Second draft. Final draft. It makes little difference since Lucas threw out pretty much everything Brackett wrote and did a page one rewrite, which Kasdan then further polished. Lucas gave Brackett a screenplay credit in honor of her due to her passing shortly after completing her draft and he gave Kasdan sole credit, only giving himself a "story by" credit, but to say that Kasdan solely wrote the final draft with no input from Lucas or that Lucas did not have his hands all over the script and production as much as he could is patently false.
Last edited by CreasyBear; 12-19-2020 at 03:21 PM.
Second draft. Final draft. It makes little difference since Lucas threw out pretty much everything Brackett wrote and did a page one rewrite, which Kasdan then further polished.
Who wrote what draft matters since what you just acknoledged, that Kasdan at the least did the final "polish" on the script, was my whole point: One can't look at the OT films and make a determination of Lucas' dialogue skills, since someone else wrote the final script and/or polished the dialogue.
Also, it's a bit extreme to say Lucas "threw out pretty much everything Brackett wrote," since her script was based on Lucas's initial story treatment.
From Secret History of Star Wars:
Quote:
After story conferences ended on December 2nd, 1977, Lucas finished his Empire Strikes Back treatment and then Leigh Brackett began writing the first draft screenplay. Finally, on February 23rd, 1978, Brackett finished her first draft of the script, which is essentially identical to the treatment with a few notable elaborations. Tragically, she died from cancer on March 18th.
..“During story conferences with Leigh, my thoughts weren’t full formed and I felt that her script went in a completely different direction,” he explains. 372
...Lucas has said he was unhappy with Brackett’s draft, and it was obviously hampered by this redundancy issue, made material by the introduction of Ben Kenobi and Father Skywalker together as ghosts—Lucas quickly changed it once he realised what the problem was, and it is one of the few story changes Lucas made from Brackett’s draft.
Also, while Lucas frames giving Brackett screenwriting credit as an act of generosity, there's some pretty strict Writers Guild rules about who gets credit or not. The first person to write a draft for particular screenplay is very likely to get a screenwriting credit if basically anything in their draft survives to the final draft. Also, directors have uphill battles to get writing credits on a screenplay, as they have a much higher threshold of contributing "new" material than any other writer. Lucas got a "story by" credit because he wrote the first treatment, but since he didn't write the first script, nor the final, his contribution via the intermediary drafts was likely not enough to earn a credit. The WGA rules likely determined the final screenwriting credits on the film, not Lucas.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CreasyBear
...but to say that Kasdan solely wrote the final draft with no input from Lucas or that Lucas did not have his hands all over the script and production as much as he could is patently false.
I wrote that Lucas had input on the final script, but he didn't actually write any of it:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jay G.
So Lucas steered the script through the story sessions, but he didn't write the final script.
Kasdan based his script off of Lucas's drafts, and on the many story meetings he had with Lucas, but Kasdan did the actual writing of the final script. You can even see some of his handwritten pages here: https://www.starwarz.com/starkiller/...-script-pages/
Who wrote what draft matters since what you just acknoledged, that Kasdan at the least did the final "polish" on the script, was my whole point: One can't look at the OT films and make a determination of Lucas' dialogue skills, since someone else wrote the final script and/or polished the dialogue.
Not to mention that Irvin Kershner allowed some leeway in the script and allowed the actors to try other things, the most famous example being Han Solo's "I know" line. Lucas would never have allowed that kind of deviation from his script, you had to say it word for word in that stiff way he apparently likes.
Also, that "Nice Guys" trailer for Episode II is amazing! Some of those scenes are still cringe, though, even with the comedic slant.
In the 25th anniversary of the novelization of ANH, Lucas states:
"When I wrote the original Star Wars screenplay, I knew that Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker's father; the audience did not. I always felt that this revelation, when and if I got the chance to make it, would be shocking, but I never expected the level of emotional attachment that audiences had developed for Luke."
Is it possible that there could be any truth to this claim? I know Lucas states a lot of contradictory things, but I’m wondering if Vader being Luke’s father was at least an idea that was floating around in Lucas’s head from the very beginning.
Not to mention that Irvin Kershner allowed some leeway in the script and allowed the actors to try other things, the most famous example being Han Solo's "I know" line. Lucas would never have allowed that kind of deviation from his script, you had to say it word for word in that stiff way he apparently likes.
Also, that "Nice Guys" trailer for Episode II is amazing! Some of those scenes are still cringe, though, even with the comedic slant.
Yeah, I really like that fan trailer. I'm a huge fan of The Nice Guys movie, and I loved watching the trailers in the lead up to that movie, I thought they were so great, so seeing that fan edit putting AOTC into the same form as one of the Nice Guys trailers tickles me to no end.
However, it does show the limits of editing. You can sometimes "save" a film in the editing room, but you need good footage to work with in the first place.
In the 25th anniversary of the novelization of ANH, Lucas states:
"When I wrote the original Star Wars screenplay, I knew that Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker's father; the audience did not. I always felt that this revelation, when and if I got the chance to make it, would be shocking, but I never expected the level of emotional attachment that audiences had developed for Luke."
Is it possible that there could be any truth to this claim?
It's not possible. If there's a central thesis to the book that I keep sourcing quotes from, The Secret History of Star Wars by Michael Kaminski, it's that George Lucas lies, and has been revising the "official" history of how he made these films to make it seem he had a lot more planned out than he actually ever did.
In regards to Vader being Luke's Father, the book goes on for pages about how this developed, but some choice quotes.
Quote:
After story conferences ended on December 2nd, 1977, Lucas finished his Empire Strikes Back treatment and then Leigh Brackett began writing the first draft screenplay. Finally, on February 23rd, 1978, Brackett finished her first draft of the script, which is essentially identical to the treatment with a few notable elaborations.
The most shocking piece of evidence of all is that in the first draft of Empire Strikes Back, Father Skywalker’s ghost appears to Luke! To repeat: The ghost of Luke’s dead Jedi father appears while Luke is training on Dagobah and gives Luke advice. Naturally, when Luke finally faces Darth there is no “father revelation”—he beckons Luke to join the darkside, Luke refuses, Vader attacks Luke and Luke jumps off the ledge; the point of Luke’s confrontation with Darth is that he refuses the darkside. Father Skywalker is described as “a tall, fine looking man,” and is referred to only as “Skywalker.” Luke takes the oath of the Jedi from his father. ..
In this [second] draft, Father Skywalker’s ghost does not appear. In this draft, Darth Vader reveals that he is Father Skywalker. The moment comes during the climactic lightsaber fight on the 128th page of Lucas’ hand-written second draft...
∗ Lucas has admitted this [change] to a degree on one rare occasion on the 2004 DVD featurette “The Characters of Star Wars,” although he reverts back to the usual story, implying that this occurred in early drafts for the first film. Here he says that Father Skywalker and Vader merged. “The good father was Annikin Starkiller and the bad villain was Darth Vader,” he says. “Ultimately they merged into being one character.” ...
It is this monumental event, the merging of Father Skywalker and Darth Vader in the April 1978 second draft of Empire Strikes Back, which prompted Lucas to change Empire Strikes Back from Episode II to Episode V. Now Lucas had more than simply a backstory to his current films—he had a tale of adventure, betrayal and tragedy of galactic proportions, a tale which could be a series unto itself....
Mark Hamill remembers:
"I did ask what happened to my parents during Star Wars. If I remember, he gave me a really detailed answer which turned out to be completely different when I got the Empire script... But, I always wondered if it was true that he really had all nine parts written out, whether it was sketchy or well-developed"
[In Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays]..Writes Laurent Bouzereau:
“The notion of Vader being Luke’s father first appeared in the second draft."
There'd be no reason for Lucas to write a treatment, and Brackett a first draft, where there's a ghost Father Skywalker if the merging of Vader and Skywalker into a single character had happened during the making of Star Wars.
In the 25th anniversary of the novelization of ANH, Lucas states:
"When I wrote the original Star Wars screenplay, I knew that Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker's father; the audience did not. I always felt that this revelation, when and if I got the chance to make it, would be shocking, but I never expected the level of emotional attachment that audiences had developed for Luke."
Is it possible that there could be any truth to this claim? I know Lucas states a lot of contradictory things, but I’m wondering if Vader being Luke’s father was at least an idea that was floating around in Lucas’s head from the very beginning.
I have NO evidence for this, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Lucas planned a variety of things early on, and had to streamline his ideas when the first movie came out. When he realized he could make sequels, he probably used many of those older ideas, thought what he made up and when I obviously have no way of knowing.
I have NO evidence for this, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Lucas planned a variety of things early on, and had to streamline his ideas when the first movie came out. When he realized he could make sequels, he probably used many of those older ideas, thought what he made up and when I obviously have no way of knowing.
Lucas likes to claim that he initially had a much bigger story in mind, which he pared down. The reality is that he barely assembled the original Star Wars from a convoluted mess of ideas he had, and no fixed bigger story in mind.
He did have earlier ideas and treatments, which included ideas he used in later works, mostly character and place names, although often in a different context.
The first thing Lucas wrote was a 2-page treatment called The Journal of the Whills, which is a mess of various ideas, some of which showed up in later works: http://fd.noneinc.com/secrethistoryo...illspart2.html
Quote:
In January of 1973, Lucas began working on story material. He wanted to have a comic-book-like feel to the story that recalled the great pulp space opera works like E.E. Smith’s Skylark of Space, but had trouble devising an actual story. To jog his mind, he began by brainstorming exotic names that he could use for characters and planets, almost in a free-association manner, simply to develop the sort of bizarre atmosphere and far-out style that he was looking for. The first name is “Emperor Ford Xerxes XII” (Xerxes being a Persian king who invaded ancient Greece), which was followed by “Xenos, Thorpe, Roland, Monroe, Lars, Kane, Hayden, Crispin, Leila, Zena, Owen, Mace, Wan, Star, Bail, Biggs, Bligh, Cain, Clegg, Fleet, Valorum.”[i] He started combining first and last names and fleshing out their purpose and characterisation: Alexander Xerxes XII is the “Emperor of Decarte,” Owen Lars is an “Imperial General,” Han Solo is “leader of the Hubble people,” Mace Windy a “Jedi-Bendu”, C.2. Thorpe is a space pilot, while Anakin Starkiller is “King of Bebers” and Luke Skywalker “Prince of Bebers.” He came up with planets such as “Yoshiro” and “Aquilae” the desert planets, “Norton III” an ice planet, and “Yavin” is a jungle world with its native eight-foot-tall Wookies.
Having bombarded himself with such an exotically alien ambiance he finally attempted to construct a story. What he ended up with was a vague two pages of a hand-written plot summary with the curious title Journal of the Whills; it opened with the convoluted line, “This is the story of Mace Windy, a revered Jedi-Bendu of Opuchi, as related to us by C.J Thape, padawaan learner to the famed Jedi.” In the brief plot outline, Mace Windy is a “Jedi-Bendu” or “Jedi-Templer,” a vague sci-fi adaptation of a space superhero crossed with a samurai. Windy takes on an apprentice, CJ Thorpe, who narrates the story retrospectively in the first person. The tale is uncharacteristically literary in prose, and is divided into two parts, headed with “I” and “II” respectively, Part I being Thrope’s training and Part II being his first mission. J.W. Rinzler describes it:
“The initials C.J. or C.2. (it switches back and forth) stand for ‘Chuiee Two Thorpe of Kissel. My father is Han Dardell Thorpe, chief pilot of the renown galactic cruiser Tarnack.’ At the age of sixteen Chuiee enters the ‘exalted Intersystems Academy to train as a potential Jedi-Templer. It is here that I became padawaan learner to the great Mace Windy…at that time, Warlord to the Chairman of the Alliance of Independent Systems…Some felt that he was more powerful than the Imperial leader of the Galactic Empire…Ironically, it was his own comrades’ fear…that led to his replacement…and expulsion from the royal forces.’
After Windy’s dismissal, Chuiee begs to stay in his service ‘until I had finished my education.’ Part II takes up the story: ‘It was four years later that our greatest adventure began. We were guardians on a shipment of fusion portables to Yavin, when we were summoned to the desolate second planet of Yoshiro by a mysterious courier from the Chairman of the Alliance.’ At this point Lucas’s first space-fantasy narrative trails off…
In the beginning, to borrow such an inflated phrase, the downfall itself was not attached to Annikin Starkiller, Luke Starkiller's father--nor was it attached to Darth Vader. Anakin's turn to the darkside first appears in the rough draft of Star Wars from 1974, though it is not so much a tragic turn as it is loyalty to the wrong side. In that draft Prince Valorum is a Sith Lord--here the Jedi and Sith are two opposing warrior sects, not quite the mythical avatars for the forces of good and evil in the later films. Prince Valorum, however, undergoes a change of heart--General Skywalker has known Valorum for quite some time, and points out that the forces of the Empire are not worthy of servitude, for they have no respect for the higher, samurai-like code of honor the Jedi and Sith live by. Valorum renounces the Empire and joins the heroes. Here there is no "fall" per se, and how Valorum ended up on the side of the Sith is never explored. However, the next draft would introduce the storyline of a Jedi who betrays his peers and joins the Sith--as part of the exposition told in the script, this tale is attached to a Jedi named Darklighter, who runs away from his Jedi mentors and joins the "Sith pirates," teaching them the ways of the Force of Others. Finally, in the third draft from 1975, this storyline gets attached to villain Darth Vader, and Ben Kenobi is also introduced as his failed mentor.
LUKE
Don't you have a Kiber crystal?
BEN
I had one, but it was taken at the battle of Condawn [...] It was a black day. One of my disciple's [sic] took the crystal and became a Sith Lord. It was a black day. The few crystals that remain are in the possession of the Sith Lords on Alderaan. That's how they've become so powerful [...] The Crystal Darth stole was the last one in the possession of the Jedi. When he joined the Sith, the power of the Dark Lords was completed.
In the revised fourth draft, Vader was then made into the murderer of Luke's father, and a backstory involving a duel on a volcano was developed.
So Lucas had an overabundance of ideas, but no coherent, worked out, larger story.
Lucas likes to claim that he initially had a much bigger story in mind, which he pared down. The reality is that he barely assembled the original Star Wars from a convoluted mess of ideas he had, and no fixed bigger story in mind.
Who said anything about "fixed"?
Lucas did have a larger story in mind, which had to be developed, adapted and molded into what eventually he settled on with Star Wars. And even that had a backstory that he created, which again had to be developed, adapted and molded into what eventually became the prequel trilogy.
People can try to downplay it all, mock his original ideas and plans by calling it a "convoluted mess" (to whom?), but the reality doesn't change.
Lucas did have a larger story in mind, which had to be developed, adapted and molded into what eventually he settled on with Star Wars.
No. There was no "larger story" in mind when he made Star Wars. The story in Star Wars wasn't what he "settled on" from any larger story, but what he was able to actually develop.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Roonan
And even that had a backstory that he created, which again had to be developed, adapted and molded into what eventually became the prequel trilogy.
The backstroy for the prequel trilogy wasn't devoloped until into the writing for ESB. It's why the sequel went from Star Wars 2 to Star Wars Chapter/Episode 2, to Episode V during development. It wasn't until Lucas conceived of the "Vader is Luke's Father" twist that he had an inkling he had a backstory deep enough to work as a series of movies of their own.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Roonan
People can try to downplay it all, mock his original ideas and plans by calling it a "convoluted mess" (to whom?), but the reality doesn't change.
Have you read his original treatments and notes?
Lucas created some great films with interesting stories. However, it's a disservice to history and the creative process to buy into his lie that he had it all planned out from the beginning, or even had many of the major ideas and plot points from the beginning. Lucas wasn't a singular genius who had this massive story in mind and had to pair it down to fit in one film; he slowly developed the world of Star Wars over multiple films through hard work and perseverance, trying out various ideas before coming upon the ones he ultimately used.
Not true. Lucas wrote a few drafts, but they read like treatments, and Kasdan was brought in to write the final screenplay.
From Secret History of Star Wars:
So Lucas steered the script through the story sessions, but he didn't write the final script.
THat doesn't match up so well with what some other books/sources say and some of the early drafts out on the net seem to have some key parts a lot more fleshed out than that applies including lots of key lines in the final film.
And nobody ever said he sat down and wrote the final draft alone.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jay G.
This isn't true. At the time Star Wars was shot, Luke's Father and Vader were separate characters. It's why Leigh Brackett's ESB script includes a scene with Father Skywalker, separate from Vader. Conflating Vader and Luke's Father into the same character didn't happen until later drafts for ESB. So there was no "secret backstory" to tell Alec Guinness during the filming of Star Wars, because it didn't exist yet.
The idea was bouncing around in his head way before ESB started even if maybe not 100% set in stone yet and going back and forth.
Just look at the way Obi-wan hitches and acts all weird when he says it. Look at the books he was reading and mythology he was studying while working on it. Look at the fact that A.G. said that Lucas told him certain background stuff that he told not one single other person in any way involved at the time. I gotta think he was in the mood that it would be so around the time they shot that scene.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jay G.
Also, it's a bit extreme to say Lucas "threw out pretty much everything Brackett wrote," since her script was based on Lucas's initial story treatment.
but almost all of it was thrown out
the dialogue doesn't even sound like any of the characters did in Star Wars
Last edited by WBMakeVMarsMovieNOW; 12-30-2020 at 03:24 AM.
In the 25th anniversary of the novelization of ANH, Lucas states:
"When I wrote the original Star Wars screenplay, I knew that Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker's father; the audience did not. I always felt that this revelation, when and if I got the chance to make it, would be shocking, but I never expected the level of emotional attachment that audiences had developed for Luke."
Is it possible that there could be any truth to this claim? I know Lucas states a lot of contradictory things, but I’m wondering if Vader being Luke’s father was at least an idea that was floating around in Lucas’s head from the very beginning.
I think for sure, based on the sorts of things he was reading while working on Star Wars, the way A.G. played that scene, etc.
No. There was no "larger story" in mind when he made Star Wars. The story in Star Wars wasn't what he "settled on" from any larger story, but what he was able to actually develop.
The backstroy for the prequel trilogy wasn't devoloped until into the writing for ESB. It's why the sequel went from Star Wars 2 to Star Wars Chapter/Episode 2, to Episode V during development. It wasn't until Lucas conceived of the "Vader is Luke's Father" twist that he had an inkling he had a backstory deep enough to work as a series of movies of their own.
Have you read his original treatments and notes?
Lucas created some great films with interesting stories. However, it's a disservice to history and the creative process to buy into his lie that he had it all planned out from the beginning, or even had many of the major ideas and plot points from the beginning. Lucas wasn't a singular genius who had this massive story in mind and had to pair it down to fit in one film; he slowly developed the world of Star Wars over multiple films through hard work and perseverance, trying out various ideas before coming upon the ones he ultimately used.
He said back in the late ‘70s/early ‘80s that he had plans for 9 films but then 20+ years later he says “nahh that was made up by the media”.
He'd just go to the no there are no other movies bit whenever he was burned out and not able to bear the thought of doing more and sick of media all over the place and just wanted a break from hounding. (Not that everything was ever 100% set in stone and 100% planned out from the moment Star Wars production began. The "other" mentioned in ESB wasn't originally Leia but someone who makes one think a real lot of Rey, although once it had been made Leia than the other Rey had to be changed a bit too. So he also sometimes would use things like that as an excuse if it could get him out of more hounding and speculation and act like nothing existed if it wasn't 100%.)
Last edited by WBMakeVMarsMovieNOW; 12-30-2020 at 03:38 AM.
THat doesn't match up so well with what some other books/sources say and some of the early drafts out on the net seem to have some key parts a lot more fleshed out than that applies including lots of key lines in the final film.
Can you cite any specific examples?
And keep in mind, many of the "official" making-of books and materials tend to take whatever Lucas claims for granted.
Quote:
Originally Posted by WBMakeVMarsMovieNOW
The idea was bouncing around in his head way before ESB started even if maybe not 100% set in stone yet and going back and forth.
Any actual evidence, something written down, that predates ESB?
Quote:
Originally Posted by WBMakeVMarsMovieNOW
Just look at the way Obi-wan hitches and acts all weird when he says it...
So, "no" to the question above. Obi-Wan acts like someone reflecting on an awkward and painful part of his past. His pupil Vader turned on him and killed another of his pupils, Luke's father. None of the audience thought Obi-Wan was lying, which is why the twist in ESB was so surprising.
Quote:
Originally Posted by WBMakeVMarsMovieNOW
Look at the fact that A.G. said that Lucas told him certain background stuff...
Do you have a quote where Alec Guinness said he knew Vader was Luke's father during the filming of Star Wars?
Quote:
Originally Posted by WBMakeVMarsMovieNOW
He'd just go to the no there are no other movies bit whenever he was burned out...
It's not just that he said he wasn't making more movies, but lying and saying there never were any plans for additional movies.
In August 1999, at a press conference in New York City to discuss The PhantomMenace, Lucas described the "nine year commitment" required to make a Star Wars trilogy. In 2002, he said: "Basically what I said as a joke was, 'Maybe when Harrison and Carrie are in their 70s, we'll come back and do another version.' The thing I didn't realize then, and that I do realize now very clearly, is that not only would they be in their 70s, but I would be in my 70s too." He also noted, "Ultimately, the saga will be six films, a 12-hour story. Then people can watch all six films together as they were intended to be seen."
In another 2008 interview, Lucas ruled out anybody else making Star Wars films, and added that the Expanded Universe did not line up with his vision. Asked if he wanted new Star Wars films to be made after his death, he said: "I've left pretty explicit instructions for there not to be any more features. There will definitely be no Episodes VII–IX. That's because there isn't any story... The Star Wars story is really the tragedy of Darth Vader. That is the story."
So Lucas changes his mind over time, but each time, he acts like his new decision was the way it had always been.
I still love the bit in the BBC documentary about PhantomMenace where Rick McCallum and Señor Spielbergo both talk on-camera about George's 9-film plan for Star Wars. But according to Lucas it was all lies by the media...and also by his friends and his closest working colleagues apparently
The man has ALWAYS written his story the way he wants to, twisting and turning it to support whatever narrative he's chosen for that particular day, and I'm referring just as much to his public persona as the movies themselves. My only surprise is that he didn't sprout wings to stay above the bullshit.
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