CT Pre-PT information on how anakin became vader

Before the PT, we knew that Anakin became Vader physically (or technically, Vader changed from being human to mostly machine) due to a fight with Obiwan that resulted in Anakin/Vader landing in lava, and we don't really get much about how Anakin fell, but, are there any articles, videos or any other sources that anyone can find, preferably with GL, about how this all officially was said to have happened, before episode 3 (or any of the PT, preferably) was made? Thanks.

 

I recall the back of an Action Figure from the 90's had some detail (I'm guessing a Vader figure)

 

These are the two main public sources from the OT era:

- Interview with George Lucas, Rolling Stone, August 25, 1977
http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/the-wizard-of-star-wars-20120504

- Return of the Jedi, novelisation by James Kahn, 1983

 

- "If you choose the quick and easy path, as Vader did, you will become an agent of evil."
- "Luke, I don't want to loose you to the Emperor the way I lost Vader."

 

Wow, that novelization of RoTJ is making me cry.

 

The same 1978 Lucasfilm sourcebook that states stortroopers are clones also has a article that states a young Vader and Obi-Wan fought on a lava planet which resulted in Vader falling into a volcano and suffering major burns.

 

That would be Star Wars Poster Monthly - a magazine being marketed at the same time ANH came out, and for a few months afterward. Probably drawing from the Rolling Stone interview quoted above.

 

Yeah, came across a post of yours quoting that same article while checking the OT sources, it really seemed to be solely based on the RS quotes, as would just about anything else from that time. The mention in the ROTJ novelisation was most likely in the same boat, but given that it was presented in the context of the storyline (although not the film itself), it's worth bringing it up. It doesn't reveal anything else, anyway.

To my knowledge, there aren't any other GL quotes or 'official' material from that time that go any further. IIRC, the 1990s EU made occasional references to the volcano duel, but again, never went beyond what GL said in 1977 (and weren't allowed to).
And no, there's nothing prior to the PT which elaborates upon the specific reasons for Anakin's turning to the Dark Side.

There's some stuff in the old Annotated Screenplays book (1998) which cited Irvin Kershner's idea that Anakin/Vader was a mutant, having fallen into a nuclear reactor, rather than a volcano or lava pit, but that's just a minor detail regarding his injuries and the location of the Duel, and wasn't used.

Oh, and BTW, if anyone comes across a 1983 publication by John L Flynn called Star Wars III: Fall of the Republic, Adapted from Part I: "The Adventures of Obi-Wan Kenobi", by George Lucas - it's fan fiction. It always was, but given its vintage, a few magazines in the mid-1990s (Empire and the like) cited it (or its content) as some sort of authentic treatment of the PT. Perhaps unknowingly, or perhaps just desperate for speculative material once it had been announced that three new Star Wars movies were on the way.

 

Summer 1977:
"Darth Vader is really attached to the Emperor himself, and he was not really part of the Death Star personnel or any of that system. Lord Vader worked directly for the Emperor and was the Emperor's emissary.
[...]
When the Jedi tried to restore order, Darth Vader was still one of the Jedi. What he would do is catch the Jedi off guard and, using his knowledge of the Force, he would kill the Jedi without them realizing what was happening. They trusted him and they didn't realize he was the murderer who was decimating their ranks. At the height of the Jedi, there were sever hundred thousand. At the time of the Rebellion, most of them were killed. The Emperor had some strong forces rally behind him, as well, in terms of the army the Imperial forces that he'd been building up secretly. The Jedi were so outnumbered that they fled and were tracked down. They tried to regroup, but they were eventually massacred by one of the special elite forces led by Darth Vader. Eventually only a few, including Ben and Luke's father, were left. Luke's father is named Annikin."

July 1981:
Lucas: "Anakin Skywalker starting hanging out with the Emperor, who at this point nobody knew was that bad, because he was an elected official."
[...]
Lucas: "Well, anyway, Luke's father gets subverted by the Emperor. He gets a little weird at home and his wife begins to figure out that things are going wrong and she confides in Ben, who is his mentor. On his missions through the galaxies, Anakin has been going off doing his Jedi thing and a lot of Jedi have been getting killed — and it's because they turn their back on him and he cuts them down. The president is turning into an Emperor and Luke's mother suspects that something has happened to her husband. She is pregnant. Anakin gets worse and worse, and finally Ben has to fight him and he throws him down into a volcano and Vader is all beat up. Now, when he falls into the pit, his other arm goes and his leg and there is hardly anything left of him by the time the Emperor's troops fish him out of the drink."

 

Darth_Nub

It would appear that the Star Wars Poster Monthly was copying and pasting left and right. Iron Lord quoted the "Imperial Corellian Cruiser" from this magazine, a few months after that detail had been mentioned first in the Cinefantastique issue of February 1978.

darklordoftech

Your quotes are from the hardcover edition of The Making of Star Wars, right?

 

The 1977 quotes are from The Making of Star Wars, the 1981 quotes are from The Making of Return of the Jedi.

 

Nothing I can remember except what has been listed and that Leanard Malton with Lucas interview on the remastered OOT VHS. It is always fun to remember what or when this subject was brought up. I don't know about you but I would love to be there in the '70's on the playground during discussion on the PT or the rest of the OT. Or any chatter pre internet during the '80's and '90's on what Lucas would do with the PT. This started for me during mid '90's as talk for the special editions were heating up and I luckily had a roommate fill me in what the plans were for the PT. Of course Anikans backstory with his wife and Kenobi.

 

The PT - Oh what could have been...

 

Rewatching ROTJ recently I was really struck by Obi Wan's line to Luke re. Anakin along the lines of "he was already a talented pilot when I met him" it just didn't really strike me that he was talking about a child. Maybe GL should have added in a line like "of course he was only 6 at the time"!

 

Maybe GL should have made him older when he made TPM! The OT came first...

 

Absolutely, it seems clear to me that Obi Wan and Anakin are supposed to be contemporaries with little to no age difference between them. Making Anakin a child in PT is just contrary to what we'd seen.

 

What's even more bizarre (going back and making Anakin a child) is the fact that the actor who played Anakin at the end of Jedi (Sebastian Shaw) was a decade older than Obi Wan (Alec Guinness) ??

 

I think it was always implied obi-wan was older than Anakin/vader. First of all how often is your teacher the same age as you? Secondly his taunt of "your powers are weak old man" would seem to imply he's older as well.

Using shaw for Anakin was just a mistake. I think the intent was to show how aged his injuries and dark side use had made him, but it didn't come out 100% right.

 

I think Shaw was a good choice for old sickly Vader under the mask, but not for ghost Anakin. Quite a bit of the RS interview as well as the monthly poster magazine made it into the PT.

 

(Apologize if I resurrect an old thread with a mundane question...)

By piecing together the information available at the time of release...
- How old is Darth Vader supposed to be in ANH?
- How old is Anakin/Vader supposed to be in ROTJ?

My assumption is that Obi-Wan is around 65-70 years old in the OT. And it's established that 3 years passes between ANH and ROTJ, am I correct? Which makes Luke go from 17 to 20? (Seems a bit young to me, always imagined him to be closer to 25 in ROTJ.)

My next line of thoughts obviously concerns the pre-PT-relationship of Vader, Anakin and Obi-Wan... And if there's any logic at all in George Lucas' basic outline for Luke's birth and the (failed) training of Anakin and the rise of Vader.

 

Ben actually says that Anakin was already the best starpilot in the galaxy, but that he was most amazed with how strongly the force flowed within him, when they met. In the PT, Anakin is no star pilot, and Obi Wan presumes Anakin to be "another pathetic life-form" he doesn't want anything to do with until his dying master makes him promise to train Anakin. And Anakin is only nine.

 

"When I first met him, your father was already a great pilot".

Not "greatest" or "Star pilot". Those superlatives can be something Anakin gained later on - during the battles of the Clone Wars, along with "cunning warrior".

The ANH novel portrayed him as being 20 (plus the TESB one, 23 and that specifically 3 years had passed)- much later media took a year or so off his age.

 

Right off my head I get the feeling that's a combo of the conversations regarding Luke's father/Anakin in ANH & ROTJ?

Hm, ok, so Luke is closer to 20 in ANH and 23-24 in ROTJ? And of course, I now realize that it is Leia's age in ANH (and ESB/ROTJ?) that makes things unclear about Luke... Cause she's younger than 20 in ANH isn't she? (At the time of release of the movies.)

 

The PT works so much better if Anakin is 15 in TPM. The romance with Padme makes perfect sense and he’s only 10 years younger than Obi-Wan, the perfect age to be a younger brother.


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Carrie Fisher was 21 back in 1977. Mark Hamill was 26.