Subject:
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Re: Young Obi-Wan's Head
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.starwars
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Date:
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Thu, 27 Jan 2000 12:57:13 GMT
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Viewed:
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1098 times
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In lugnet.starwars, Dave Schuler writes:
> In lugnet.starwars, Steve Bliss writes:
> > In lugnet.starwars, Dave Schuler wrote:
> >
> > > > > Doesn't Leia say in ROTJ that her mother died when she was very young?
> > > >
> > > > And Darth Vader murdered Luke's father.
> > > >
> > > > Can't believe everything someone tells you. ;)
>
> > Oh, brother. Such a contrived piece of melodrama would destroy what little
> > of George's dramatic integrity has withstood the whole JarJar debacle. One
> > might as easily assert that Chewbacca is Leia's mother, since we have no • film-
> > > based evidence conclusively demonstrating him as unable to give birth.
> >
> > Funny, that's what I thought when the whole "I am your father, Luke" thing
> > came out. What a contrived, crummy plot twist. The worst part is that (to
> > me) it really feels like it was a notion that occurred to Lucas *after* Star
> > Wars was released, while they were trying to figure out what to do for the
> > second movie (AKA Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back).
If I recall correctly from assorted interviews with George Lucas and Gary Kurtz
(producer), the point of the story initially was the father-son conflict -
however, as the script grew too big for just one film, Lucas was forced to take
the most filmable single chapter as the initial movie. The whole backplot was
then already there, should a sequel be required.
Of course, there's also the on-set story that Dave Prowse said "No... Obi-Wan
was your father!", and only Lucas and James Earl Jones knew the truth. If you
take this as the story, then, over the first two movies, the storyline is much
better, IMHO: Kenobi watches his son from afar (note that Luke's guardians,
his 'Aunt' and 'Uncle', were originally going to be Obi-Wan's brother and
sister-in-law, which fits in), introducing him to the Jedi ways when
cicumstances re-introduce them; his comment about Luke's dad being killed by
Vader can then be explained either as a Force-vision of the imminent future, or
a non-literal reference to Kenobi's self-imposed exile after Vader's
extermination of the other Jedi. Even Luke's post-hand-loss "Ben... why didn't
you tell me?" line works within this story-logic.
> The only thing mitigating the Vader/Father deal is that, at the time, that
> sort of silliness wasn't *too* widespread in film, though you're right; it's
> still pretty campy.
>
> > Ditto for the "Luke & Leia are twins" thing. Double-ditto.
>
> Yeah, I can't argue with you there. I can almost swallow the brother-sister
> thing, but the twin bit is just too much. Worse, it does **nothing
> whatsover** for the story, except to excuse George from having to write the
> more complicated character dynamic resulting from a Han/Leia/Luke triangle.
> That is, Luke is effectively removed from the running, so the potentially
> interesting--from a character standpoint--problem is sidestepped.
Exactly. Kurtz himself said that this was not the original plan, it wasn't
until they started pre-production on ROTJ that this story element was
introduced. Luke DID have a twin sister in the original drafts, but she wasn't
Leia - likewise, Leia wasn't even going to be in the sequels much, as the
original draft stood, showing the distance between her royal position and Han
and Luke's positions as cannon-fodder flyboys, basically. The line by Yoda to
Kenobi "there is another" in ESB obviously now applies to Leia, but it could be
seen as the introduction of this other supposed twin sister.
> Dave!
Stu C.
University of Glasgow
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Young Obi-Wan's Head
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| <snip> (...) <snip> I read a story from Anthony Daniels's Wonder Column in Star Wars Insider magazine. He said that what was actually said was something like, "Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday!" and then Mark Hamill had to act really (...) (24 years ago, 27-Jan-00, to lugnet.starwars)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Young Obi-Wan's Head
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| (...) The only thing mitigating the Vader/Father deal is that, at the time, that sort of silliness wasn't *too* widespread in film, though you're right; it's still pretty campy. (...) Yeah, I can't argue with you there. I can almost swallow the (...) (24 years ago, 26-Jan-00, to lugnet.starwars)
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