BTS The Secret History of Star Wars

Try ASKING HIM about it.

What do you think he's reading this thread and just not saying anything?

 

Since most people are satisfied that there is sufficient evidence against him that does not allow much, if any, wiggle room to explain it in any way short of an admission of exaggeration, maybe YOU should be the one to ask him for clarification, Go-Mer, since you are basically the only one who feels this is necessary.

Otherwise, you are basically just repeating the same stuff that you have been for probably twenty pages or so. I don't think anyone is actually interested in convincing you as much as it is annoying to see the same nonesense clogging up a thread. I say: ASK LUCAS YOURSELF or be quiet about it.

 

I'm the only one who insists on proof before branding Lucas a liar?

I should ask him? I'm already satisfied that he's not lying.

I'm not the one writing a slanderous book accusing him of lying based on assumptions of the available, non conclusive facts.

I would think your sense of professionalism would prompt you to get his side of the story.

 

I'm not going to take that bait beyond replying that if you want to know the answers to any of those, I suggest you re-read the previous 40-someodd pages you have been asking them for. But I guess if you had been doing that all along, you wouldn't feel the need to continue to ask them.

 

So there is a good reason you wouldn't seek out his clarification of your interpretation of what he said, vs what you believe is the actual case?

I'm not baiting you, I simply require conclusive proof before I'll agree he is lying about this.

All I said is that while your research is solid, you end up coming to a conclusion that can't be proven without asking Lucas himself: A) What he's talking about regarding this draft you can't find that he claims he wrote.

I don't think it's out of line to suggest seeking out his clarification, especially since this is for a book you wrote.

You have what appears to be a discrepancy, so you simply conclude he's lying.

Why even have a thread about it if everyone is just supposed to come in here and agree with you?

 

Because its a redundant point on the 80th page. You've basically been saying the same thing for 40+ pages.

 

It's a valid point of contention with what you've been saying since page 1, and I have only been posting in this thread again for the last 3 pages, only 2 of which involved me trying to get you to admit that the proof you have is inconclusive, something you have admitted before, so I don't see the problem now.

 

Why do you feel there is need for clarification? Lucas has repeated said claims, by my estimate, at least ten times, and I'm sure there's an equal amount that I am ignorant to. It seems pretty clear what he is intending to get across. Thus, I don't see any reason why clarification would be needed. To me it seems as though there is no possibly way I could demonstrate to you that Lucas has been misleading or inaccurate about anything; no matter how wrong he appeared, you could just say further clarification is needed because he probably meant something else, etc. I've not been in confusion over what it is that Lucas is referring to. And, in any case, if the person being interpreted feels they are being misunderstood then it is up to them to clarify themselves. When Lucas says that his original script was 250 pages and had Vader as Luke's father and provided the basis for the entire trilogy, there's no point of confusion with me over how I should take that statement. It might be interesting to see how Lucas reacts when pressed with the question of "this doesn't seem to be true," but to be honest I have better things to do, and in any case, Lucas' oldest friend Francis Coppola already took up that task in an interview, to which Lucas predictably indicated Coppola's memory was wrong.

 

The author of "The Secret History of Star Wars" has better things to do than to get to bottom of this?

If you want to leave it at "Lucas is most likely lying" then that's up to you.

All I was asking for the last 3 pages is for you to admit you can't prove it conclusively.

I'm not trying to paint you as a confused person who makes no sense, your reasons for feeling the way you do about it aren't unjustified.

The reason you won't convince me that he's been lying or trying to mislead people is because I require conclusive proof.

 

No, the author of the Secret History of Star Wars already got to the bottom of it. Further testimony by Lucas is superfluous, and not very useful. It's quite obvious that Lucas told a white lie about the content of an early draft, possibly (probably) so that people more easily accept the new "Tragedy of Darth Vader" storyline he created with the prequels.

Let me ask you a question: what would you constitute conclusive proof on my part? In other words, under what circumstances--other than Lucas admitting "You got me!"--would you be prepared to consider that I am correct?

 

If you had conclusive proof, then I'd believe you.

You may have satisfied yourself and the legions of Star Wars fans who feel Lucas isn't the same person he used to be, but as a guy who still sees him as the genius who created Star Wars, I'm not prepared to vilify him in this case. Your assumption is that he's lying about it, and that if asked he will continue to lie about it.

I contend that chances are, he could explain your perceived discrepancies if you asked him point blank.

 

That's not what I asked, though. I asked would you consider conclusive proof?

 

Something Lucas has said that contradicts what he's saying, that isn't reliant on interpretation. The problem with a lot of what he does say is he isn't the most effective speaker/communicator on the planet, and because of that he tends to be misunderstood a lot of the time.

For example the idea that Leia was Luke's sister was by all accounts (even Lucas') an idea he came up with somewhere while putting together ROTJ. He says he was at a loss when it came to what Vader would say to Luke to make him lose it, then it hit him that making Leia his sister would kill 2 birds with one stone. Not only would that give Luke a reason to flip out, it would also neatly explain the "other" Yoda spoke of in ESB.

More recently, Lucas has talked about the fact that the concept of Luke having a sister was there from the beginning, after talking about Leia as Luke's sister, and it gives the impression he's contradicting himself, but really he's just talking about the fact that the "other" was always going to end up being Luke's sister who also had Force potential, it's just originally it would have been a new character introduced in the (then potential) third trilogy.

I'm not saying that's exactly what happened in this case, but I feel that the combination of Lucas' tendency to use current terms to describe his original intents and our tendency to read what we want to into those comments, there's a chance your conclusion is based on some kind of mis communication.

If you were to present your perceived contradictions to Lucas, allow him to respond to therm, then have him answer questions you have about the "facts" you feel indicate he's lying, there's a chance (albeit a slim one) that he won't be able to answer you to my satisfaction.

 

Rumble Gomer, rumble.

 

In the Bronx!

[image=http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m251/fuchimi2/rumble%20in%20the%20bronx/Rumble_In_The_Bronx-cdcovers_cc-fro.jpg]

 

Gomer: Would you really be that put off, if Lucas were proven to be lying? I mean, he's not a politician or lawyer. No one's gonna be hurt over his fibs. He's just an eccentric artist who doesn't want to give the impression that he made it up as he went along. Hell, I'd probably do the same thing if I were in his shoes.

The only thing that would bother me is if he tried to take credit for his collaborators' input. Otherwise, I could give two figs. Doesn't damper the love I have for two films from each of the trilogies.

 

I'm pro-Gomer

 

[chews popcorn]

 

Gomer= Lucas' translator droid

 

If I were put off by proving Lucas a liar, I wouldn't be looking for proof of that.

He's an eccentric artist who is fully up front about the fact he made it up as he went along.

It's not the concept of him lying, it's the accusing him of lying without conclusive proof that bothers me.

 

While keeping an eye on the current discussion going on, I'm going to delve back in time a bit to some of the older posts, to explore some things that I don't recall really being addressed the first time around.


(from Nov '07):

I am going to focus on the bold part, for now.

I disagree as to the 'reasonableness' of Lucas' claim of not telling Leigh about these things - specifically the father/Vader issue - when the fact is, her draft included the story element of Luke's father appearing as a force ghost on Dagobah...and unless once wants to argue that Leigh Brackett came up with that idea all on her own without Lucas' input (something even Lucas hasn't claimed as yet), then the fact would remain that here we have a story element that would seemingly call Lucas' later day claim of "not wanting to confuse Leigh" and "not wanting to complicate things" into question.

Why? Beyond the obvious of having the Father Skywalker force ghost element in the story - a kind of 'case closed' if you will on Father Skywalker's fate - it's the fact that in the story meetings leading up to the completion of the story treatment, Lucas and Brackett discussed things that seem a bit tangential to the story of TESB or the 'prototype' SW sequel that was currently being made at that time (Nov/Dec of '77). Things like where the capital government of the Empire was located in the galaxy, and several other planets ("A rocky planet with a civilization living in caves") that weren't even mentioned in the subsequent written material (the story treatment and the first draft screenplay of Feb '78). So, here we have Lucas discussing things tangential to the story with Leigh, but supposedly being worried about "confusing her" and "complicating things" (not to mention the fact that months later, when Lawrence Kasdan was brought board for the re-writes - after Lucas' initial re-writes - Lucas basically tells Kasdan that Vader is Luke's father, when he patently didn't need to tell him so).


Second, notice that Lucas is saying in that interview (done around '96 or '97; I'll get back to the importance of that) that there was the issue of "whether to reveal the identity of Vader/father in the 2nd movie, or the 3rd movie" , NOT whether or not Vader was Luke's father at all period at this point in SW canon...again, he's not alluding to the Father Vader concept as being a 'new idea' at this point in time at all.


Yes, that quote is from 1996 (or '97) way before the "Vader-fest circa 2005", but it was still, after all, post-ROTJ when Lucas began claiming that the Father Vader idea was 'always' a part of the overall story of SW.

 

I think when I wrote that I just meant that I could buy the claim that he didn't immediately hit Brackett with all his sequel notions, POST-Star Wars in 1978, which to me is a much different thing than the "story was all about the Tragedy of Darth Vader from the beginning " thing. I dunno one way or the way the other, that particular quote about that period in 1978 just sounded plausible to me.

 

Lucas mat not be the clearest speaker, but he's said a lot of things that blatantly contradict what is known to be true about the early drafts.

You seem to take personal offense at this off-the-wall idea that Zombie (and others) are hell-bent on "branding Lucas as a liar" or "taking him down a peg", or "proving that he isn't a genius". I don't see that at all.

What I do see is what might just be the most detailed attempt ever made to get to the bottom of how these movies came together. Because, YES, Lucas has been incredibly unclear and inconsistent about the origins of his film series over the years.

And, as the evidence almost overwhelmingly suggests, that is because Lucas keeps rewriting the real history behind the films, almost as often as he's rewritten the content of the films' story itself.

Does that make Lucas a liar or a bad person or a money-grubbing sell-out?

Not really, no.

Maybe he just has a fragile ego, and doesn't want to make it look like he made so much up as he went along.

Maybe he doesn't want to disappoint all of the quite literally obsessive Star Wars fans out there who feel that the Holy Saga was sent to him as divine inspiration. Lucas has never been very comfortable with being a celebrity, and since Star Wars became the biggest movie of all time, maybe he freaked out when he realized just how many people were so hooked on it.

Maybe this whole "the story was all planned in advance" thing is designed to keep people coming back for more, because each movie since the original has been designed to segue into the Next Exciting Chapter.


No matter what the reason is, the whole point of Zombie's book is to uncover the origins of the series in as much detail as possible, because it is really, really important in terms of film history. The official story is flawed, inconsistent, and has some big gaps. It was inevitable, really, that amateur and/or professional film scholars would get frustrated enough to go off on their own and start digging around for more pieces of the puzzle.



From day one, Go-Mer, you've sounded like a rather insecure fan who just doesn't want to see Lucas or the series deconstructed, even if the analysis is being done for good reasons (and not to tear the man down, as YOU keep "assuming"). n

 

Thanks, Gregatron, I think you hit the nail on the head regarding my motivations.

I'm posting this here because its kind of relevant to Star Wars history. LFL just announced its renewed its contract with Ballantine/Del-Ray until 2013 (or something like that), during which 45 new Star Wars books will be commissioned. Among these are a number of non-fiction books.

One of them named is Jonathan Rinzler's The Making of Empire Strikes Back.

For starters--NICE. We knew he was pitching it a while ago but this is the first official confirmation that its done. It's set for release in 2009 or 2010 (I can't remember since I don't have the press release in front of me).

As far as Star Wars history, I can only assume he will have access to all the drafts and story meeting transcripts and will provide greater excerpts than Bouzereau did in Annotated Screenplays. And, I should think, there will be some discssion/commentary made regarding "I am your father." Will be interesting to see what Lucas says--if Rinzler is conducting new interviews on this particular point--and how Rinzler interprets them (one gets the impression he doesn't buy the whole Tragedy of Darth Vader from-the-beginning thing since he basically showed how this wasn't the case with The Making of Star Wars).

 

I believe that Rinzler said some time back that any Making-of books for EMPIRE or JEDI would likely be reissues of the original 1980 and 1983 books, with new text and photos added so as to beef them up. Thus, the EMPIRE book will probably not be as extensive as The Making of Star Wars, which was the very first in-depth Making-of book devoted to the original movie.