Star Wars Episode VII - The Force Awakens (SPOILERS)

IIRC, in my opinion the ONLY stuff that made sense adding back to Star Wars was the earlier footage of Luke and Biggs Darklighter (his friend who was blown away during the Death Star trench run).

It goes a long way toward clarifying why Luke was so easily accepted as a rebel X-Wing pilot and why he was overjoyed to see Biggs again. Not to mention added meaning to Biggs protecting Luke's back during the Death Star attack.

I... can't argue with this one.

Even the "Luke-and-Biggs-meet-again" scene is wholly unnecessary other than providing some explanation for why Luke seems to have any special concern for him during the Death Star attack sequence.

And Lucas had to abbreviate that scene (the jump cut covered over by someone passing in front of the camera) in order to excise dialog about Luke's father that contradicts the prequels.

George Lucas, luckiest man in showbiz.

Seriously, Angry Video Game Nerd is packing more talent.

What was the dialogue?

Of course I guess I'm in the big minority, when George Lucas was writing The Empire Strikes Back, there was nothing about Darth Vader being Luke's father in there. But Lucas's writing partner died, Lucas was left trying to complete a story with his own talents, so he made the huge change of "Luke, I am your father".

Note, wikipedia entry on Darth Vader.

In essence that changed the ENTIRE Star Wars movie franchise. With those words, the entire franchise became the Darth Vader show. He later devoted the first three movies to tell of the fall of Darth Vader and uncounted other material.

To me, it weakened the entire franchise. Because Darth Vader was inevitably humanized. He went from being a looming, larger than life evil, basically a monstrous force of nature.......to being "some guy who made lots of mistakes".

And how Darth Vader was handled in the movies was even worse. Anakin Skywalker fell basically because he was obsessed with protecting his wife. Darth Vader was redeemed in ROTJ because he was upset that the Emperor skewered his son with too many lightning bolts. Never minding that Vader himself had tried to kill Luke many times himself.

If Vader had really wanted Luke dead in ESB, he could have snapped his neck from afar.
He was toying with him.

I've posted this before but I'm too lazy to find it. The prequels and ROTJ would have turned out much better had Lucas stayed with the original story of Vader as described in ANH. A tragic hero who was good friends with Obi Wan and Luke's father who tapped into the dark side one too many times and was ultimately consumed by it. ROTJ could have ended with Luke being similarly tested where he actually utilized the dark side to win battles. But in the end, unlike Vader, he avoided falling completely over and was able to avenge his father and rid the galaxy of Vader and the Emperor. It would have been just as powerful without the father/son angle.

The prequels would have been much more fun as you would have had Anakin and Vader as heroes much like Han and Luke with Obi Wan the mentor of sorts. As I described, Darth is the biggest hero who is tempted by the dark side. He ultimately betrays Anakin and the Republic. Obi Wan takes Luke back to Tattooine to keep him safe until ANH. Luke could have been unknown to Vader even to make it more believable.

Of course, in The Empire Strikes Back if you rewatch it carefully, you can pretty much excuse Vader for cutting off Luke's hand.

Just moments before, Luke had managed to land a lightsaber strike that came close to severing Vader's arm up near the shoulder (Vader screams in pain).

If Vader had known how much Luke was gonna whine afterwards, he might have just gone with choking him instead.

Well, I think that was in part a due to Mark Hamill and not having a director who could "coach him up".

In a way, I think that Return of the Jedi basically became largely a "Darth Vader & Han Solo" movie because

1) Vader-we've already mentioned that.
2) Mark Hamill was not up to taking on the role
3) Harrison Ford was getting to be a huge star AND he was up to the expanded role

The following is from the script and, best I can recall, it matches the dialog in the actual scene as originally filmed. I've bolded the parts that necessitated the removal of part of the scene...

In the scene restored to the Special Edition, Red Leader's second line is reduced to "You'll do all right." To cover the edit, someone passes in front of the camera (digitally inserted). I find this cut a little awkward: Red Leader expresses some concern, Biggs says Luke's great, and then Red Leader says he'll do all right...it seems like Red Leader's concerns were very easily assuaged. (Watch the scene below and you'll notice there's a "jump" in R2's position in the background.)



Clearly, if Red Leader is fortysomething, and he met Luke's father when he was a boy, then that would've been AT LEAST 30 years before. That doesn't jive with the prequel's chronology. Anakin/Vader is probably 40 at most, assuming he's 9 or so in TPM, RotS takes place 10 years later, and Luke is about 20. Even assuming Anakin earned his rep as a "great pilot" during TPM, you'd have to stretch the definition of boy to get Red Leader's age to work out.



I think Lucas originally thought Anakin was quite a bit older; hence his portrayal by Sebastian Shaw (as unmasked Vader and Force Ghost Anakin) in RotJ.

The thing is, he could have just cut out "when I was just a boy", and it still would have been fine.

Nothing at all wrong with, "I met your father once; he was a great pilot. You'll do all right. If you've got half of your father's skill, you'll do better than all right."

I have a vague memory of the scene not being cut from the original novelization. And what I always remembered having read was that he met the dad, not that there was anything about being a boy. In fact, I always thought he had said something about flying with his father, implying a similarity of age. At any rate, you're right, just cut "when I was a boy," and it works just fine.

But this would assume that there is general casual knowledge about Anakin's fatherhood of Luke, and indeed Vader's identity in the first place, neither of which fits even with TESB, much less the prequels..

I always preferred the implied Star Wars narrative where Luke Skywalker was the near forgotten son of a legendary hero stepping forward to avenge his fathers long ago death.

Not the "Luke, I am your father" narrative that now dominates.

Cutting the "when I was a boy" would fix things, yes. But with the scene AS SHOT, you couldn't remove just that part without a glaring jump cut. The "guy passing in front of the camera" provides enough cover to eliminate the whole line.

Ok, I grant you the bolded part. But no the underlined part. Anakin=Vader was NOT general knowledge to anyone, and also was irrelevant to the plot line we're discussing.

Am I the only fan of The Clone Wars? I caught the whole series on Netflix and it is, overall, fantastic. They operate on a four episode arc, so you basically have 25 88-minute movies that tell the story between AOTC and ROTS.

Sure, there are some clunkers but, overall, they were really, really good. I also feel a whole lot closer to the characters for having watched them.

Just started watching those Elwood, and so far, so good.

It's been many, many years since I read the novelization, but as a kid I must've read it at least a half dozen times.

I actually read the novel before I saw the film.

I was disappointed that Fixer and Camie weren't in the movie.

Especially since Camie was Koo Stark...




The whole Anchorhead scene (reconstructed) can be seen here: http://brem.buzznet.com/user/video/17100/luke-skywalkwer-biggs-darklighter-anchorhead/

Same with me. I got the novelization (credited to Lucas but actually ghost written by Alan Dean Foster) I think for Christmas of 76, and then of course the movie came out May of 77.

watch R2 in the clip. The edit is clear based on how his progress up into the X-Wing rapidly changes when the figure walks in front of the camera.

Yep. I mentioned that.

I don't know how to read.

There there, face. There. There.

Harrison Ford injured on Millennium Falcon set.

More at the link.

Tch, dammit, JJ, you broke Han already.

I bet he took all his Star Wars action figures out of the packages and played with them, too!