Josh-da-man

Lucas always had the Star Wars saga in a state of flux. Wouldn't surprise me at all if, at one point, Boba Fett was going to play a larger role.

joe_b

A lot of new info has come out about the "Bloodline" novel. Rian Johnson apparently had some input on story elements, so it might foreshadow the events of Episode VIII. The book reveals that Leia is

Mabuse

ROTJ's development has been exhaustively documented. I've read two books on the subject. At no time was Bobba Fett expanded into that large a roll.

dex14

Here is a detailed article on some of the major parts: http://io9.gizmodo.com/all-the-major...nov-1774819531

islandclaws

So that's why the Sarlaac found him to be so delicious.

Michael Corvin

Mabuse

Damn it.

Rob V

What an asshole. Hey George, don't consider that you might get over that fatigue, just rush a product and throw an entire plot into the toilet.

hanshotfirst1138

Yeah, the thing was, ESB set up so many interesting ideas, and ROTJ does pretty much nothing with any of them.

brayzie

Wasn't he going through a divorce at the time, which affected his output, or was that Spielberg? I can imagine why after 7 or 8 years he might just want to be done with it. I heard that the first two films were pretty stressful to make, and he was juggling so much at the time, Lucas probably felt that his homage to Flash Gordon was no longer a top priority. But I agree, it's too bad that he didn't have more foresight.

Yup. Leia and Luke being brother and sister is a painfully obvious rush job to wrap up loose ends like Yoda's line of "No, there is another." It was a nice twist, where this time, the hero doesn't get the girl.

It would have been great to have the original ending of ROTJ play out. The celebration on Endor was a little anti-climactic.

mcnabb

What could have been interesting is if they never revealed 'the other' in ROTJ, and the ST could have revealed that and made for an interesting new character.

Josh-da-man

That was the original plan circa 1980.

E Unit

HN

what is this, a poster for ants?

Mabuse

I just listened to a podcast that contained a tremendous amount of relevance to The Force Awakens, especially some of the things the film gets criticized for.

Some have been critical about the idea that Han, Luke, The Force, etc seem to have been forgotten, slipping into the realm of myth in a single generation.

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radi...are?act=2#play

This episode of This American Life (it's part 2 "Who Wants to Know") is about two kids, brother and sister, whose father played a role in a rebellion against a superpower. The brother has no memory of his father who died before he was born, the sister has only the faintest of adolescent memories.

A key moment comes when the sister refers to her father's actions as now being a myth. This is a guy who died only 26 years ago and his own daughter regards his leadership and battles and the war he fought as now being a myth residing in a file cabinet that even she doesn't fully know anything about. Does that sound familiar?

Another criticism of The Force Awakens revolves around The First Order and how, after the Empire was soundly defeated, something so similarly oppressive and similar looking could come along and carry on. The podcast recounts the last 30 years of Iranian political history. It tells how after deposing of one evil, undemocratic "Emperor"-like dictator, the rebels cheered that peace and secular democracy would finally arrive only to find that in just a short matter of time an equally repressive group, with an even creepier more evil looking figure head (the Ayatollah Khomeini), would come to power and terrorize the rebels yet again.

Not only is the story of the two siblings very good, but I think it really lends credence to the screenwriters and proves that what we're shown in The Force Awakens is very much aligned with things that can genuinely occur in history.

TGM

interesting post, thanks!

It reminds me of all the talk back in the day as to how the ships in the PT looked "more advanced" than the OT, when in reality there were similar trends IRL.

Michael Corvin

Sort of.

I've always had a similar problem with Han's "hokey religions" line, more so after the PT. The Jedi were a force to be reckoned with a mere 20 or so years prior, while Han would have been a kid. There would have been stories or people would have seen something. It would be different if we are talking a couple generations.

To put that in perspective, that'd be like saying Desert Storm never happened. We're talking about a galactic war with the galaxy's greatest warriors. There isn't a single news clip from 20 years prior? Nothing taught in schools? Parent's didn't bring it up with their kids? Actually, if we're tighter on the timeline, Luke was 18 and Jedi were prevalent almost right up to his birth. We're only a few years from the 18 year anniversary of 9/11. Do we not celebrate the lives lost that day? Tell of the firefighters and police officers that sacrificed their lives?

Mabuse

They don't live in your neighborhood. It's a Galaxy Long Long Ago, or to be more specific it's a galaxy much like 1880-1945 on Earth. We are never shown a school or a history book, they've never shown "news", nor is there ever a suggestion that they have institutions similar to that which we have on Earth. The people we see in the OT are living primitive rural lives. You are applying modern standards.

Here's me imitating you watching John Ford's The Searchers: "This isn't realistic because Ethan should just watch CNN to find out where his niece was taken, and how come he doesn't just Google 'Cicatrice'? That would sure speed this movie up." Did you listen to the podcast? It's about kids who can't reconcile with their parent's rebellious sacrifice. The kid turned off his brain when it came to having an opportunity to understand what his father did.

bluetoast

Primitive, rural lives? Sure, maybe the people on Tatooine (for the standards of SW Galaxy, because being able to buy advanced robots at a junk sale is pretty far ahead of us). But even then, pretty sure Cloud City is far from primitive. They might not have "news" that we see, but they have ways of instantly communicating with each other.

Michael Corvin

So because two thirds of the civilizations we're shown in the OT are Tattooine, Endor and Cloud City, we're to believe the entire galaxy is populated with primitive cultures? How did anyone ever leave the surface of their planets if they're too primitive for space travel?

We are shown in the PT that the universe has many advanced societies, do those just disappear after the Episode III credits roll? Back to farm life? Of course not, it's a living, breathing universe populated by all kinds of societies and ways of life. You can't infer that these advanced civilizations have "news" reports of some fashion? We need to be shown a news feed outlining the exploits of Han and Luke, complete with an on site Rodian reporter getting the latest soundbite?

At any rate, despite the planet not being shown, Corellia, thus far is one of those advanced societies. I'd hate to place our modern standards, but I'm going to infer that there are schools in the SW universe. People aren't born knowing multiple languages and how to fly space ships. Hell in the first half hour of SW, Luke mentions wanting to go the Imperial Academy.

No I haven't listened, but it sounds like apples and oranges. You have a close personal connection between two people in your analogy. Han had no personal connection to the Jedi to rectify. They're just out in the world doing Jedi things. I have no connection to the Taliban or Isis, but I'm aware they are out there doing terrible things. I don't need to go to Egypt to see a pyramid to know it exists. I don't need charter a flight to the north pole to know polar bears exist. We have books(we're shown a library in the PT) and news, and with cultures that have mastered space travel, I don't think it's a stretch to assume the SW universe does as well.

Classy.

Sonny Corinthos

What was the original ending supposed to be? I've never heard it before.

Mabuse

When I say primitive I mean that they have intergalactic flight but they don't have a means by which Han can "call ahead" and let Lando know that he's coming. It's like a western. Other than the space ships it's like early America.

milo bloom

Yeah, we sure do celebrate the firefighters and police who lost their lives. And while they certainly did sacrifice their lives, the media and government also make sure to remind us every year.

Know what they don't remind us? Most of the 9/11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia (not Iraq or Afghanistan, you know, the two countries we invaded) . Know what else they don't remind us of? There were no WMDs in Iraq.

I have no doubt Palpatine would have had no problem manipulating the populace into believing the Jedi were traitorous tricksters (and the few that did remember were afraid to speak up).

Mabuse

The Jedi we are shown in I-III are an ineffectual committee who at one point discuss whether they should admit that their ability to use the force has diminished. They're on their way out. They have cool lightsaber tricks but that's about it.

JeremyM

Han does have a way of calling ahead (he speaks to someone on Cloud City as they approach), but he had a falling out with Lando and there were hard feelings, which is implied when Han says something to Chewie like, "That was a long time ago, surely he's forgotten all about that."