This sums up Lucas' entire attitude to Star Wars, he made up bullshit as he went along and changed relationships, etc, both with Luke and his father and Luke and his sister, shrinking the scope of the galaxy in the process.
Luke, Leia and Vader could've been totally separate and unrelated families spread across the galaxy, but no, Lucas had to make them ALL related in the end! WHAT was he THINKING???
I think he put a lot of planning and revisions into A New Hope. I think he then took a lot of ideas he either a) didn't have time for, or b) was made to cut by producers for coherence, and he put them back in as he created the rest of the movies. I also think he made up a BUNCH of stuff. There's also a shift after Empire. I suspect that he developed the storyline for Empire with Kasdan in such a way that it was going along great, but by the time he got to Return of the Jedi, he was moving away from, "How do I tell the best story?" and towards, "How do I top that last plot twist?" Thus: siblings.
shareHe could had made it less weird just by making Luke and Han brothers, as cliched as that may be.
shareIf it was made today, they'd be lovers.
shareYeah, but I think he was also looking to smoothly resolve the love triangle between Luke, Han, and Leia without having fans feel like the hero "lost" the girl.
I think that he just should have not had a plot twist in Return of the Jedi, and written out a couple scenes where Luke is turned down by Leia. He's a little saddened by that, but he redeemed his father, so it's all good. It would've been a little bittersweet twist; coulda been nice...
Hmmm . . . I get the impression that Lucas tweaked some minor variations in his story without affecting the original story arc.
The one that made up "bullshit as he went along" was clearly the Disney trilogy orchestrators.
I think Lucas had Leia and Luke kiss in two movies straight before yoinking out the "sibling" card and anybody who was "tweaking" an already-existing plot would've maybe avoided stepping on an incest landmine.
shareWell I think the "incest landmine" is a bit overblown. It's really not a big of a deal that he kissed his sister in the context of the moment.
A bigger puzzler, at least for me, is when Lucas had Luke tell Leia "I have no memory of my mother." This, after Leia tells of her memories.
How could Leia have memories and Luke none if they were born twins and their mother died at birth?
Still scratching my head over that one.
There are incongruities all over the place with the prequels.
"You must go to the Dagobah system. There you will learn from Yoda, the Jedi Master who instructed me," - said Obi-Wan Kenobi, somehow forgetting about Qui-Gon Jinn entirely.
"I don't remember ever owning a droid," - except for R2-D2 being the droid who saved them all on Naboo and who was then with Obi-Wan and Anakin for years.
But, honestly, one of the points that bugs me the most is, "And he was a good friend..." with Alec Guinness giving one of those great, poignant moments that brilliant actors pull off where he grief and nostalgia are welling behind his eyes, and then all of that was flushed down the toilet by three movies where Obi-Wan and Anakin (1) barely know each other, (2) play the roles of grumpy dad and petulant teenager, and (3) disagree constantly, and have festering anger and resentment boil over and cause them to fight to (what they think is) the death. That Lucas undercut Guinness' fantastic moment with slipshod writing is really disappointing.
Well, as I read your comment, and reflected on my own. I was reminded of some damage control I came up for my conundrum years ago. I reasoned that Leia was remembering her step mother, not her real mother, without realizing it. But do I really buy that that was what Lucas had in mind? Nope.
The Yoda/Qui-Gon is a bit of a gaff, I suppose one could reason that Yoda taught Obi-Won as a child (since Yoda was shown training the "younglings" in ROTS), and then Qui-Gon took over at some point. Yeah, weak damage control but one could play around with that. I mean, Obi-Won couldn't very well send Luke to train with Qui-Gon anyway, and there was no one left to train Luke but Yoda. So what else could Obi-Won tell Luke? But given how bad Yoda looked when Phantom first came out, I'm happy for Qui-Gon because the less I saw of the sickly Yoda puppet the better.
"I don't remember ever owning a droid" -- well, I guess maybe he didn't. It was a long time ago, for him. Again, a stab at damage control would be that the character was just acting subdued in order to reel Luke in a bit. I know what you're thinking and honesty, I don't buy it either.
Funny though, your last and most passionate objection over the friendship of Anakin and Obi-Won I would counter argue that a friendship is believable. In ROTS Anakin referenced all the times he'd rescued Obi-Won from one jam or another. I believe by raising Anakin since he was a young boy, Obi-Won had logged in enough time with him to become good friends. So no problem for me there.
But, you're right: that's all damage control.
With Leia, though, the problem is that Luke emphasises "Your *real* mother," which implies, "Not your step-mom." I don't know how else to read that line. Actually, Carrie Fisher's memory speech is really well-played, too, so it's doubly a shame that it's undercut by the prequels. I understand where Lucas would forget little details like that while scripting Episodes I-III, but that doesn't make the disappointments any less piquant.
Yes, Yoda taught the younglings, but that'd be like saying, "Learn with Ms. Finklestein, my math teacher," and then finding out that Ms. Finklestein taught math in the second grade. Again, it's between the lines, but that's not the implication. He might have said, "The greatest Jedi master who ever lived," or "The last of the Jedi masters," but he didn't and the prequels don't support that.
He might not have actually owned the droids - in fact, it's more than likely they were all Republic property - but why he can't recall R2 specifically is strange. I know there are a lot of astromech droids out there, but R2 is pretty distinct in personality, and in Obi-Wan's personal history.
The references didn't do it for me. Movies can't just say, "Oh, these two are friends. They were in all those scrapes together," so we're told, but it's irrelevant because we only ever see them behave as anything but. When all we witness is bickering, scolding, sulking, and eye rolling, it's hard to picture them ever having a fun adventure. Tell don't show doesn't work for me.
"I understand where Lucas would forget little details like that while scripting Episodes I-III, but that doesn't make the disappointments any less piquant."
Then you're more understanding that I am on that one. Because I can't see how he could overlook what he had written in ROTJ about Luke/Leia and the dialogue concerning their mother. In fact, I'd argue that he didn't forget, I think what happened is that when it came time for ROTS, with the focus on the fall of Anakin, to ferret out scenes accommodating the exchange between Luke and Leia in ROTJ would have been too time consuming and distracting (and unnecessary). Far simpler just to ignore what was said before and show the mothers death, the twins separated with location at their new homes, and be done with it.
I suppose he could have written the scene such that Padme didn't die, that she instead relinquished her children for "hiding" (presumably her character wouldn't go for that I imagine) . . . or maybe have her unconscious after delivery and then later having someone lie to her about the children not surviving birth, etc. But that would be a messy thing to leave hanging for the resolution of a trilogy.
And while the suggestion of a friendship between Obi-Won and Anakin doesn't bother me, I can understand why it might bother you or others. It's just that I think it was written with the intention of allowing viewers to fill in the blank on their own. Much like when Obi-Won tells Luke that his father was the best pilot ever. Well, we get a couple of quick scenes of Anakin maneuvering in AOTC and ROTS (a flying car and fighter respectively), so I take it that those scenes are meant to fulfill the boast made my Obi-Won earlier. Where we get a hint and then are meant to extrapolate accordingly. And I see the friendship reference in the same way, but I understand where you're coming from.
He might not have written it. Kasdan might have scripted the scene, Lucas might just have said, "We need a scene where Luke and Leia connect as brother and sister," and Kasdan might have written the "Do you remember your mother?" dialogue. Lucas didn't direct it, either, so who knows how much he knew? Besides, that was in 1983 ('82 for filming), and by the time he came to writing out Episode III, he just might not have remembered that Leia would need "real mom" memories.
But, yes, I think you're right where he just didn't re-read or re-watch the originals before scripting his, and he didn't pay attention to detail if he did. He probably just figured, "Hey, I know all this stuff; it's my universe," and went marching off into the writing process.
Having the twins separated, yet Leia remain with Padme long enough to develop memories would be tricky, yeah. That's not an easy script bit, but he should have figured it out. I'd have overlooked it if the rest of Episodes I-III weren't as disappointing as they were, but when the main character arc doesn't work, and the plots are dull garbage, and he's got Yoda backflipping in lightsabre fights...ugh...at that point I'm not feeling charitable towards smaller inconsistencies.
The problem with scripting it so I fill in the blank is that I have not so much as a hint elsewhere in the films that I should fill the blank with anything but stern scolding and childish petulance from these two.
As to the pilot thing, I've long felt that Anakin should have been older during The Phantom Menace and have been a low-ranking crewman on Amidala's cruiser. He could have piloted them through the blockade and immediately impressed on Obi-Wan his skills as a pilot. Still, that one bothers me less because Lucas does show us Anakin starfighting and podracing (even if Obi-Wan didn't directly witness it).
"He could have piloted them through the blockade and immediately impressed on Obi-Wan his skills as a pilot."
I forgot all about the scene in TPM where youngling Anakin overrides the auto pilot and manages to infiltrate and destroy the enemy craft (whatever it was called). I guess that makes at least one instance in each of the three films where Anakin displays superlative piloting skills.
Yes, his piloting didn't come out of nowhere. That's an unfortunately rare example of where Lucas got it right, in terms of synchronization with the OT.
shareThe original idea was that Anakin left Padme and didn't know she was pregnant. So that allowed her to live a bit on Alderaan with Leia. This is told in the original script for ROTJ (and it's in the novelization).
When it came time to make Episode III, Lucas decided to have Anakin know Padme was pregnant for the sake of drama, necessitating her death and the perceived death of their child.
I'm guessing it also had something to do with making for a more fluid film near the end. As I mentioned before, it could have felt a bit bogged down having to write scenes that allowed for Padme to let go of Luke while still hanging around to watch over Leia. But yeah, the drama with her death, the birth of the children and Vader being deceived and full of anger was quite Shakespearian.
share