Saga Why is there so little information about the scriptprocess of AOTC and the earlier drafts?

This isn't where I read it, but a quick Wookiepedia search for Order 66 has this in Behind the Scenes.

I think it was all over the place. I don't think George Lucas settled on the main story points until production nearly started. Lucas kept changing things which is why there wasn't a real draft until just before shooting. The story was a nebulous outline through pre-production.

 

I see that, but it doesn't seem to be sourced, does it?

Maybe we differ about what we consider "the main story points". But if we are talking about the main story arc of Clones, obviously that's decided WAY before shooting (just because you literally CAN'T prepare a production without knowing the story first!).
The shooting period was quick and efficient (as ever with Lucas), which goes against the legend of "Lucas keeps changing things". The sets were constructed on time, the locations scouted, costumes created, the planets designed… all that in the nine-month pre-production period, WHILE the scripts were written. You just can't do all that if you don't have the main story more or less in place.
And yes, Lucas likes to change things after shooting. We know exactly which scenes were added later. But they don't change the overall structure/story of the film in any way!
So, if you are saying that, at one point (between 1999-2000), Lucas was seriously considering having the Jedi purged in episode III, I think you are very mistaken.
In fact, the main story beats are sort of obvious, once TPM was made. The galactic crisis builds up until the beginning of the Clone Wars. Anakin has a secret love story with Padmé, and loses his mother, which brings him closer to the dark side. Palpatine manipulates both sides to gain more power. The clones are created.
Now, add to that the fact that the structure of the movie has to mirror Empire: in the first act, the characters are together, there is tension, and a climatic action piece. Then, they separate: Anakin and Padme fall in love (old-fashioned love story), therefore Obi-Wan has to do something related to the galactic crisis and the clones (film noir homage). At the end, everybody reunites as the War starts.

 

It's legit. Trust me.

Anyway, when someone on here does quote the better annotated source you'll be better ready to accept it as fact. Which it is.

That's how the film plays out, but that sort of story telling takes time figure out. I think we're going to find that it's not so clearcut and Lucas was still figuring out the meat of the story and how major plot points linked up after The Phantom Menace was released. He knew roughly how Ep3 ended, but had a lot of room in Ep2 to experiment.

Hopefully this thread sheds light on that. I'm expecting we find some real revelations and get a better idea fluid Lucas's process and how detached he was from traditional script and instead relied more on concept arts and visuals. We may find the story didn't really come together until the reshoots. I mean even the theatrical film release is like an unfinished cut of the movie. The DVD had some small but very major changes that helped polish up the film as we know it today.

 

The source is this, although I would hardly call that a source at all. It's a random personal blog which doesn't provide a source for that baseless claim.

 

Thats not where I saw it. It was definitely somewhere official. I'm surprised no one else readily remembers this tidbit.

 

Not what I meant. It's the source Wookieepedia provides on your quote.

 

Hopefully this thread will indeed shed light on that and will show me I'm wrong (although, sadly, I doubt anyone here has a secret copy of the first draft or something like that). Don't get me wrong, I'd LOVE to read the early drafts of Clones and see how the story evolved.

However, I still think you are very wrong. Even though Lucas likes to use concept arts and visuals as an inspiration, he is very formal in the structure of his storytelling (the three-act structure, his habit of numbering the scenes and have the same number of scenes in each act, calculating the lenght of each section of the movie….). All SW movies have followed the same formulas. And both trilogies are designed to mirror each other.

And I'm afraid I can't quite understand some of your latest statements:
"the story didn't really come together until the reshoots".... what? we do know the shooting script they used, and we know the scenes they shot. the story was there, the movie was more or less the same.There were no radical reshoots, and none of them changed the structure of the story.
"the theatrical film release is like an unfinished cut of the movie".... again what? what do you mean by that?
"the DVD had some small but very major changes that helped polish up the film".... what??? what changes? Anakin's mechanic hand holding Padme's, and "to be angry is to be human" "I'm a Jedi, I know I'm better than this". Do you really consider these small tweaks "major changes"?


Thanks, @Alexrd . I agree, there is no source to back up that claim. And it is a BIG claim that would mean a radically different structure of the PT as a whole!

 

Gotcha! Thanks for that.

We might get some scarps of info that help shed some light.

Yes. For sure. Huge difference. Those little touches do a lot to help the movie for me. Don't forget when Padme falls out of the Gunship. Before she hopped up like nothing was wrong. That tough. Anakin's line in the garage is a big impromvent too. And the Blu-Ray addition of Shmi's voice in Anakin's dream also removed an awkward moment. Also shows the movie was really finished in the film cut. That's pretty unusual.

That's when the droid factory was added and the additional Jedi order stuff was dropped. Anakin and Obi-Wan relationship was softened a bit. It's like Lucas watched the movie and finally had a handle on what he was telling. The same thing happened with Revenge of the Sith, when the movie was largely reworked up to Anakin's turn to the dark side. But with Clones it seems to be much smaller touches that change the way plot points and character elements relate to the overall story.

We just don't have as much info on how this all went down with Attack of the Clones as Revenge of the Sith. Not yet that is.

 

Even before TPM was released, Lucas was always able to breakdown the tree prequel movies just as they ended up being made years later, and the third one was always the tragedy, the fall of everything. So I really don't see how Order 66 could be featured in AOTC, which was always described as a love story/mystery.

 

Adding to @Alexrd 's post, if Anakin had turned into Vader in II instead of III, what would have followed? A whole movie of Vader killing Jedi? Yes, that sounds cool and badass, but what further development would the character undergo if we know he isn't going to stop being a villain? Padme's role would also be more limited than it already was, assuming she didn't die in the second film. Not to mention Obi-Wan. If he puts Vader in the suit and then doesn't see him for the entire third act of the trilogy, what's he supposed to do? Certainly he can't be going on any mission post-Order 66. The same is true of Yoda.

Also, we would have seen even less of the friendship between Anakin and Obi-Wan than we did in canon, assuming Order 66 ties into Anakin's turn to the dark side. I understand that the appeal and continued popularity of TESB largely stems from its role as a "downer" in the middle of the trilogy (I myself love this about the film and the structure of the OT) but the prequels couldn't have repeated this process. We know that the final act of the prequel trilogy can't end on a higher note than the middle act, considering where the original film starts.

 

@Emperor Ferus

From what I remember reading or hearing, what you say is largely the general story in this alternate story for 2 and 3. Not sure if Anakin switched 2 or 3. There would have been more of a focus on the remaining Jedi and the clones hunting them I three. Not sure how Geonosis played into this.

I wonder if Pablo Hidalgo said this. I just remember hearing about the Clone's turning in Episode 2 and being shocked. Then thinking 'well what happens in 3.' And whatever I read or whoever I heard say this, was sort off the cuff about it. Like they knew they dropped something major but just push it aside. So not a lot of details to back it up. But whomever said it was official and in the know.

It could have been in a Clone Wars commentary. I don't remember. And it was brief so there wasn't a lot of detail. Like was this still possible in 1999? Was this an idea in 1994? I don't know for sure. But I am sure I heard or read this somewhere what made me believe it.

Can anyone shed some light on this?

 

I'm happy that didn't happen. Even if Anakin was still on the light side in III, the entire film would end up becoming the underground Jedi/Rebel Alliance fighting the Galactic Empire. I really appreciate that most of Episode III is between the Galactic Republic and the Confederacy of Independent Systems. Especially now that 7 (maybe 8 if ya count Solo's Imperial presence) out of 10 SW films are all about an underground resistance fighting against an Imperial faction, it really makes me appreciate ROTS is a Clone Wars movie first.

 

@Jedi_Sith_Smuggler_Droid
I hope someone could shed some more light on that. I'm not denying that you heard it, but we do need to know where that comes from.

In any case, that would seem like an alternative storyline for the whole PT, not just for Clones. That would mean that, if true, it was something that was considered around 1993-4, when Lucas first started concieving the story for the tirlogy. But I'm sure, as @Alexrd said, that by the time Lucas settled the story for TPM, he had the stories for Clones and Sith in his mind as well.

Maybe it is because we do know how the PT works, but I find that there was no other way to structure this story. The story is about the fall of Anakin Skywalker, the Republic and the Jedi Order. Obviously, the climaxes have to go in the third act. There was never a possibility of a full movie of Vader AFTER the turn (once the story was settled).

 

Maybe Palps already had the emergency powers for years, instead of getting them in the movie because of the cold war with the Separatists going on for years. And the conflict turns hot similarly to how it did in the movie.

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You know, not many are willing to point out the flaws of Kubrick, Hitchcock and plenty of other directors who changed the course of film history. Not to say it’s bad to point to Lucas’s flaws(which he certainly contains some) but I beg to differ.

The original trilogy’s behind the scenes was in actuality, a bit of a train wreck. Empire of Dreams and plenty of other first hand testimonies reveal this. So I think focusing straight to his flaws or even going to a pure “angelic” praise isn’t necessary. However, people in this thread have shown numerous examples of Lucas’s writing process both from the OT and PT.