Lucas's Letter To "Lost" Crew; Original TESB Draft

[lazypadawan]

Apparently Papa George sent the cast and crew of "Lost" a letter congratulating them on the end of the series. Some fanboy blogs are making hay out of jokey comment Lucas made about not having the whole thing planned out in advance, but come on...I didn't think he had it all planned out in advance either. It's fans who think he said he did, but then decided he was worse than Pol Pot for not admitting he didn't.

Producer Damon Lindelof said, "I just want to apologize to Mr. George Lucas for everything I said about the prequels.” Uh huh. Just goes to show you who in this picture has a lot more class. Don't worry, Mr. Lindelof, your turn is coming. You won't please these losers forever.

Meanwhile, the original Leigh Brackett draft of the TESB screenplay has been making the rounds. I'd link to it but the server it's on is overloaded. It's unclear whether this coincidentally bubbled up from the ether or whether this is from the upcoming "The Making of The Empire Strikes Back." But you can read over the highlights posted here:

http://geeksofdoom.com/2010/05/15/early-draft-of-empire-strikes-back-reveals-alternate-star-wars-universe/

Some of it is stuff that got recycled in other movies, some of it stayed, and some of it was mercifully jettisoned in future drafts. Like the "tender love scene" with Luke and Leia o_0. The White Clan warriors sound like "Avatar" characters but they also seem a bit like proto-Kaminoans, at least in appearance. And Darth Vader has pet gargoyles! Just from that rundown, I'm glad the final version played up Leia falling in love with Han and played down the love triangle bit. It just made Leia look bad (why would she suddenly throw herself at Han after getting cozy with Luke?) and having Luke decide he doesn't love her the same way by the film's end would have made everyone question his orientation. Brackett apparently did not know Vader and Luke's father were one and the same, maybe because Lucas hadn't decided yet to merge the two characters. I know that was definitely the case with "Luke's sister" and Leia, because early drafts of ROTJ have them as separate characters.

I kind of agree with the Geeks of Doom post in that there are ideas in there that could be used in the expanded universe; the ideas could also make for great fan fiction fodder. *Rubs hands.*

Comments

[may-child.livejournal.com]

Producer Damon Lindelof said, "I just want to apologize to Mr. George Lucas for everything I said about the prequels.”

Yeah, right. You just want to avoid looking like a petty asshole in the face of Lucas's public praise of your work.

And I wouldn't doubt that Lucas extended said public praise precisely because it would put TPTB behind "Lost" in that uncomfortable position. Nor do I blame him in the slightest.

Re: original ESB script

I have seen a couple of excerpts of the late Leigh Brackett's draft of the ESB script, and they were...strange. However, based on the highlights you linked to, she did have some interesting ideas, even if they weren't right for ESB.

(Oh, and by the way, Darth Vader and Anakin Skywalker didn't become the same person until a few drafts of ESB's script/story had been written. Lucas more or less pulled the story idea out of the air and used it despite the strong objections of Gary Kurtz. Yes, Gary Kurtz, who we're supposed to think "babysat" Lucas and "forced him to care about quality." Ha. Vader being Luke's father is not only a great plot twist, but it gives the saga roughly 99% of its resonance.)

I'm certainly glad that the Luke/Leia/Han triangle was more or less abandoned after the yuck-o incestuous L/L liplock in ESB, though of course at the time ESB was made, no one (including Lucas) knew it was incestuous. The Hoth medbay scene actually began with Leia being the first one to visit Luke, and he tells her he's never felt this way about anyone before, and they go to kiss, before C3PO comes in and interrupts them. Squick, squick, SQUICK! That mercifully didn't wind up in the movie, but a clip of it was shown in one of the trailers.

I recall seeing someone praise Kersh's "subtlety" in having the droids and Han and Chewie burst into Luke's room, then after Han tells Luke "that's two you owe me, Junior," he turns around to reveal that Leia was in the room all along. Um..."subtlety" had nothing to do with it. Her being in the room all along was the result of the aforementioned earlier sequence being cut from the movie.

[darth-pipes.livejournal.com]

I remember reading about the first draft of the ESB screenplay in the Star Wars The Annotated Screenplays book. Really good book and as I recall, GL didn't tell Leigh Brackett about the Anakin/Luke connection.

In the TESB draft...

-We get Han Solo's backstory. Raised by Wookiees, Han flunked out of the space academy and met an Ernest Hemingingway to the stars. They had a falling out and in the script, the Rebels want Han to find him because he controls all the non-military shipping in the galaxy.

-As stated, Anakin and Vader are two different people. Anakin's ghost appears to Luke on Dagobah and Luke swears the oath of the Jedi before him.

-Lando is a clone who race was wiped out during The Clone Wars. This is why Leia doesn't trust him. Lando states that he gets lonely when he doesn't see people who look exactly like him.

-Han escapes and drops everyone off at a fariyland-type planet and goes off after his "father."

I don't see how it would have worked without the Vader revelation or with Han being left frozen in carbonite but it's definitely a very fun script that I would love to read in detail. Let me know if you're going to write any fanfic off it, lp. :)

EDIT:

Well, reading over that, it looks like it was already stated in the link. My bad. Definitely agree that audiences would have thought Luke was gay for not going after Leia. I recall people thinking the same way when Peter Parker turned down Mary Jane at the end of the first Spider-Man movie.

[lazypadawan.livejournal.com]

So the black folks were wiped out during the Clone Wars.

RAAAAAAAACISTS!!!

[darth-pipes.livejournal.com]

Heheh. My thoughts exactly.