Vader regaining control of his TIE at the end of the 1977 SW film

Does anyone know when exactly (and under what circumstances) that Lucas decided to have Darth Vader regain control of his TIE fighter at the end of the 1977 Star Wars film?

In the scripts found on www.starwarz.com, the last mentions of Darth Vader are as follows:


EXT. SPACE AROUND THE DEATH STAR

Vader's ship spins out of control with a bent solar fin, heading for deep space.

INT. DARTH VADER'S COCKPIT

Vader turns round and round in circles as his ship spins into space.

...

EXT. DARTH VADER'S TIE FIGHTER

Vader's ship spins off into space.


In Marvel Comics' adaptation, the last panel of Vader's TIE shows it spinning, captioned thus: "The remaining ship goes spinning off into the blackness--aboard it, Darth Vader finds himself whirling around, his instruments shattered, his vessel wildly out of control--and heading out into the reaches of deep space!"

The novelization by Alan Dean Foster leaves Darth Vader thus: "Darth Vader's fighter began spinning helplessly. Unimpressed by the Dark Lord's desperate glower, various controls and instruments gave back readings which were brutally truthful. Completely out of control, the tiny ship continued spinning in the opposite direction from the destroyed wingman--out into the endless reaches of deep space."

All of the above would lead one to think that Darth Vader wouldn't ever make it out of his ship alive. (Though, interestingly, Vader is in Alan Dean Foster's Splinter of the Mind's Eye, which was finished before SW was released in theatres, and which was envisioned by Lucas as a possible low-budget sequel to SW.)

But in the actual film, the last we see of Darth Vader is A) the interior of his ship ceasing to spin, and B) the exterior of his ship flying straight (no spinning!) into space.

And when I look at the script in Laurent Bouzereau's Annotated Screenplays, I find this:

INT. DARTH VADER'S TIE FIGHTER

Vader rights his ship.

EXT. SPACE

Vader's TIE fighter heads off into space.


When was this changed? Was it actually added to the shooting script during shooting, or was this decision made during the post-production filming of the Death Star battle? I'd like to know as many specifics as possible. When exactly did Lucas decide to imply that Darth Vader survives rather than dies?

 

Wow, interesting info about the script. That is something to ponder...

I've always thought Vader righting his ship was one of the most ANVIL-sized hints to a sequel (for the audience)...maybe when Lucas was nearing the end of the shoot, and he started to feel more confident that he had a hit, he changed Vader's exit to clearly show that the main bad guy survived. That part is one of the few things that take away from the 'stand alone' quality of ANH.

Or, I could be talking out an orifice. Who knows?

 

Lucas always knew he had too much material for 1 movie. He cut things down for ANH and was hoping that it would be successfully enough for sequels. Vader just couldnt die in the first act.

 

Having him right the ship definitely opened the door for a sequel, as a spinning ship probaly would have ended in Vader's death.

 

That's my suspicion, too.

Does anyone have confirmation (or disconfirmation)?

 

Vader was never going to die, but perhaps the ending was more ambiguous on the page. The audience would still have assumed Vader lived because he was thrown clear of the Death Star before it exploded. If the intention was that he died, his ship would probably have been seen exploding.

So I think Lucas always intended it to be that way, yet when it came to the actual film he probably just wanted to make it certain, that Vader would return if there was a sequel. Vader's fate wasn't really meant to be terribly ambiguous and so he made the final version accordingly.

I don't know whether he had that in mind when shooting the film or later on. However, it seems likely that the sequence could have been put together in editing. It consists of only a few shots - the ship tumbling, Vader looking around (which could be extensions of the previous shots) and then the ship flying off (which could be reused from other shots in the battle scenes). Perhaps during editing Lucas was more positive about the film as a whole and so wanted to make it clear that Vader survived to more strongly hint at his return.

 

Interestingly, Darth Vader was killed in both the 1st (July 1974) and 2nd (Jan. 28, 1975) drafts of the SW script. It wasn't until the 3rd draft (Aug. 1, 1975) that Vader lived.

 

Of course in the first two drafts Vader was effectively Tarkin with a different name instead of the armoured Sith Lord we have today.