter melts along with Palpatine after pushing him into lava and then appears as a living being during the final celebration in that draft, the Emperor likewise openly states that he wants Vader replaced, and so without Vader having dialogue between the duel and his sudden death, it's not clear if he was redeemed until we see him as Anakin alive.

I can't picture Alec Guinness agreeing to do this knowing his attitude towards screentime in the sequel films (same issue with the Leigh Brackett TESB draft, where he spars with the Yoda equivalent character).

I am going to re-check that draft to see if Luke and Leia are siblings, that actually slipped my mind whether they are or not. But two characterization differences that feel off are that Luke doesn't voluntarily go to try and redeem Vader; he is captured by force. The one improvement in my opinion is that Vader is far more open about his continued wish to overthrow Palpatine.

Edit: yes, Luke and Leia are siblings in the mid-late 1981 Revenge of the Jedi draft.
It is Yoda's ghost who informs Luke instead of Ben Kenobi.


I think that Lucas had a basic outline of the story he wanted to tell, which gradually became more detailed. He didn't know that Vader was Luke's father, or that Leia was his sister at first, but by all accounts he always wanted to tell the story of the fall of the Jedi Knights, and their rebirth which the OT saw them through.

Even if Vader wasn't Luke's father, he could have still been made into a tragic character explored by prequels. I feel like although the Brackett draft didn't go TOO deeply into that angle, it did leave room for further movies to explore Vader's character depth.

 

Leia is the sister, here Yoda is the one who says that.

But Vader does not find out I think. Nor does Luke have a freak out about it. Luke simply beats Vader but when the Emperor demands that he kill his father, he refuses.

Bye for now.
The Guarding Dark

 

I was just saying that George’s whims weren’t conditional on Leigh’s death and that Leigh writing the subsequent drafts of ESB or any of the drafts of ROTJ wouldn’t have prevented Vader from being Luke’s father or Leia from being Luke’s sister.

 

Sure that is possible but from what I have gathered, when Brackett was ill and Lucas was unhappy with the script, he took a crack at it himself. And he seems to have been inspired, writing that he has said he struggled with, now came easy. Vader and the father merges, setting up a very interesting conflict for Luke. And a bunch of other changes.
Would all of them happen if he had a writer still? Not sure. That something would happen with the redundant father character, that I think likely. He serves not much purpose in the early drafts.
Leia, again, that came about when making RotJ and if ESB had made the identity of the sister more explicit as not being Leia. Then that might not have happened.
But then again, the early Brackett drafts had the sister be named, later revisions removed the name but kept the character.

Bye for now.
Old Stoneface

 

Even looking at The Empire Of Dreams Documentary and the various making of books, its obvious that most elements of every film has gone through trial and error and numerous concept art and rough drafts. To have the whole thing planned out from the beginning is not possible.



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That first draft of "Jedi" is wild.

Wished Lucas and his team had the tech and the amount of money available to make that movie back then.
Despite me loving RotJ, I think that would have been an even more epic final for the trilogy.

 

Tarkin is in the rough draft of ANH (as Crispin Hoedaack), is nowhere to be seen in the 2nd or 3rd drafts, and then is present again in the 4th draft.

 

I had always head that Lucas was unhappy with Leigh Brackett's script, used almost none of it and gave her a screen credit after she died unexpectedly. After reading the script I see this is a lie. A lot of Brackett's script was used:

The film starts on an ice planet
Luke is attacked by a snow creature
Ben's force ghost appears
Luke kills the wampa
Luke gets rescued
The wampas attack the base (not in the film but found in the shooting script)
Luke & R2 go to find Ben's Jedi teacher and crash on the swamp planet
Han, Leia, Chewy & 3PO get chased by a destroyer & hide out in an asteroid field
Han & Leia kiss
Vader speaks to the Emperor about Luke
The meet Lando in a Cloud City
3PO gets destroyed before he can reveal anything
Lando betrays Han & Leia
Chewy puts together 3PO
Luke fights Vader in a light saber duel
Luke plunges instead of joining Vader
Luke gets rescued by the Falcon

Now it is not the finished movie but so much of what she wrote is in the final film. Brackett didn't get credit because George was feeling benevolent, she got it because she deserved it. The bones of the story are there and it was made better by Lucas & Kasdan. However I think Lucas has done a great disservice to Brackett's contribution to Star Wars.

 

That’s the story I originally heard.


J.W.Rinzler’s Making of Empire book gave the story a different spin. Lucas hired Bracket knowing she had cancer. She wrote Empire over two months with her illness getting much worse at the very end making it a struggle to finish.


Lucas was not satisfied with the first draft and prepared extensive notes. Brackett’s health deteriorated so quickly she never saw the notes or spoke with Lucas again.


Brackett passed away March 18th 1978. Based on his notes and Brackett’s draft Lucas finished his own draft April 1st 1978.


Kasdan was hired in June 1978 because Lucas liked his Raiders of the Lost Ark script so much.


Lucas felt Brakett would have successfully written the final script if not for her illness. So Lucas went uncredited as a writer and had Brackett receive the top writing credit.

Damn. Well there goes another Star Wars myth I liked. This one being Lucas got stuck finding a motivation to justify Luke losing it on Darth Vader and going to the very edge of crossing to the Dark Side.


Luacs said he made Leia Luke’s sister and had Vader threaten her to be that motivation.

 

It doesn't work that way. Lucas can't merely decide to give a writer credit. Brackett was an accomplished Hollywood screenwriter & member of the WGA. She wrote a lot for Howard Hawks: Rio Bravo, The Big Sleep, El Dorado, Rio Lobo, Hatari and ghost written a lot of films she received no credit for per union rules. She wrote the first draft, which is so similar to the finished film that she had to receive credit. Not enough was changed so that they could take her name off the film. I'm not sure why Lucas would want to downplay her contributions to the film but that seems to be the case.

He cancer was also kept a secret. Her closest friends didn't even know. Her good friends Forrest J Ackerman (Famous Monsters editor) & Ray Bradbury spoke to her on the phone while she was hospitalized and they had no idea she was terminal. Her death came as a shock to Lucas as told in the biography George Lucas: A Life. She probably hid her illness the same way Norm MacDonald did. None of his friends knew he was sick and his death came as a complete shock to everyone including those closest to him.

The script is available online for free. It's fascinating because I heard the same story over the years but never bothered to check for myself. Once I read it I realized that Lucas' version isn't what happened.

BTW the exchanges between Luke & Vader are very similar to the ones between Rey & Kylo in TLJ.

 

From the book it sounded like Lucas could have given himself a writer credit, and the case could have been made for Kasdan to get credited over Brackett. She was always getting a credit.

I didn’t realize Lucas was trying to downplay her role.

Also according to Rinzler, Lucas did know Brackett was sick. Makes sense she would tell an employer confidentially before taking on a large project. That said it seems clear Lucas did not know the extent of her illness and her death was a surprise.

It’a been a long time since I read Bracket’s draft. I need to do that again. I’m still waiting for the Han Solo seeks the help of his father story line to be adapted into future Star Wars. Same with a random character being reveled to be a clone. Are the only clones we met in Star Wars Jango Fett clones?.

We finally got Darth Vader’s castle.

 

In the rough draft script for ANH, the Imperial Capital is a city in the clouds of a gas giant. In the 2nd and 3rd drafts, it’s Vader’s lair that’s in the clouds of a gas giant. McQuarrie created concept art for Vader’s lair in the clouds that would be used for Cloud City in ESB.

 

I thought that was meant to be the prison where they kept Leia.

 

Has this thread become a runaway train? Before all the drafts, GL wrote multiple treatments and outlines, 99% of which will never see the light of day. Rumours have been around since the 80s of differing versions of TESB and later ROTJ, some of which GL has confirmed such as Boba being the main villain instead of Palps, others he's hinted at. One old rumour I found interesting was when Luke returned to Dagobah, it was longer, Yoda initially trains Luke before dying and OWK's spirit finishes Luke's training. If true it's likely to have been cut for pacing. But it does ask the question while this was happening, what were Leia, Han and Lando doing? It fits with Leia stealing the DSII plans on the Imperial Capital.

 

You must be thinking of the 2nd or 3rd draft.

 

You don't know how many of these plot points were given to her in story meetings or a treatment.

 

Actually, we do. Nearly all of them.

JW Rinzler's The Making of ESB had some substantial excerpts from the story conferences - though only Lucas' side of it was recorded back in 1979, unfortunately. Regardless, it's pretty clear that Lucas gave Brackett a detailed synopsis of the story he wanted her to write, and even wrote a short outline of it himself for her to reference.

 

It doesn't matter if Lucas dictated the entire film and Brackett just wrote down what he said. She wrote it down therefore she gets credit for writing the screenplay. When a novel gets made into a movie the writer who actually adapted the novel will get credit for it as will the novel's author. It doesn't matter that he/she didn't write the original material. That's why they give 2 oscars for screenplays: adapted & original.

When Brackett died a new writer was brought in because Lucas hated writing. Unless Kasdan & Lucas threw out virtually everything from Brackett's version her name had to stay on the film. Lucas had no choice in the matter despite what he tells people about Brackett's draft. The film used WGA writers so they had to abide by WGA rules. As we can see the final film used the majority of Brackett's screenplay. When screenplays are written they get turned in to the WGA and archived so that writers do not get screwed out of credit/money. That's why you can see different drafts of films and their evolution along the way.