bunkaroo

Seeing that Episode I poster makes me sad. I remember seeing it all those years ago, and even though I was in my early 20's, I was excited like a kid for the promise it held.

Then the movie came out.

mcnabb

If you watch Episode IV, Darth Vader is in the movie for literallly 12-15 minutes, so I don't know how you can draw that conclusion The movie was a standalone movie that had a beginning, middle, and end, and the movie is about Luke Skywalker and his journey from being a farm boy to being a hero and blowing up the Death Star at the end. The story could have stopped there, and Star Wars would still be a classic.

Not until the release of ESB did Lucas start changing the story with Anakin and Darth Vader being the same person. Then changing the story in ROTJ with Luke and Leia being siblings. And then changing the story again in TPM where QuiGon finds Anakin.....

Next your going to tell me that Lucas had Luke and Leia kiss in ESB just to throw off the audience for the sibling reveal in ROTJ

Travis McClain

[cough]Dr. No[/cough]

You're welcome to dig through the forum archive to find where, time and again, I've decried the notion of George Lucas as a visionary on the basis that several key things were clearly improvised as he went. Darth Vader being the central figure of the overall story, though, I don't believe is one of those elements. The remarks from Obi-Wan are clearly meant to build up Vader in Luke's--and our--mind.

Look, even a broken clock is right twice a day. I'm of the mind that the Vader-is-the-Core issue is one of those two times for Lucas, and it's going to take a lot more than "But the other characters are so much cooler/more prominent" and "You're just a Kool-Aid-drinking Lucas apologist" to convince me otherwise.

RocShemp

Vader came across as a nothing more than a (badass) henchman in Episode IV. It was clear he was Tarkin's bitch. How he got promoted after his failure to take out a little kid who destroyed the Emperor's trillion credit doomsday weapon is nothing short of a miracle.

Travis McClain

It always struck me that Vader was something of a has-been on the backside of his career who was largely just mailing it in by the time of Star Wars, but that the return of Obi-Wan and the eruption of the rebellion sort of jolted him back into action.

milo bloom

You're right, I looked at DVDAf and saw the copyright date of 2002, but didn't realize the DVD release date was 2005.


Actually, I've never seen that matte painting, so I might be wrong. I'm pretty sure that scene was in the novelization of Jedi, which I read a million times as a kid and I must have just put Luke in Ben's hut in my mind's eye for all those years. It does make more sense that he would raid Ben's place for supplies but then find a cave to hide in while he constructs the saber.


He survived, Tarkin didn't. And of course Vader would have given his side of the story to the Emperor when he got back to him, painting Tarkin as incompetent. Not that surprising to me.

bluetoast

I'm guessing that one of the reasons he got promoted in the wake of the Deaths Star explosion was that he was

a.) high ranking
b.) alive

Paul_SD

Just because the film is titled "Dr. No" doesn't mean it is actually about that character. The story is about James Bond who investigates a conspiracy, finds the source and their ultimate objective and triumphs over them.
He's the protagonist of the story- just like Luke is in Star Wars.

Most of the significant plot resolutions (carried over from the previous films) in RotJ are retroactive continuity- just like so much of the Prequels would be after that. If someone enjoys that, fine. But don't confuse Lucas' after-the-fact spin with incontrovertible fact about these stories original intent and construction.

milo bloom

Where did you get the cover art for the Musical Journey DVD? Custom, I'm guessing?

The Valeyard

I've seen that one and several others on the web. I downloaded and used this one for my cover:

Breather

I've got to disagree with you on this one. Lucas himself states that he never intended for Darth Vader to become as big as he did. He also states in the same interview that sometime between Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back is when he decided to go with the idea of Darth Vader as Luke's father. He states that even after Star Wars had come out, he wasn't sure which of the two options he was going with, Vader as Luke's father or just Vader as the guy who killed Anakin. He even states that Yoda was thought up before ESB but after Star Wars. All because he originally planned for Obi-Wan to be Luke's trainer but decided while making Star Wars that he was going to kill off Obi-Wan, so he had to create another trainer for Luke. He also mentions the reason for creating the Luke/Leia angle and it was after ESB was made. The mention of Vader turning Leia during Jedi was thought up on set during the filming of ROTJ, according to Lucas.

Every Star Wars fan knows that Lucas originally planned for Star Wars to be a 9-12 film saga, not six. There are quotes from him in old interviews and even in his old Bantha Tracks newsletter from years ago. Yet today, he falsely claims that he always intended it to be six. Also the Luke/Leia sister/brother angle was thought up after ESB.

Lucas' own comments about Vader in that interview disprove the notion that Star Wars was always about Vader/Anakin. That may be the revisionism that came later but it was not intended to be that way.

Do you know what documentary that interview is from?

"From Star Wars to Jedi: The Making of a Saga". The fourth of the four documentaries that Lucas mysteriously left off the new set while including the other three. I think it's plainly obvious why he doesn't want that doc on the set. Between the Vader, Obi-Wan, Yoda, and Luke/Leia excerpts, it clearly shows that Star Wars wasn't this pre-planned, grand "vision" that George Lucas tries to make everyone believe today. He thought up a lot of it as he went along and has made further revisions in the last 15 years, all the while telling us that this was his original intent all along.

Many online yesterday, including me, were wondering why and bemoaning the fact that "From Star Wars to Jedi" was left off yet the other three made it. It's quite clear.

Take a look at it on You Tube. Someone has the full 65-minute version up.

Travis McClain

Oh, I know the continuity of when and how this was all developed. But when watching the films themselves there aren't red flags being waved declaring, "We have no idea where this is headed!" A viewer can very easily glean from nothing more than watching the films that Vader is, indeed, central to the original trilogy even if Lucas himself hadn't planned it that way.

Um, yeah. I've quite familiar with it. In fact, you'll find several remarks in this very thread from the last 48 hours by me referencing that documentary and singing its praises.

davidh777

I'm enjoying all the theories about how Vader got ahead in the Empire. What a climber!

Breather

I don't see any red flags either. They were well hidden. In my opinion, while Vader was always a central character in the trilogy, he wasn't THE center and Lucas' own words in the interview prove that. Not to mention, just viewing it without the filter of the prequels or the revisionism given by Lucas today allows Luke to be seen as the focus that he really was. I feel that the OT was the story of Luke and his journey. He was the center of it all. Luke took the hero's journey. Vader was central to the story but he was there to help propel Luke's story and journey. I saw nothing in the OT about the rise, fall, and redemption of Anakin/Vader. There was nothing about the rise, and as another poster mentioned, the only time devoted to his redemption was the last few minutes of the film. And yet still, the focus was on Luke and his journey of becoming a man and a Jedi and then confronting and redeeming his father and completing his hero's journey.

I've read your posts on "From Star Wars to Jedi" and I know we're in agreement in our wish to have seen it included in the set. I do feel that the exclusion of that doc was due to the fact that it refutes the revisionism we've heard for the last 10+ years and sets Lucas' talk of the whole saga being a pre-planned example of his grand vision and intent on its ear.

Most hardcore Star Wars fans know that the OT had the four original making-of docs and we get the first three on this set but not the fourth. Mysterious and inexplicable until someone takes the time to watch it. The fourth is 65 minutes long and almost 40 minutes is exclusive material and interviews not present in the other three, so it can't be excluded on the basis of it being a rehash, as anyone viewing all four will clearly see it isn't a rehash. Fans have wanted an official DVD release of the four for years. They're quite popular in some of the "aftermarket" sets. We get 175 minutes of spoofs and fan material, the History channel doc and an outdated featurette on the 1997 CGI, yet this was left off. They can't use the lack of space excuse when you consider what was left on in its place.

I'm not a crazy conspiracy theorist. On the other hand, when you view that doc and see what made it onto the set in its place and look at the fact that the other three made it, I think the reason for its exclusion is obvious.

Nick Martin

Whoa whoa whoa wait a minute here....

Who the hell is supposedly cooler than Darth Vader? If anyone says Han Solo, and I know they will, just because someone has a casual, almost lazy attitude about things doesn't make him nearly as badass. One look at Vader, especially before we really knew what happened to him in the prequels and he was automatically a mystery man and a dangerous threat. The man walks around with lights on his chest and belt and a skull-like mask, those alone piquing anyone's interest as to who the hell this guy is, not to mention how fantastic his overall look is.


Then there's the whole scary voice and strangling people with his mind thing...

I'm biased though, since Vader is the one reason I'm a fan of Star Wars in the first place.

Disc-Flipper

Also, "From Star Wars to Jedi" reuses a lot of the "Classic Creatures..." featurette, so it may have been redundant for them to include it.

Breather

Actually, "From Star Wars to Jedi" spends its first 25 minutes on creatures from ROTJ, like "Classic Creatures" does. On the other hand, the focus and footage of those creatures was somewhat different than "Classic Creatures".

The last 40 minutes of "From Star Wars to Jedi" doesn't deal with the creatures at all, instead dealing with other aspects of ROTJ, the speeder bike chase, and the aforementioned Lucas interviews that were not in "Classic Creatures" or the other two. The last 40 minutes of it, or 60% of it, was not redundant or repetitive in any way.

Josh-da-man

The Star Wars saga has always been fluid and there has never been any kind of grand plan in effect.

One need only to read the original drafts of "Star Wars" from the early 1970s. The first draft is almost completely unrecognizable, save for a few names and the "I'll be careful/You'll be dead" exchange, from the film that was actually made. The only constant is that it is a multi-generational science fiction epic.

Even in the prequels, you can see that Lucas was fishing around and didn't have the plot solidly locked up and was just winging a lot of things from movie to movie. In AOTC, Syfo-Dyas seemed to be an important plot point that would pay off in the third film, but that was thread was dropped entirely. And, in ROTS, the concept of "force ghosts" was dealt with in a couple of clumsy lines of dialog about Qui-Gon Jinn. ROTS, with Padme dying seconds after Leia was born, contradicts what Leia said about her mother.

JoeyOhhhh

It's a custom I made back when it was released.

PM me and I can send you it (in either silver or gold)

Breather

I agree that it has always been fluid. I've read those old script drafts as well. Lucas, on the other hand, began some years ago giving the idea that he had everything planned from the beginning film and it's all his original vision and plan, even going so far as to deny that he ever planned to make more than six films. The old interviews show that he was making up much as he went along, even during and after Star Wars and ESB. He'll admit to early script changes before the first film but he gives the impression now that as he was making the first film everything fell into place from that point on.

I agree with your assessment of the prequels as well.

mcnabb

I would be more fascinated if Lucas 'came clean' and they did a documentary on how he changed the saga through the years. I think if Lucas was honest about that, many fans wouldn't care because this happens all the time in movie trilogies (except Lord of the Rings because they were already books.) Zemecki's admits on Back to the Future DVD's that the sequels weren't planned, and the ending where Doc talks about going in the future with Marty and his girlfriend was more for fun just to end the movie. He even says, "I had no grand plan...." Can you see George Lucas Ego letting him say that?

I would love to know when Lucas had the ephipany of merging Vader and Luke's Father as he was writing ESB. Did he just wake up in the middle of the night, "Hey Marcia, I got this great idea for a sequel to Star Wars!" The new documentaries on SW are unwatchable because it is so disingenious because it is all revisionism by Lucas, and all it does is brain-wash the younger generation who has never seen the movies and the gushers who will believe anything he says.

Michael Corvin

I'm willing to bet it's covered in here. I can't vouch for ESB, but I'm working my way through the first book which is comprised entirely of old interviews. So you get none of the revisionist George BS. It's a treasure trove of goodness.

Jason

What you want is a doc called "How I fucked everything up to screw with the fans" or "Why I'm a shitty filmmaker and my films should be taken away from me like children in a rat-infested trailer"

Oliver Clothesoff

This is the most fascinating element of the OT to me. It still bothers me what could have been in ROTJ had Lucas not been out to just finish it in the quickest, easiest, and most profitable way possible.

It could have been a badass gothic sci-fi western - all set up perfectly by Empire, but instead we get Ewoks and family.

Artman

In fairness though, I get the sense that everyone including Lucas was ready to move on to other things after the third one... even getting Ford to come back for Jedi took some work. So he may have had no choice but to combine the elements of three more films into that last one. People change, move on... unlike other jobs that people have no problem working at for 20-30yrs, creative folks (who are a in a position to be able to get more work) don't like spending half their careers on one kind of project.