Star Wars: The Original Trilogy (1977-1983)

[StingingVelvet]

Originally Posted by ZoetMB

The fist fight in the truck, the fight in front of the moving plane and the fight on the tank were the least interesting parts of the film, IMO.

[Skwege]

Originally Posted by Riddler95

Apparently George Lucas made major changes to the story of Return of the Jedi after Raiders of the Lost Ark was released. He was convinced that people cared more about action than the actual story. Apparently in the original outline there was no new Death Star, there were no Ewoks, Han Solo died, and Luke sets off on his own after defeating Darth Vader.

Wasn't there actually two Death Stars in the original outline? There was some early McQuarrie art depicting them mid-construction in orbit around the then un-named Imperial Planet (which later became Coruscant.)
It's unfortunate that the Imperial Planet concept was ditched in favor of rehashing The Death Star wholesale.

[Geoff D]

Yes, that was one of Lucas' early ideas for ROTJ: "How can I improve on one Death Star? That's right...TWO Death Stars! How do I come up with this stuff? BOOM!" [drops pencil]

[Porco Azzurro]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Yes, that was one of Lucas' early ideas for ROTJ: "How can I improve on one Death Star? That's right...TWO Death Stars! How do I come up with this stuff? BOOM!" [drops pencil]

"First rule in government spending: why build one when you can have two at twice the price"

[StingingVelvet]

Playing devil's advocate, it's actually completely believable to me that a fascist empire would build another death star or two.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Porco Azzurro

"First rule in government spending: why build one when you can have two at twice the price"

Dat Lucas so smart, putting in all those digs at the profligacy of government. Or he just thought it was cool, whatever.

[Riddler95]

Originally Posted by dgoswald

That's what I hoped they'd do after ESB. What could've been!

I do like Return of the Jedi. It isn't perfect but it was a great finale for the Original Trilogy and t tied up the loose ends from the first two films. However I am very curious to see original story outline. It probably would have worked great on film.

They should adapt the original story outline into a Graphic Novel. Much like what happened with Jim Henson's Tales of Sand.
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Originally Posted by Skwege

Wasn't there actually two Death Stars in the original outline? There was some early McQuarrie art depicting them mid-construction in orbit around the then un-named Imperial Planet (which later became Coruscant.) It's unfortunate that the Imperial Planet concept was ditched in favor of rehashing The Death Star wholesale.

I am not sure.

[Riddler95]

Originally Posted by ZoetMB

Not that my opinion means anything, but aside from the opening, the action scenes in Raiders were my least favorite parts of the film. I think Raiders worked because of the overall production values, because the opening was so spectacular and we had never seen anything like it before, because of the humor, because Indy's character was very compelling, his relationship with Marion worked (and Karen Allen's smile would win over anyone) and because the story was indeed interesting and somewhat mysterious. The fist fight in the truck, the fight in front of the moving plane and the fight on the tank were the least interesting parts of the film, IMO.

And IMO, the 3rd Indy film worked because of the relationship between Indy and Sean Connery's character, not because of any action, which I can't even recall.

I don't know that Solo needed to die in ROTJ, but it certainly would have been a better film without the second Death Star and without the Ewoks, although the Ewoks at least served a purpose - to show how sometimes the best way to beat advanced technology is without it. And VII would have been better without the planet destroyer or whatever they called it.

Star Trek always seems to have another Enterprise waiting in the wings when the previous one is destroyed on almost every mission Kirk takes with it. (Does anyone think about who pays to build those ships?) Star Wars always seems to have another Death Star equivalent. I realize this all takes place in some advanced future (even if that future was "a long time ago") and we're really only about 135 years into the electrical age and it's been only about 40 years since the invention of the microprocessor, but unless they have self-replicating machines, I don't see how these ships and weapons get built so quickly.

I think the reasons for why Raiders of the Lost Ark was so brilliant was because it had a great storyline and featured spectacular action sequences. Raiders of the Lost Ark was really the first of it’s kind.

Return of the Jedi may still be a great movie but it is not perfect. There are things about it that I honestly don’t like. It is too bad because Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back were two perfect movies.

Maybe the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-A) was completed for some time before it was given to Kirk, Spock, and the rest of the crew.

[JamesKurtovich]

Originally Posted by StingingVelvet

Playing devil's advocate, it's actually completely believable to me that a fascist empire would build another death star or two.

It's all about redundancy.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Riddler95

Maybe the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-A) was completed for some time before it was given to Kirk, Spock, and the rest of the crew.

It's not canon but some folks say that the A is another ship that's been hastily renamed and/or brought out of mothballs, i.e. it hasn't just been magicked up overnight. (That reveal in ST IV still brings tears to my eyes though.)

[octagon]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

It's not canon but some folks say that the A is another ship that's been hastily renamed and/or brought out of mothballs, i.e. it hasn't just been magicked up overnight. (That reveal in ST IV still brings tears to my eyes though.)

Plus, magicking up a ship is kind of in keeping with one of Star Trek's central conceits anyway. Scarce, specific resources (dilithium, most notably) serve as MacGuffins here and there but energy and material resources are plentiful.

The idea that technology could deliver some semblance of utopia if we didn't blow ourselves up with it first was a pretty appealing back when blowing ourselves up was a very real possibility and it's still pretty cool.

/OT Tangent

[segagamer12]

Let's see the Empire ruled out of total fear, the Death Star destroyed an entire, peaceful, planet that had nothing to do with the conflict and people were supposed to fear them. When it got blown up Vader went and got himself a Super Star Destroyer to show off how bad-ass he was after losing the Death Star. It makes sense that the Empire that ruled out of fear that builds giant death machines would be anxious to build another giant death machine when some farm boy blows up their prized death machine. There was obviously fear in Palpatine when he began rushing the second Death Star because he knew Luke was dangerous and that by Jedi he was a serious threat to their cause. That explains why the First Order would over compensate by building something that dwarfs their predecessors giant death machine, they are afraid of the Republic they lost control of the Galaxy and are desperate to get it back.

That same fear is what led US to start the Manhattan project in the first place and fear our enemies would beat us is what led us to drop bombs on Japan. We dropped TWO bombs because fear was on our side, we needed to show that we were to be feared, just like the Empire. It makes perfect sense especially from a narrative standpoint. If the Empire had rolled over and stopped making giant death machines then what were they supposed to do? We didn't have the prequels making it a religious crusade all we knew about Palaptine was he was super greedy and wanted total control of the galaxy.

If the plan wasn't another Death Star, after seeing Super Star Destroyers, the big reveal about Luke and Vader, where else could they go? Make the emperor some evil Lord of the Rings wizard that uses his magic to blow up a planet making Vader's threat in A New Hope tangible? That would defeat the purpose he was trying to erase the Jedi from existence there was no evidence the general public were even aware Palpatine could use the Force, he sends his guards away when is about to unleash Vader. He didn't want them to see him tossing Force Lighting around.

[MachineGod]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Yes, that was one of Lucas' early ideas for ROTJ: "How can I improve on one Death Star? That's right...TWO Death Stars! How do I come up with this stuff? BOOM!" [drops pencil]

I'm quite sure there was at least one draft without any Deathstar, and The Emperor instead stays on the grand imperial palace on the capital city which they were gonna attempt to show.

Some of Kasdens earlier ideas that never made it sound amazing. Originally at the start of Jedi The Emperor no longer fully trusts Vader, and Jerjerrod was going to have a much bigger role and he was essentially going to be Palpatines pawn who does his bidding and spies on Vader... who was going to have his own pawn/ spy in Piett. This power play between Palpatine/ Jerjerrod vs. Vader/ Piett was going to carry throughout the whole film. In the end, when Luke surrenders himself to Vader, Vader was going to betray the Emperor and take Luke to the Executor instead to see Palps and they where going to really explore that element of Vader wanting Luke to join him and then take out The Emperor. As it stands now that idea is brought up and teased in Empire but never explored. I love the Vader/ Emperor/ Luke stuff we got in Jedi as much as anyone else but I have to admit I would love to see this power play and I think it would be more in line with the escalation that Empire brought to the trilogy.

[CaptainYoda]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

It's not canon but some folks say that the A is another ship that's been hastily renamed and/or brought out of mothballs, i.e. it hasn't just been magicked up overnight. (That reveal in ST IV still brings tears to my eyes though.)

I believe it was in one of the technical manuals or something, but the Enterprise A was a newly built ship with a different name, the Yorktown if I recall correctly, and was rechristened the Enterprise after Kirk and crew saved the earth from destruction by the Space probe looking for the whales.

[segagamer12]

Originally Posted by CaptainYoda

I believe it was in one of the technical manuals or something, but the Enterprise A was a newly built ship with a different name, the Yorktown if I recall correctly, and was rechristened the Enterprise after Kirk and crew saved the earth from destruction by the Space probe looking for the whales.

Get your filthy Star Trek nonsense out of our Star Wars threads thank you very much. Geesh the nerve of some people not staying on topic.


Which thread is this again anyways? What is the topic? Right Star Wars rules

[Porco Azzurro]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Dat Lucas so smart, putting in all those digs at the profligacy of government. Or he just thought it was cool, whatever.

I think you missed the point I was trying to make, I was just quoting Contact as another example of a successful film that has a huge, expensive engineering project that happens twice (in the same film in that case!) because if one has the resources (which the Empire would have done) you might as well. From a story-logic point of view I think it's entirely reasonable, though I get why some people feel like it would have been better to have something different to a second death star in RotJ.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Porco Azzurro

I think you missed the point I was trying to make, I was just quoting Contact as another example of a successful film that has a huge, expensive engineering project that happens twice (in the same film in that case!) because if one has the resources (which the Empire would have done) you might as well. From a story-logic point of view I think it's entirely reasonable, though I get why some people feel like it would have been better to have something different to a second death star in RotJ.

I didn't know that was from Contact. But it looks like I'm giving out the wrong impression (again? Oh man) because I really don't care about whether it can be explained away "in-universe", it's the sheer laziness of the narrative itself to go back to the Death Star and do it all over again. Only BIGGER. Still, Lucas is definitely NOT the first director to have remade their plucky, low-fi original into something a whole lot glossier when given another chance. See also: James Cameron, George Miller, etc etc.

Why can I give the sudden appearance of the 1701-A a pass, then? Eh, there's an entire fleet of starships at their disposal so it wouldn't take much to slap on some new decals and update the registry.

[MechaGodzilla]

Originally Posted by MachineGod

I'm quite sure there was at least one draft without any Deathstar, and The Emperor instead stays on the grand imperial palace on the capital city which they were gonna attempt to show.

Some of Kasdens earlier ideas that never made it sound amazing. Originally at the start of Jedi The Emperor no longer fully trusts Vader, and Jerjerrod was going to have a much bigger role and he was essentially going to be Palpatines pawn who does his bidding and spies on Vader... who was going to have his own pawn/ spy in Piett. This power play between Palpatine/ Jerjerrod vs. Vader/ Piett was going to carry throughout the whole film. In the end, when Luke surrenders himself to Vader, Vader was going to betray the Emperor and take Luke to the Executor instead to see Palps and they where going to really explore that element of Vader wanting Luke to join him and then take out The Emperor. As it stands now that idea is brought up and teased in Empire but never explored. I love the Vader/ Emperor/ Luke stuff we got in Jedi as much as anyone else but I have to admit I would love to see this power play and I think it would be more in line with the escalation that Empire brought to the trilogy.

Now with the sequel trilogy they have another chance to go there. I hope they will.

[ZoetMB]

Originally Posted by Porco Azzurro

I think you missed the point I was trying to make, I was just quoting Contact as another example of a successful film that has a huge, expensive engineering project that happens twice (in the same film in that case!) because if one has the resources (which the Empire would have done) you might as well. From a story-logic point of view I think it's entirely reasonable, though I get why some people feel like it would have been better to have something different to a second death star in RotJ.

Wasn't the second "ship" in Contact privately built?

[Spike M.]

Originally Posted by MechaGodzilla

Now with the sequel trilogy they have another chance to go there. I hope they will.

Ren seems far less inclined to sit back and be #2 to Snoke than Vader was to Palpatine. I'd be shocked if he doesn't try to overthrow him at some point, since a big part of his character is about achieving the top spot he felt Vader deserved. Ren knowing that Snoke will eventually try to kill him adds to that dynamic too.