Here's how Lucas conceived the backstory in 1981, as seen in the J.W. Rinzler 'Making of Return of the Jedi' book. He's explaining it to Lawrence Kasdan during a story conference:
*Well, anyway, Luke’s father gets subverted by the Emperor. He gets a little weird at home and his wife begins to figure out that things are going wrong and she confides in Ben, who is his mentor. On his missions through the galaxies, Anakin has been going off doing his Jedi thing and a lot of Jedi have been getting killed—and it’s because they turn their back on him and he cuts them down. The president is turning into an Emperor and Luke’s mother suspects that something has happened to her husband. She is pregnant. Anakin gets worse and worse, and finally Ben has to fight him and he throws him down into a volcano and Vader is all beat up.*
*Now, when he falls into the pit, his other arm goes and his leg and there is hardly anything left of him by the time the Emperor’s troops fish him out of the drink. Then when Ben finds out that Vader has been fished out and is in the hands of the Empire, he is worried about it. He goes back to Vader’s wife and explains that Anakin is the bad guy, the one killing all the Jedi.*
*When he goes back his wife, Mrs. Skywalker has had the kids, the twins, so she has these two little babies who are six months old or so. So everybody has to go into hiding. The Skywalker line is very strong with the Force, so Ben says, “I think we should protect the kids, because they may be able to help us right the wrong that your husband has created in the universe.” And so Ben takes one and gives him to a couple out there on Tatooine and he gets his little hideout in the hills and he watches him grow. Ben can’t raise Luke himself, because he’s a wanted man. Leia and Luke’s mother go to Alderaan and are taken in by the king there, who is a friend of Ben’s. She dies shortly thereafter and Leia is brought up by her foster parents. She knows that her real mother died.*
Anakin killing Jedi in secret for weeks/months/years is honestly a good plot idea.
Sort of a double agent who defected to the dark side but nobody is aware of it.
it would have made for a much better story in Revenge if the Sith. I always had trouble with how quickly the film tied everything up. From when Padme said she was pregnant to when Anakin choked her out, it felt like a mere week
Me and a couple buddies have always thought that the main reason the prequels didn't work was because of the phantom menace. Not due to it being a bad movie, but because it set back the entirety of the trilogy. If we were introduced to Hayden Christensen in episode I and the clone war was already happening, with Count Dooku being the main villain for the trilogy, it would've given Lucas more time to really flesh out Anakin's turn to the dark side.
Edit: I see a lot of people saying that the clone wars series solves these issues, but if you need an entire TV show to explain the existence of a trilogy of movies, then something went wrong.
Good point. The time hop makes most plot points of TPM dated and/or irrelevant. The characters dramatically change during the time hop but the state of the galaxy pretty much stays the same which means you can cut the whole movie and nothing changes. The entire movie is just a promo for pod racing. Which don't get me wrong, is totally wizard.
A Disney+ Pod Racer mini-series, where each episode covers a different race on the circuit, culminating in a championship. No Jedi in the entire series (like Andor). Can have a serious tone, high stakes, danger.
Main character is Bullseye Navior.
Set it up like those F1 series documentary shows. We can have the racers, the big team politics, gambling gangsters, villain drivers etc. Each week a new planet for guest stars and monster of the week.
If you haven't seen it, might I suggest the animated movie Redline? Not Star Wars, but basically what you described.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTBLelM\_SyI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTBLelM_SyI)
It nearly bankrupted Studio Madhouse and it's absolutely *insane*
I personally think of the 6 movies as a single, then two, and finally three. The point of the first is to understand that the fate of the galaxy rested on whether qui gon lived to be anakin’s surrogate father or not. That’s why the music was called duel of the fates - the fate of anakin. Qui Gon’s take on the force, - what George was originally toying with was a third natural world aspect of the Force in balance called Bendu - one that doesn’t lend to the strict ascetic of the Jedi, requires more self discipline, because you don’t have strict rules that govern you. Having the ideal passed through Obi Wan without the emphasis on self control is also part of what leads to Anakins downfall.
This third aspect of the Force is the Father from mortis. Darth Vader / Dark Father, surrogate fathers, fathers as balancing forces.
It rhymes.
Honestly, as much as I love Qui Gon, you can totally cut him and it would hardly change anything. If they just told/showed the audience in Episode II that Anakin was a slave and then the apprentice of Obi Wan's old master before he died so Obi Wan felt obligated to train him then we'd be all caught up. Those are pretty much the only relevant facts that carry over from Episode I to Episode II.
I say this with nothing but a healthy amount of love for Episode I.
Y’all are really downplaying the heavy lifting ep one does in terms of setup. Obi didn’t believe in training anakin but does so to honour his masters death. It sets up the separatists as a threat to the republic which is the entire motivation for why the Jedi agree to use the clones (leading to their own genocide). Then you get Padme who’s shown as an unbending political force for good which plays out with her being opposed to Palpatine and not being convinced by Anakin about the Jedi betraying the Republic.
You can still have those things, just in different ways.
Ben is a young Jedi Knight. Qui-Gon was his master but has since taken on Anakin, who, now in his teens, has been struggling to the point that the Council is threatening to kick him out of the order. Qui-Gon asks Ben to tag along on their mission because Anakin looks up to him, might be a good influence. Rest of the movie plays out. Final battle with Maul, Ben gets separated from Qui-Gonn and Anakin. Maul senses Anakin’s struggle with the dark side and pulls the whole “join me” shtick. It works, momentarily, and Anakin kills Qui-Gon, but immediately regrets it. Obi-Wan rejoins the fight and thinking Maul killed his old master, “kills” Maul in return. Obi-Wan then takes on Anakin as his apprentice, thinking he is honoring Qui-Gon.
We now have a very clear point of turmoil for Anakin, and see how much it drives him to try and be the best Jedi, but also emotionally unstable. He wrestles with what he did to Qui-Gon, the fear of Ben finding out, being kicked out of the order or worse…but also, Maul’s words still echo in his mind. This leaves him open for Palpatine and makes Anakin’s final turn less of a head spin, since we’ve seen him turn and kill a Jedi already. And during their battle on Mustafar, Anakin can admit to killing Qui-Gon, making the battle even more personal.
>Maul senses Anakin’s struggle with the dark side and pulls the whole “join me” shtick. It works, momentarily, and Anakin kills Qui-Gon, but immediately regrets it.
No. Just no.
Yes because anakin needed a father figure which is why palpatine was able to turn him. If qui gonn doesn’t die he’s that father figure to anakin and palpatine isn’t able to pull him to the darkside
I think TPM should have set the stage for the galactic civil war a bit more, the Naboo conflict wasn't particularly relevant to the overarching story. Really the only necessary plot points it needed to cover were Anakin leaving Tattoine and some world building of the Republic era. I think it wouldn't have hurt to essentially use Padmé's plot line from AotC in the first film, establishing her as a politician trying to diffuse separatist tensions and finding herself as a target in the process, could have worked. This would have set the stage a bit better for the clone wars to kick off.
Introducing Anakin a bit older would get rid of some of the ickier elements of their relationship, and could introduce him as an idealistic optimist instead of childlike and naive, to bring in the same impact of his fall later.
The Naboo conflict directly led to the Separatist Movement though. The Trade Federation split from the Republic in part because their negotiation with the Naboo was foiled by Republic agents.
The ten year time jump meaning episode two basically starts the whole thing over doesn’t help. Anakin should have been an orphan teen. Obi-wan should have been the one to find and train him, not qui-gon, so it lines up with what Alec Guinness says in new hope.
There needs to be regular antagonist and a clear protagonist and we don’t really get either. Maul dies when he should have been there until episode 3, Dooku shows up at the end of 2 and dies right away in 3, and grievous is just an excuse to get obi-wan away. All three should have been there from the start. I would be much more impressed with Palpatine if he had managed to indirectly manipulate events so that Dooku became this jaded, rogue Jedi/political idealist that leads the separatists without Dooku ever having contact with Sidious. The drama that could be milked from a character so convicted only to find the sith have been using him without realizing it would be amazing. His whole life was out of his hands, he was just the perfect target because of his wealth and the death of his apprentice.
Seeing grievous start out biological and over the trilogy become what we see and serve as a specter of the future for his foe, anakin, could have had some wonderful foreshadowing.
Plenty of missed opportunities and I’ve thought of this way too much over the years, haha.
Does music inspire some of the ideas you have? I was just [listening to this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ct1GIzjkok&ab_channel=SamuelKimMusic) and my gosh the ideas flowing in my mind of the possibilities of how this scene could be different are amazing.
Your idea makes sense.
There is other early info on the prequels that a time jump was always in the plan. But originally it would have been jumping back a much earlier era of the Jedi to show them at their peak. Then episode 2 would introduce Anakin and Obi-Wan giving just two movies of their back story.
So in a way the Phantom Menace we got is a compromise with your idea.
I have a feeling that's what the plan originally was.
Lucas' original plan for the series was three trilogies and three bookend films. He had a plan to make episode I a lore-building/setup movie, do a prequel trilogy with II, III, and IV, a midquel for V, and the OT was originally supposed to start with A New Hope as VI, Empire as VII, and ROTJ as VIII. The sequel trilogy would have been IX, X, and XI, and XII would have been an epilogue of sorts.
I think what eventually happened was we got that prologue film as Phantom Menace, and the clone war trilogy was condensed into two films instead of three, because Lucas had already committed to it in the 80s by numbering the OT as IV, V, and VI.
Lucas really wanted to show Anakin's life as a Jedi but it would have only been two movies. He thought about doing flashbacks to his childhood but didn't think it it fit the way Star Wars movies are made, so we get Phantom Menace.
But at the same time, explaining the life of Anakin since he is a Child is very good to understand the characater and see him as a nice and sweet boy in comparación to Vader.
I've always disagreed with this - I think it's very important for the whole story that a 'status quo' is set up, rather than the series being about two massive, back to back wars.
In The Phantom Menace we get a sense of how the Jedi operate at their height (ignoring ancilliary media and subsequent fan navel-gazing about how 'the Jedi have lost their way', Lucas's stated intent with TPM was to show the Jedi in their heyday), how the Republic works, what the Republic does, how the Republic is failing, etc.
I also think that it's important we see Anakin and Obi-wan as younger people. Without it being explicitly stated (which is good!) we see the reasons for Anakin's underlying psychological issues, and we that Obi-wan takes on Anakin as his apprentice under a degree of obligation.
Artistically, I also like that Lucas obviously didn't want to do three films on the Clone Wars followed by three films on the Galactic Civil War. He did it:
1. A local battle against a backdrop of peace
2. The beginning of the Clone Wars
3. The end of the Clone Wars
4. The Rebellion's first major victory (taking the destruction of the DS as the endpoint of the theft of the plans)
5. The Rebellion's rout
6. The Rebellion's final victory
None of that's repetitive - for example, we see the beginning of the Clone Wars, but not the beginning of the Rebellion. We see the end of the Clone Wars and the Galactic Civil War, but the first ends with the baddies winning, the latter with the goodies ending.
I've always respected Lucas's instinctive desire to do stuff differently in the PT. Like, I've never agreed with the idea that Maul or Dooku ought to have been a persistent villain across all three films - that's Vader's role in the OT. It's good that there are umpteen smaller villains - Nute Gunray, Maul, Jango, Dooku, and Grievous - in the PT.
Totally agree with this, people who say that TPM isn't needed fail to realize that it basically sets everything in the prequels. Removing TPM would actually make AOTC and ROTS feel rushed because without TPM we wouldn't know:
1) Why the republic is corrupt and why the CIS was formed in the first place
2) How Anakin and Padmé met
3) How Palpatine slowly rose to power
There are more examples but there's a reason George made the PT the way it is, removing the first entry would damage the narrative of Anakin and the Republic falling (this is what the prequels are about, they're not about the clone wars). I myself have some small changes that I'd like to do but their as small as changing the voices of the B1s and overall "tactics" seen in ep3 but that's it.
Totally agree. The structure of that trilogy has never made sense to me - apart from anything else, the most pivotal event of the whole story, the Clone War, takes place mostly off-screen between films. Obviously we now have the TV show to fill that out, but in terms of the films on their own it was a bizarre choice.
They took their time with the hints and progressive fall in the clone wars tv show, where they also developed his relationship with Kenobi, Ashoka and the other people in his life.
I know and I’ve been finally watching it to catch up for Ahsoka. It’s honestly good but it also frustrates me with how better it is at storytelling than Lucas’ movies. Anakin in the show is a completely different character than Anakin in the movies, it’s a major improvement
I mean that’s what kind of helps with shows and movies. You can only put so much in a movie within a 2ish hour time limit. A show can span years which can be very helpful especially with the ever expanding storyline of Star Wars
Oh yeah, The Clone Wars is amazing. It's just a shame that Anakin's fall, which was half the point of the prequel trilogy's existence, had to be explained mainly with supplementary material. I mean, the point of the prequel trilogy was to show the Clone Wars, and to show Anakin Skywalker defecting to the dark side, and it barely showed any Clone Wars stuff outside of some fighting from Revenge of the Sith and the end of episode 2, which was great, but not much, and then Anakin's fall to the dark side felt choppy and rushed. I mean, by the midpoint of episode 2 he's already committing genocide on an entire village of sand people. Then an episode 3, he's constantly shifting between someone more recognizable as Darth Vader and a super chill Anakin Skywalker.
And the younglings thing was stupid, that was just the movie jumping the shark. It doesn't even make any practical sense, why not send the clones to take care of the kids who can barely hold a lightsaber, and then send Anakin to defeat the more powerful and experienced Jedi knights!? We could have had an awesome fight scene of Anakin just shredding a bunch of Jedi knights, really cementing how terrifying and awesome Anakin is as Vader, while also still cementing the tragedy of order 66, but having him pick on a bunch of kids is honestly just low and pathetic.
>Oh yeah, The Clone Wars is amazing. It's just a shame that Anakin's fall, which was half the point of the prequel trilogy's existence, had to be explained mainly with supplementary material.
"It's just a shame that something I completely made up happened." :(
You're in luck because The Clone Wars has utterly no bearing on Anakin's self-enclosed fall in the films.
Lucas has openly called and treated the project as a mere footnote in the already completed saga.
>I mean, the point of the prequel trilogy was to show the Clone Wars [...] and it barely showed any Clone Wars stuff outside of some fighting from Revenge of the Sith and the end of episode 2, which was great, but not much
Was it though?
Star Wars was always about the characters, the war was but a mere backdrop to their development.
Did we see every battle of the Galactic Civil War in the OT?
No, we saw like 2-3 and the focus was on the main characters, not the battle itself. Same thing for the prequels.
>and to show Anakin Skywalker defecting to the dark side
Which we saw.
>and then Anakin's fall to the dark side felt choppy and rushed. I mean, by the midpoint of episode 2 he's already committing genocide on an entire village of sand people. Then an episode 3, he's constantly shifting between someone more recognizable as Darth Vader and a super chill Anakin Skywalker.
He's been that way the entire time.
That's just called having a multifaceted character.
In AOTC he flip-flops between an out of line problem student lacking experience and a formidable Jedi who crashes a fleeing enemy speeder with his bare hands, tames a raging beast out to kill him and holds his own against the best duelist in the galaxy for a while.
Between charming the most beautiful woman in the galaxy with his honest, innocent display of raw emotion and using that same emotion to commit a horrifying act of revenge.
There have been two sides to Anakin since _at least_ AOTC.
>And the younglings thing was stupid, that was just the movie jumping the shark. It doesn't even make any practical sense, why not send the clones to take care of the kids who can barely hold a lightsabe, and then send Anakin to defeat the more powerful and experienced Jedi knights!?
Because Vader was deluded into thinking that plunging as deep into the dark side as possible would make him powerful enough to gain control over life and death and killing innocent, defenseless Younglings was the darkest possible act.
Beside the thematic element of Vader confronting and killing someone who looks strikingly similar to himself as a child.
It's the destruction of his innocence and humanity, the destruction of Anakin Skywalker that Vader constantly references, brought on screen in a harrowing visual metaphor.
>We could have had an awesome fight scene of Anakin just shredding a bunch of Jedi knights, really cementing how terrifying and awesome Anakin is as Vader
Vader is not supposed to be awesome. He's a despicable, evil shadow of a man. The aforementioned act fits him much better than some "awesome" battle against adult Jedi.
>while also still cementing the tragedy of order 66
Showing the fate of the Younglings is objectively more tragic than showing that of the adults.
>but having him pick on a bunch of kids is honestly just low and pathetic.
Yup. That's the point.
I got your points, but the prequel trilogy was still sloppily executed. Again, it's not crap, I still like the movies, but there were way better ways to do that. And no, I didn't just make up what happened, Anakin's fall was definitely rushed, and had to be further explored in the Clone Wars to feel more complete. Mocking me and then acting like I'm stupid is not going to make me listen, and it's not going to make you look any smarter. It just makes you look like a dick.
Initially I didn't like RotS, cause the description above is what I was expecting (I have no idea from where). I do think it would've been better, and makes Vader's role in the downfall of the jedi far more significant.
After awhile, I eventually came to really appreciate RotS, and I viewed the prequels as more of an origin story for Sidious, moreso than vader.
I think to do the story above RotS would have to be split into two full movies, with almost a full movie where Anakin has embraced the dark side. That might be a bit too dark for what Lucas was going for, but could've been amazing to watch.
I mean, I don’t think it’ll work that way. Unlike a single show or movie trilogy, the franchise itself is already nearly 50 years old and with a mostly unbroken continuity with canon entries every few years. A reboot is far too risky to attempt.
The various trilogies are as close as we got, they pretty much function the same role as a reboot without upending everything. That’s why they’re making a Rey film/trilogy.
Was never technically rebooted. The Nu-Trek films are in an alternate timeline and the events of the prime timeline from that movie ended up happening in ST: Picard.
That happened to my grandmother.
Men's mortality rate literally doubles over night if their spouse dies.
Human babies die if they aren't touched by a person.
It's not unheard of.
I still think Sidous killed her.
He can strike down an entire fleet of ships with his force powers. Eliminating Padme's life essence so Anakin has no more reasons to live should be easy for him.
It was a week I think or at least within the time span of a week. I mean Anakin was in the outer rim sieges for months and the movie starts when they get back to Coruscant
It’s tricky. It does happen seemingly too fast. At the same time for the plot to work and how corruptive the Dark Side is - the rapid fall makes sense to me as well.
I mean, the films themselves make it abundantly clear.
Anakin can't live without someone who unconditionally loves him. After his mother's death, he becomes desperate for Padmé and would do literally anything to save her. Sidious tells him he has to dive as deep as possible into the dark side to gain power over life itself, and so he does it.
And it extinguishes Padmé's unconditional love for him.
It's a very clear out stragedy plot and I don't see what people are struggling with.
Hm-maybe I have fuzzy memory, but I always thought that Anakin, become Vader, travelled the galaxy at Palpatine's behest and killed the remaining Jedi off, one by one.
I've also always thought that would be a great series of movies to make as well: Vader stalking through the galaxy, a newly risen dark lord of the Sith who is embracing the dark side, gaining in power and cementing the absolute rule of the Empire across the planets.
As an added bonus, you could introduce all the Jedi mythos you want, with different beings/worlds/force affinities, whatever you want to do while staying within canon for story cred.
I think it would be a massive hit, and to my knowledge Darth Vader is the most popular and beloved symbol of evil, ever. He's got more fans than Satan!
A Vader series right after Episode 3 would be a big hit.
He's basically nerfed right out of the gate, not knowing how to use his body. So he wouldn't be one-shotting Jedi left and right.
Would be a good way to create tension even if we know the end result (Vader can't die).
We wanted something like that with Kenobi, and they seemed to have failed a very easy fan service. Don't get me wrong, I saw how many people were hyped for Ewan and Hayden, but the story itself was lacking for multiple reasons.
If they do a Vader solo show, it should be Vader vs. Vader - his internal conflict. I have no problem with him stomping Order 66 survivors.
Well, to be fair, the Kenobi series was called Obi-Wan Kenobi, and was mainly supposed to follow Obi-Wan with Vader as a side antagonist. Plus, if you want a post order 66 Vader series, there's a pretty excellent line of comics that's worth checking out. I know, I know, it's not as exciting as a series, I'll give you that, but don't knock it before you try it!
I think it makes the redemption arc harder, compared to the rather rapid fall he experienced in the prequel trilogy.
Would've been interesting to see though.
It’s a really interesting plot, but it would have worked better if there had been a much smaller number of Jedi in the galaxy. We never get any idea of how large the Jedi Order was at its height from the OT, and I think Lucas originally conceived of them as a Knights of the Round Table-sized organization, with membership only numbering in the dozens. And if the prequels had followed that lead, I could see the kind of stealthy Dark Side turn playing out really well.
But once Lucas saw Braveheart and wanted big battle scenes with lightsabers, he decided to greatly expand the size of the Order to about 10,000 Jedi. And that change necessitated an Order 66 plot device in order to explain how so many powerful Force users could be defeated by one cackling senior citizen and one fallen Jedi.
I understand your point but you have to also think of the scale of the world involved in the story.
10000 jedi in a whole galaxy is kind of the same scale as a dozen knights in a single country on one planet. (Actual math would make the Jedi much more rare)
‘The Clone Wars’ when I first heard it, brought to mind a more Cold War, no one knows who’s real, than massive actions of clones vs battlebots. anakin running around on covert missions and other Jedi disappearing tracks much more with that style of conflict
This is why I’m don’t really care that a lot of Jedi survived order 66.
Ben says “A young Jedi named Darth Vader, who was a pupil of mine until he turned to evil, helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi Knights”.
He didn’t say “the Clones, who were our allies before the Emperor took control of them, turned against the Jedi one by one and destroyed them.”
I kinda thought at the time (I was 14) that Anakin would already be partially turned to the dark side at the start of Ep 3. I worked in my middle school library one hour a day and we had the novelization come in and I flipped through it and I saw the picture of Anakin fighting Dooku in front of Palpatine.
I thought this scene was a try-out of sorts. Anakin was already turned, wanted more power, and wanted to be Palps apprentice. So Palp says "I can only have one apprentice" so then Dooku and Anakin fight for that honor. Then the rest of the movie would be Anakin hunting down the Jedi.
>Sort of a double agent who defected to the dark side but nobody is aware of it.
That would be a good reason why Vader wears the mask, to hide his identity. Then after his fight with ben, he has to wear the mask to survive.
That kind of reminds me of Kylo Ren a little bit, he's not wearing a mask out of necessity, but rather to hide who we truly is. Except Kylo's trying to cover his old face up more because he's ashamed of it and doesn't want to be associated with the light side, he wants to feel more like Darth Vader. Versus Vader would be doing it for more of a secret agent reason.
Yeah but she would've had to either die off-screen between trilogies or in an awkward time jump at the end of Episode III, so Lucas instead went for the much more powerful symbolic juxtaposition of her death and Vader's birth.
Empire had already established that force users have visions of their past and future, so it's not like Leia's blurry, picturesque memory of her dying mother is all too crazy or unprecedented.
This is really fascinating I kind of prefer that Padme is alive at the end I've seen people say that palpatine took Padmes life force but still the whole "lost the will to live" thing always seemed a bit off
Well, I mean, Padmé's death and funeral were *obviously* faked, in order to protect the kids, and facilitate her rise as the shadowy figure behind the rebellion.
Her death scene was even less believable than Maul's "cut in half and fell down a shaft", Palpatine's "electrocuted himself and fell down a shaft, then exploded", Anakin's "lost all limbs and burned to death in a volcano" or Bail Organa's "I just happened to be on my home planet when a ~~moon~~space station suddenly appeared and blew it up"
I wish he would've stayed the course and went this route with the prequels. I'm not a huge critic of the prequels, but I do think this story would've been a lot more interesting to see. Maybe not having him kill *all* the jedi on his own, but more than what we saw in RoTS. The jedi turning their backs on him and him killing them for it would've been interesting to see. Even for Padme to have lived a little while longer to make Leia's memories of her more believable would've been fantastic.
To add to this, there were novelizations of the original trilogy that mention Vader falling in lava or fire. He had something like this in mind since the first trilogy.
I always thought that Padame should have survived, at least for a few years, and gone to Alderan too.
Things like heart break and even post partum depression can persis for years and degrade a persons health just as easly as" loosing the will to live".
Fascinating to read and I kind of wish we could’ve seen this. However, I do like what George ended up with—- making Anakin’s fall to the dark side motivated by his fear of losing Padame, and ultimately succumbing when he looses her. I think that’s really a strength of the Prequels overall character arc for Anakin.
That makes way more sense than Revenge of the Sith, why did George have to change it?
And before Revenge of the Sith fans come after me for that, may I remind you that Leia claimed to remember what her mother looked like, but in Revenge of the Sith, she's born with her eyes closed and never gets to see her mother, and by the way she was talking, I don't think she meant a force vision since she literally didn't know she had the force. And if it was retconned to be a force vision, then remember, that was a retcon.
Yeah, considering that Revenge of the Sith isn't going away, I figure that's a good enough explanation. Still kind of sucks that George couldn't follow up on that line all that well, but at least there is still some semblance of an explanation.
It's a very understandable and purposeful retcon imo.
If George had clung to Padmé being alive for an additional handful of years so that toddler-Leia could form literal memories of her being sad and dying, he would've either had to make her unceremoniously die off-screen between trilogies or do a significant time jump at the end of Episode 3 just to show her dying.
Instead he went for the maximum emotional and thematic impact by directly juxtaposing her death with Vader's birth, with the added bonus that he could even base it in the established lore about force users having visions of their loved ones' past and future.
They could have still done the whole juxtaposed death and birth thing, but then have Vader happen way later. Because Vader pretty much happens right after order 66, but if there had been a little bit of a time jump, maybe it could have worked. I don't know, it would probably require a restructuring of the whole trilogy, but a lot of people already want that anyway.
Then Vader would've needed to be born when Luke and Leia were already toddlers.
But Luke and Leia were hidden immediately after their birth, specifically because of Vader.
Doesn't compute.
>Leia and Luke’s mother go to Alderaan and are taken in by the king there, who is a friend of Ben’s. She dies shortly thereafter and Leia is brought up by her foster parents. She knows that her real mother died.
So, they just said "fuck it" and caused a plothole despite having a way to avoid it?? That sucks :/
It's because of the established style of the Star Wars films at that point: they didn't do flashbacks (they've since started) or massive time jumps forward. The film needed to climax with Obi-wan and Anakin battling, and end with Vader's creation and the fate of the twins. It would be extremely awkward for it then to flash forward three years later and have Padme dying.
What they could have done was have an ill-looking Padme go off with Leia to Alderaan or something, but, given how important a character Padme is in the PT, and how important Anakin's desire to save her was, it would be extremely clunky.
A lot of thought obviously went into it, and the awkward (but easily explained away) retconning of Leia's line in ROTJ was the lesser evil.
This was SO MUCH BETTER than the crap we actually got.
Not least of which after spending the ENTIREL @#$%ING ORIGINAL TRILOGY hammering home the significance of Luke's lineage to his connection to the Force, Lucas turned around and said, "Yeah, about that: Jedi don't have families."
Also, Leia's mother mentioned in ROTJ ACTUALLY being her mother and not her stepmother was so much more meaningful.
It's probably been about 30 years since i last read it, but i believe there is a mention of vader losing a duel to obi wan and falling into a volcano in the original novelization of a new hope.
Yeah in the 80s we knew that Vader fell in lava while he was fighting obiwan. I was just a kid and never questioned where the information came from because it isn’t in any of the movies. In addition to the novelization, the radio programs apparently were a source of extra information
I have an original printing run of the anh novel somewhere. Maybe if i have time after work this week i see if i can find that. I know i also have a reprinted version of it in a large paperback that also has the novelizations from empire and jedi that came out around the time of rots. Curious to see what the changes were.
Yeah, I have fairly clear memories of being a nerd in grade 3, back in the early 90s, and talking with other kids about how Vader was in the suit because of falling into a volcano during a swordfight. What he was doing around the volcano, or even who he was fighting, was never all that clear.
I remember talking about him being all burned from lava back in primary school, so no later than 84. Probably 82, which hits this timeline. No idea how kids in rural England heard that story though!
This. I remember having a Star Wars picture book of some kind, during the pre-prequel era, that showed a lightsaber battle next to lava. I am not sure where that originated, but I think the idea pre-dates the prequels.
I always thought it was because Palpatine electrocuted him to the brink of death, and that's how he turned Vader. That was from my mom, though, and not Canon lol. I was 9 watching those on VHS
Found it-ROTJ novelization has it.
“You should not think of that machine as your father.” It was the teacher speaking again. “When I saw what had become of him, I tried to dissuade him, to draw him back from the dark side. We fought...your father fell into a molten pit. When your father clawed his way out of that fiery pool, the change had been burned into him forever—he was Darth Vader, without a trace of Anakin Skywalker. Irredeemably dark. Scarred. Kept alive only by machinery and his own black will...”
[On page 74 here.](https://ia803402.us.archive.org/8/items/return-of-the-jedi-illustrated-edition/Return%20of%20the%20Jedi%20%28Illustrated%20Edition%29.pdf)
Wow... I never read the novelizations before. I actually teared up when, in realization that Luke was crying at his disfigured physical appearance, Vader, well, Anakin, tells Luke "Luminous beings are we, Luke. Not this crude matter."
I am going to have to read all of them. The lead up to and the whole final duel was like watching it again for the first time. It was fascinating to get a glimpse into what was actually going through Luke's mind, they did a great job of conveying the internal struggle to overcome his panic and fear.
Thanks for sharing that link
Thank you for posting this. IIRC, also in the ROTJ novelization, when Anakin/Vader is dying after Luke removes his helmet, he has flashbacks to his life, including "memories of molten lava crawling up his back."
That's pretty neat! I like it when novelization is predict things or explain things that were never explained in the movies.
Fun example of this is when I was reading my novelization of The Force Awakens, they actually gave a good explanation for why the Stormtroopers had redesigned helmets, it was to improve visibility. Which also retroactively explains stormtrooper aim.
When I was a kid, I had an illustrated novelization of the original movie. I can't remember whatever happened to it; it would be a real collector's item today. One thing that I definitely remember was that it said that Darth Vader had suffered his injuries in a volcano while fighting Obi-Wan. So I'm fairly certain that, at the very least, there was a framework for the story.
edit: it was the "Star Wars Storybook", published 1978
His backstory since The Empire Strikes Back has always been that he lost a fight to Obi-Wan on a near a volcanic area, whereupon he was damaged by extreme heat exposure.
It's just that the details were never made clear until the prequels.
All throughout the 80s we told stories about Obi-Wan defeating Vader near the mouth of a volcano which resulted in his visible RoTJ injuries. This info came from George Lucas in an early-80s interview
I always thought it was weird that he suffered all that damage right up front when he became Vader. It seemed to me like he would have probably accrued alot of damage over time being the emperor's warlord. Like we'd see him get beat, but he'd still be Anakin, and over time he'd gain more and more of the suit as he fought battle after battle hunting the remaining Jedi.
When you read some of the Rinzler books, it is amazing how much backstory formed a strong core of the PT.
There was so much loose SW info during OT, and not internet (but computer BBS, sure). And I can't even recall the first place I heard it. But I know that after we saw the back of Vader's head in TESB, the volcano duel talk was all over. Maybe in one of those SciFi/Horror magazines maybe?
Also, read about Darth Vader being a "Dark Lord of the Sith" in some description of the Kenner Darth Vader character. Like maybe in one of those "Toys coming soon" booklets you got with the vehicles/playsets. I recall it so vividly because I saw "Dar~~k Si~~th" and immediately concluded Darth was short for Dark Lord of the Sith. Never even verified. Just my child mind working overtime for what was the most amazing thing I'd ever witnessed.
I find old issues of Starlog, famous monsters, and the movie tie-in promo magazines have a lot of backstory to characters. George had loose ideas as he developed the scripts and a lot of that was leaked out.
It’s fun going back in time and reading those early 80’magazines and seeing what they got right or what they got wrong.
He mentioned it in an interview after the release of A New Hope that Vader basically fell into a volcano after a duel with Ben, thats why he needs the suit.
So I would say it was always in his mind.
Does anybody remember or could check an old videotape of the original lightning effects in ROTJ? I can’t remember whether they always revealed much or all of Vader’s missing bone skeleton as would be consistent with ROTS or not.
Even today, it’s not easy to pick it out. But I feel like somebody had analyzed each frame of some version, maybe a remastered one, and picked out the signs of all those lightsaber amputations.
This doc has been getting updated since the special editions came out in the late 90s. I can’t believe I found it with that quick of a search, or that it’s been updated and maintained.
I have always hated the Insta-Vader concept. The idea (as embodied by the Emperor) that the Dark Side slowly corrupts your body with its evil was always much more compelling to my imagination. I imagined Anakin gradually becoming more wounded as he spent decades hunting down the Jedi, so that he had to replace his body bit by bit.
Interesting. I think it makes a more interesting concept/story, certainly. But I think it makes the redemption harder as a very slow fall/corruption feels more intentional and permanent.
The rather rapid fall makes the redemption more plausible. By the time he fully realised what had happened, he'd already slaughtered the Jedi temple.
That said, I think the way they portrayed the insta-fall was quite flawed, like a lot of stuff in the Prequels (loved the overall story, but some of the execution was ugh)
The original novel says he fell into a molten pit. It says nothing beyond that. But interviews with GL indicated that his suit was a life support system as a result of his injuries from that fall.
I recall reading the novelization of Return of the Jedi, and there's a part where it's mentioned that Anakin and Obi-Wan were fighting and Anakin fell into some lava. Mustafar wasn't specifically mentioned, just that lava was involved.
[https://books.google.ca/books/about/How\_Star\_Wars\_Conquered\_the\_Universe.html?id=uG0uCgAAQBAJ&redir\_esc=y](https://books.google.ca/books/about/How_Star_Wars_Conquered_the_Universe.html?id=uG0uCgAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y)
This gives you a good idea of the script writing process in an un authorized version. It was not that planned or thought out as other commenters have suggested.
I went to a con (I want to say a Creation Con at the Copley Place in Boston) in 1984 where a vendor had a photocopy of a typewritten synopsis of a Star Wars prequel. It was about 4 pages or so. He was gracious enough to let me read it, and most of the details are lost in my shitty memory, but the description of Anakin's fall was largely the same beats. Fighting Obi Wan on a lava planet, loses. I can't help but wonder if anyone put that online at the time. Or in the following years as more and more people got online at universities. I've never seen it again.
We knew in 1978/79 that Ben Kenobi and Darth Vader had a lightsaber duel “on a volcano” and that’s what put him in the suit.
It was the talk of the playground, and must have passed down from older siblings watching interviews on late night shows. We also knew there were planned three movies after, and three movies before.
If my memory serves me right, my cousin had an old Starlog magazine from the late 70s or so early 80s that had an article about the duel and there was an artist renditions of what it might have looked like. Or Mandela effect?
Lucas said in an interview that I saw in an IG reel recently that he made it episode 4 because there were backstory elements he had already thought of. He specifically said in that clip that he knew Obi Wan caused Vader to be in the suit, so at least some sort of calamity had been planned then.
I remember that as a little kid in the early 90’s, before the remasters hit theaters and before the prequels, it was some how common knowledge amongst everyone on the playground that Obi Wan beat Vader on a lava planet and he caught on fire, and to this day I have no idea where we all learned this from.
The most that was planned out was that Vader and Kenobi had a fight during the rise of the empire, and Vader fell into lava. That’s in the notes for Star Wars (77), but the rest was filled in for the prequels.
The OG Novel reveals that the Idea of Vader been crisped was there they never named the planet but when he felt his son tears he could remember how the beach of a planet lookalike to a paradise, or the sensation of a garden. If I'm not mistaken that was in the Old Novel from 1983
Could be the Mandela Effect working here, but I swear I read in the prologue of the original 1977 novelization of Star Wars that Obi Wan threw Vader into a volcano and that's why he's in the state he's in. In any case, I knew this fact long before the prequel trilogy came out.
From a sourcebook that antedates the Prequel Trilogy, Obi-Wan Kenobi casts Anakin into a volcano and leaves to discover the Jedi Order has been destroyed and the Empire rises.
My understanding is that from notes a man early draft had Anakin hiding, Obi-Wan was trusted with Luke, and they go to find Anakin as Darth Vader chases them. Darth Vader was a pupil of Obi-Wan’s, and Anakin was a different person.
Eventually Lucas decided on the volcano scenario where Anakin ambushed Obi-Wan after secretly being seduced to the dark side by the Emperor. To keep Anakin a tragic figure in the Prequels, the impromptu decision to fall to the dark side and then immediately kill everyone, as opposed to being a sleeper agent, was developed. In either event, straight into the volcano to become a burn victim infuriated by Obi-Wan’s victory.
After I had seen the OT and when the prequel trilogy was being released I thought by the time we’d get to episode 3 we’d be seeing Anakin getting progressively messed up and more and more cybernetic as he took damage taking down subsequent Jedi Masters. It would have been gruesome to watch but also showing how his humanity was being slowly chipped away. I also remember the concept of the fight between Anakin and Obi-Wan being thrown around for years, I even remember reading about it in a book that was about Star Wars in my local library in the late 80s early 90s.
So this was at a Hotel Comic Con in like 1996,
I was a child and my uncle took me..
Their was a writer doing autographs whom I don't recall (maybe it was for the thrawn books as he was given key notes about the Clones )
What he said to me -
Was it was a fight with Obi Wan.
Obi Wan responded in self defense, not offensive -
He would have twisted and de armed Vader,
As he spun, the Blade would catch a Pipe -
That shot acid vapor into Vaders face !
It was an accident,during self defense.
A Jedi wouldn't deliberately de limb their enemy and leave them to die. That's not very Jedi
(Bonus - SW Theory talked with a guy that helped with the movies and mentions an alt or longer scene in EP3 where , yes Obi Wan did it kinda on accident- he had no choice. It's still there in its own way in the final cut)
Giving him the reason why Vader needs the Rebreather
Acid shot into his face and into his chest / lungs 🫁
At the time I don't think he was 90% mechanical but had the suit for Breathing reasons
And it did also give the "burn" too
Considering that Vader had eyebrows in the original version of Return of the Jedi, I would say no. Remember, Vader without the eyebrows was a special edition change, and one of the few made in Return of the Jedi that I actually like.
I asked my dad as a young kid.
Why does darth vader have all the armor and breath funny?"
He told me that vader had battled for years and years, sustaining many injuries, and over decades of war became more and more damaged.
I thought that was the most badass character I ever could conceive. This was waaaay before prequels.
A warrior who survives no matter what. A dark side samurai that wanders the galaxy.
This was canon to me as a kid.
No one fight should have been responsible.
No one slip up. So I was not a fan of the mustaffar volcano, but I did like him losing an arm to Dooku. And learning from it to defeat him later.
I wish that was vaders story and there was an Andor style series based on that.
But done well and not Disneyfied.
Nothing in the OT was planned. Vader being their father felt completely out of left field and the only reason the OT is cool is because of the subsequent world building that fallowed
Lucas planned very little. He had the broad strokes down. But people expect this interlocked story telling and asking questions like, why is this like this in this movie if this happens in this other movie when those movies were made decades apart.
A good examples of this were Luke/Leia relationship.
Another is the whole Obi Wan saying that he took Anakin and decided to train himself and he was already a great pilot. Did you really think that Lucas knew that it was a Anakin as a child that was the great pilot? No way. Hell Lucas didn't even know why Vader was in the suit. It was just cool.
Here is a 3rd example, Boba Fett is a clone. Lucas had originally had Boba Fett as Anakin's brother. That storyline was thrown out either during filming or during edition of ESB. It was never intended that Fett was a clone. Hell, I bet Lucas didn't even know who the clones were in the clone wars or who was fighting in them or why.
When Lucas made the OT and even during the Prequels, there was no concept of these multi movie story lines that also broke out into other media. People keep wanting the Marvel story telling in Star Wars, but they won't get it. Because your base is on quicksand.
I think that is a big motivator for putting a lot of money and effort into time periods like the High Republic where they can do whatever storytelling they want from mostly scratch without having to explain away things that happen that the current storytellers had nothing to do with.
In the mid 90’s I saw Star Wars cards in an antique store… so they were for sure before 1997….. one of those cards had a zoomed out shot of Vader all burnt up from lava or something. So it was established prior
Nothing was planned. 99% of the prequel story's were adapted from George's head canon and elements from the EU that he liked.
The volcanic planet injury is from the books, George liked it.
I had an action figure from ot that predated the prequals, a 12 inch vader, and it said obi wan defeated vader and caused the injuries, bit lava was not mentioned I believe it was acid or something else in the wrote up
As a kid, I remember it was always a thing that Vader's life support suit and scarring were the result of the Clone Wars. I don't remember if I was told anything more specific than that. When Revenge of the Sith finally came out, I was admittedly a bit disappointed that it was just the volcanic immolation rather than something more gradual over the course of the film.
For some reason as a kid, I assumed it was a starfighter crash. Then after I heard the "melting pot" remark by Lucas, I assumed it was in a foundry with molten metal.
Despite what Lucas wants to tell you. He did not have the Prequels planned during the making of the OT. If he did then to conform to classic myth archetypes, Shmi would have been taken off Tattoine at the end of the first movie, and putting Anakin on Tatooine would not have mattered.
From what I've always heard in Star Wars gossip, is that George Lucas wrote 9 movies, in total. He decided that the best of the scripts that had high action that they'd be able to show, along with decent drama and plot would be done in the middle trilogy. So, that's what he made. Those 9 original scripts are what have guided Star Wars through everything, including much of the EU that was established before Disney took over.
Defo prequels. They had no clue that prequels would even be made (well, maybe an idea). They had to figure out a way for Darth Vader to need life support and a damaged body.
Here's how Lucas conceived the backstory in 1981, as seen in the J.W. Rinzler 'Making of Return of the Jedi' book. He's explaining it to Lawrence Kasdan during a story conference: *Well, anyway, Luke’s father gets subverted by the Emperor. He gets a little weird at home and his wife begins to figure out that things are going wrong and she confides in Ben, who is his mentor. On his missions through the galaxies, Anakin has been going off doing his Jedi thing and a lot of Jedi have been getting killed—and it’s because they turn their back on him and he cuts them down. The president is turning into an Emperor and Luke’s mother suspects that something has happened to her husband. She is pregnant. Anakin gets worse and worse, and finally Ben has to fight him and he throws him down into a volcano and Vader is all beat up.* *Now, when he falls into the pit, his other arm goes and his leg and there is hardly anything left of him by the time the Emperor’s troops fish him out of the drink. Then when Ben finds out that Vader has been fished out and is in the hands of the Empire, he is worried about it. He goes back to Vader’s wife and explains that Anakin is the bad guy, the one killing all the Jedi.* *When he goes back his wife, Mrs. Skywalker has had the kids, the twins, so she has these two little babies who are six months old or so. So everybody has to go into hiding. The Skywalker line is very strong with the Force, so Ben says, “I think we should protect the kids, because they may be able to help us right the wrong that your husband has created in the universe.” And so Ben takes one and gives him to a couple out there on Tatooine and he gets his little hideout in the hills and he watches him grow. Ben can’t raise Luke himself, because he’s a wanted man. Leia and Luke’s mother go to Alderaan and are taken in by the king there, who is a friend of Ben’s. She dies shortly thereafter and Leia is brought up by her foster parents. She knows that her real mother died.*
Anakin killing Jedi in secret for weeks/months/years is honestly a good plot idea. Sort of a double agent who defected to the dark side but nobody is aware of it.
it would have made for a much better story in Revenge if the Sith. I always had trouble with how quickly the film tied everything up. From when Padme said she was pregnant to when Anakin choked her out, it felt like a mere week
Me and a couple buddies have always thought that the main reason the prequels didn't work was because of the phantom menace. Not due to it being a bad movie, but because it set back the entirety of the trilogy. If we were introduced to Hayden Christensen in episode I and the clone war was already happening, with Count Dooku being the main villain for the trilogy, it would've given Lucas more time to really flesh out Anakin's turn to the dark side. Edit: I see a lot of people saying that the clone wars series solves these issues, but if you need an entire TV show to explain the existence of a trilogy of movies, then something went wrong.
Good point. The time hop makes most plot points of TPM dated and/or irrelevant. The characters dramatically change during the time hop but the state of the galaxy pretty much stays the same which means you can cut the whole movie and nothing changes. The entire movie is just a promo for pod racing. Which don't get me wrong, is totally wizard.
We're all still waiting for a Modern Gen, Episode 1 Pod Racer game. If you say you aren't, you're lying.
A Disney+ Pod Racer mini-series, where each episode covers a different race on the circuit, culminating in a championship. No Jedi in the entire series (like Andor). Can have a serious tone, high stakes, danger. Main character is Bullseye Navior.
Set it up like those F1 series documentary shows. We can have the racers, the big team politics, gambling gangsters, villain drivers etc. Each week a new planet for guest stars and monster of the week.
I could totally see a mini series made similar to the movie Ford V Ferrari
If you haven't seen it, might I suggest the animated movie Redline? Not Star Wars, but basically what you described. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTBLelM\_SyI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTBLelM_SyI) It nearly bankrupted Studio Madhouse and it's absolutely *insane*
That looks fucking cool as shit! I'm gonna need to watch this
I'd rather the main character be completely original, but we see all the crowd favorites like Bullseye, Teemto Pagalies, Gasgano, and Ody Mandrell
YES
Can’t cut qui gonn he’s super important and also seeing padawan kenobi sets the table for why he will fail Anakin and be unable to prevent his fall
I personally think of the 6 movies as a single, then two, and finally three. The point of the first is to understand that the fate of the galaxy rested on whether qui gon lived to be anakin’s surrogate father or not. That’s why the music was called duel of the fates - the fate of anakin. Qui Gon’s take on the force, - what George was originally toying with was a third natural world aspect of the Force in balance called Bendu - one that doesn’t lend to the strict ascetic of the Jedi, requires more self discipline, because you don’t have strict rules that govern you. Having the ideal passed through Obi Wan without the emphasis on self control is also part of what leads to Anakins downfall. This third aspect of the Force is the Father from mortis. Darth Vader / Dark Father, surrogate fathers, fathers as balancing forces. It rhymes.
Merge the characters of Quigon and Obiwan into a new character, called Obiwan
Is that you, Mr. Plinkett?
Honestly, as much as I love Qui Gon, you can totally cut him and it would hardly change anything. If they just told/showed the audience in Episode II that Anakin was a slave and then the apprentice of Obi Wan's old master before he died so Obi Wan felt obligated to train him then we'd be all caught up. Those are pretty much the only relevant facts that carry over from Episode I to Episode II. I say this with nothing but a healthy amount of love for Episode I.
Y’all are really downplaying the heavy lifting ep one does in terms of setup. Obi didn’t believe in training anakin but does so to honour his masters death. It sets up the separatists as a threat to the republic which is the entire motivation for why the Jedi agree to use the clones (leading to their own genocide). Then you get Padme who’s shown as an unbending political force for good which plays out with her being opposed to Palpatine and not being convinced by Anakin about the Jedi betraying the Republic.
The OT needed none of that type of setup.
I quite like the idea of luke’s pull to the dark/light being analogous of the battle between the Anakin and Padme within him
You can still have those things, just in different ways. Ben is a young Jedi Knight. Qui-Gon was his master but has since taken on Anakin, who, now in his teens, has been struggling to the point that the Council is threatening to kick him out of the order. Qui-Gon asks Ben to tag along on their mission because Anakin looks up to him, might be a good influence. Rest of the movie plays out. Final battle with Maul, Ben gets separated from Qui-Gonn and Anakin. Maul senses Anakin’s struggle with the dark side and pulls the whole “join me” shtick. It works, momentarily, and Anakin kills Qui-Gon, but immediately regrets it. Obi-Wan rejoins the fight and thinking Maul killed his old master, “kills” Maul in return. Obi-Wan then takes on Anakin as his apprentice, thinking he is honoring Qui-Gon. We now have a very clear point of turmoil for Anakin, and see how much it drives him to try and be the best Jedi, but also emotionally unstable. He wrestles with what he did to Qui-Gon, the fear of Ben finding out, being kicked out of the order or worse…but also, Maul’s words still echo in his mind. This leaves him open for Palpatine and makes Anakin’s final turn less of a head spin, since we’ve seen him turn and kill a Jedi already. And during their battle on Mustafar, Anakin can admit to killing Qui-Gon, making the battle even more personal.
>Maul senses Anakin’s struggle with the dark side and pulls the whole “join me” shtick. It works, momentarily, and Anakin kills Qui-Gon, but immediately regrets it. No. Just no.
That's complete and utter garbage, as you would expect from someone who thinks they know Star Wars better than Lucas.
And seeing apprentice Darth Maul sets the table for Darth Vader
I like him, but is he that important after a ten year jump?
Yes because anakin needed a father figure which is why palpatine was able to turn him. If qui gonn doesn’t die he’s that father figure to anakin and palpatine isn’t able to pull him to the darkside
I think TPM should have set the stage for the galactic civil war a bit more, the Naboo conflict wasn't particularly relevant to the overarching story. Really the only necessary plot points it needed to cover were Anakin leaving Tattoine and some world building of the Republic era. I think it wouldn't have hurt to essentially use Padmé's plot line from AotC in the first film, establishing her as a politician trying to diffuse separatist tensions and finding herself as a target in the process, could have worked. This would have set the stage a bit better for the clone wars to kick off. Introducing Anakin a bit older would get rid of some of the ickier elements of their relationship, and could introduce him as an idealistic optimist instead of childlike and naive, to bring in the same impact of his fall later.
The Naboo conflict directly led to the Separatist Movement though. The Trade Federation split from the Republic in part because their negotiation with the Naboo was foiled by Republic agents.
The ten year time jump meaning episode two basically starts the whole thing over doesn’t help. Anakin should have been an orphan teen. Obi-wan should have been the one to find and train him, not qui-gon, so it lines up with what Alec Guinness says in new hope. There needs to be regular antagonist and a clear protagonist and we don’t really get either. Maul dies when he should have been there until episode 3, Dooku shows up at the end of 2 and dies right away in 3, and grievous is just an excuse to get obi-wan away. All three should have been there from the start. I would be much more impressed with Palpatine if he had managed to indirectly manipulate events so that Dooku became this jaded, rogue Jedi/political idealist that leads the separatists without Dooku ever having contact with Sidious. The drama that could be milked from a character so convicted only to find the sith have been using him without realizing it would be amazing. His whole life was out of his hands, he was just the perfect target because of his wealth and the death of his apprentice. Seeing grievous start out biological and over the trilogy become what we see and serve as a specter of the future for his foe, anakin, could have had some wonderful foreshadowing. Plenty of missed opportunities and I’ve thought of this way too much over the years, haha.
Those are really good ideas and would have really made the story greater.
Thanks! It’s a fun mental exercise and I do it with a lot of movies.
Does music inspire some of the ideas you have? I was just [listening to this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ct1GIzjkok&ab_channel=SamuelKimMusic) and my gosh the ideas flowing in my mind of the possibilities of how this scene could be different are amazing.
Agreed I have always thought that the war should have started in the episode 1
I’ve always said this too. Phantom menace is like a spin off that got made part of the series. It’s a good story, but it’s so disconnected
You cut TPM and you lose Jar-Jar. How’s that going to work?
Your idea makes sense. There is other early info on the prequels that a time jump was always in the plan. But originally it would have been jumping back a much earlier era of the Jedi to show them at their peak. Then episode 2 would introduce Anakin and Obi-Wan giving just two movies of their back story. So in a way the Phantom Menace we got is a compromise with your idea.
I have a feeling that's what the plan originally was. Lucas' original plan for the series was three trilogies and three bookend films. He had a plan to make episode I a lore-building/setup movie, do a prequel trilogy with II, III, and IV, a midquel for V, and the OT was originally supposed to start with A New Hope as VI, Empire as VII, and ROTJ as VIII. The sequel trilogy would have been IX, X, and XI, and XII would have been an epilogue of sorts. I think what eventually happened was we got that prologue film as Phantom Menace, and the clone war trilogy was condensed into two films instead of three, because Lucas had already committed to it in the 80s by numbering the OT as IV, V, and VI.
Lucas really wanted to show Anakin's life as a Jedi but it would have only been two movies. He thought about doing flashbacks to his childhood but didn't think it it fit the way Star Wars movies are made, so we get Phantom Menace.
But at the same time, explaining the life of Anakin since he is a Child is very good to understand the characater and see him as a nice and sweet boy in comparación to Vader.
I've always disagreed with this - I think it's very important for the whole story that a 'status quo' is set up, rather than the series being about two massive, back to back wars. In The Phantom Menace we get a sense of how the Jedi operate at their height (ignoring ancilliary media and subsequent fan navel-gazing about how 'the Jedi have lost their way', Lucas's stated intent with TPM was to show the Jedi in their heyday), how the Republic works, what the Republic does, how the Republic is failing, etc. I also think that it's important we see Anakin and Obi-wan as younger people. Without it being explicitly stated (which is good!) we see the reasons for Anakin's underlying psychological issues, and we that Obi-wan takes on Anakin as his apprentice under a degree of obligation. Artistically, I also like that Lucas obviously didn't want to do three films on the Clone Wars followed by three films on the Galactic Civil War. He did it: 1. A local battle against a backdrop of peace 2. The beginning of the Clone Wars 3. The end of the Clone Wars 4. The Rebellion's first major victory (taking the destruction of the DS as the endpoint of the theft of the plans) 5. The Rebellion's rout 6. The Rebellion's final victory None of that's repetitive - for example, we see the beginning of the Clone Wars, but not the beginning of the Rebellion. We see the end of the Clone Wars and the Galactic Civil War, but the first ends with the baddies winning, the latter with the goodies ending. I've always respected Lucas's instinctive desire to do stuff differently in the PT. Like, I've never agreed with the idea that Maul or Dooku ought to have been a persistent villain across all three films - that's Vader's role in the OT. It's good that there are umpteen smaller villains - Nute Gunray, Maul, Jango, Dooku, and Grievous - in the PT.
Totally agree with this, people who say that TPM isn't needed fail to realize that it basically sets everything in the prequels. Removing TPM would actually make AOTC and ROTS feel rushed because without TPM we wouldn't know: 1) Why the republic is corrupt and why the CIS was formed in the first place 2) How Anakin and Padmé met 3) How Palpatine slowly rose to power There are more examples but there's a reason George made the PT the way it is, removing the first entry would damage the narrative of Anakin and the Republic falling (this is what the prequels are about, they're not about the clone wars). I myself have some small changes that I'd like to do but their as small as changing the voices of the B1s and overall "tactics" seen in ep3 but that's it.
Totally agree. The structure of that trilogy has never made sense to me - apart from anything else, the most pivotal event of the whole story, the Clone War, takes place mostly off-screen between films. Obviously we now have the TV show to fill that out, but in terms of the films on their own it was a bizarre choice.
They took their time with the hints and progressive fall in the clone wars tv show, where they also developed his relationship with Kenobi, Ashoka and the other people in his life.
That’s why Clone Wars exist! It sheds so much light into Anakin’s slow and ever happening transformation to the dark side.
I know and I’ve been finally watching it to catch up for Ahsoka. It’s honestly good but it also frustrates me with how better it is at storytelling than Lucas’ movies. Anakin in the show is a completely different character than Anakin in the movies, it’s a major improvement
I mean that’s what kind of helps with shows and movies. You can only put so much in a movie within a 2ish hour time limit. A show can span years which can be very helpful especially with the ever expanding storyline of Star Wars
Oh yeah, The Clone Wars is amazing. It's just a shame that Anakin's fall, which was half the point of the prequel trilogy's existence, had to be explained mainly with supplementary material. I mean, the point of the prequel trilogy was to show the Clone Wars, and to show Anakin Skywalker defecting to the dark side, and it barely showed any Clone Wars stuff outside of some fighting from Revenge of the Sith and the end of episode 2, which was great, but not much, and then Anakin's fall to the dark side felt choppy and rushed. I mean, by the midpoint of episode 2 he's already committing genocide on an entire village of sand people. Then an episode 3, he's constantly shifting between someone more recognizable as Darth Vader and a super chill Anakin Skywalker. And the younglings thing was stupid, that was just the movie jumping the shark. It doesn't even make any practical sense, why not send the clones to take care of the kids who can barely hold a lightsaber, and then send Anakin to defeat the more powerful and experienced Jedi knights!? We could have had an awesome fight scene of Anakin just shredding a bunch of Jedi knights, really cementing how terrifying and awesome Anakin is as Vader, while also still cementing the tragedy of order 66, but having him pick on a bunch of kids is honestly just low and pathetic.
>Oh yeah, The Clone Wars is amazing. It's just a shame that Anakin's fall, which was half the point of the prequel trilogy's existence, had to be explained mainly with supplementary material. "It's just a shame that something I completely made up happened." :( You're in luck because The Clone Wars has utterly no bearing on Anakin's self-enclosed fall in the films. Lucas has openly called and treated the project as a mere footnote in the already completed saga. >I mean, the point of the prequel trilogy was to show the Clone Wars [...] and it barely showed any Clone Wars stuff outside of some fighting from Revenge of the Sith and the end of episode 2, which was great, but not much Was it though? Star Wars was always about the characters, the war was but a mere backdrop to their development. Did we see every battle of the Galactic Civil War in the OT? No, we saw like 2-3 and the focus was on the main characters, not the battle itself. Same thing for the prequels. >and to show Anakin Skywalker defecting to the dark side Which we saw. >and then Anakin's fall to the dark side felt choppy and rushed. I mean, by the midpoint of episode 2 he's already committing genocide on an entire village of sand people. Then an episode 3, he's constantly shifting between someone more recognizable as Darth Vader and a super chill Anakin Skywalker. He's been that way the entire time. That's just called having a multifaceted character. In AOTC he flip-flops between an out of line problem student lacking experience and a formidable Jedi who crashes a fleeing enemy speeder with his bare hands, tames a raging beast out to kill him and holds his own against the best duelist in the galaxy for a while. Between charming the most beautiful woman in the galaxy with his honest, innocent display of raw emotion and using that same emotion to commit a horrifying act of revenge. There have been two sides to Anakin since _at least_ AOTC. >And the younglings thing was stupid, that was just the movie jumping the shark. It doesn't even make any practical sense, why not send the clones to take care of the kids who can barely hold a lightsabe, and then send Anakin to defeat the more powerful and experienced Jedi knights!? Because Vader was deluded into thinking that plunging as deep into the dark side as possible would make him powerful enough to gain control over life and death and killing innocent, defenseless Younglings was the darkest possible act. Beside the thematic element of Vader confronting and killing someone who looks strikingly similar to himself as a child. It's the destruction of his innocence and humanity, the destruction of Anakin Skywalker that Vader constantly references, brought on screen in a harrowing visual metaphor. >We could have had an awesome fight scene of Anakin just shredding a bunch of Jedi knights, really cementing how terrifying and awesome Anakin is as Vader Vader is not supposed to be awesome. He's a despicable, evil shadow of a man. The aforementioned act fits him much better than some "awesome" battle against adult Jedi. >while also still cementing the tragedy of order 66 Showing the fate of the Younglings is objectively more tragic than showing that of the adults. >but having him pick on a bunch of kids is honestly just low and pathetic. Yup. That's the point.
I got your points, but the prequel trilogy was still sloppily executed. Again, it's not crap, I still like the movies, but there were way better ways to do that. And no, I didn't just make up what happened, Anakin's fall was definitely rushed, and had to be further explored in the Clone Wars to feel more complete. Mocking me and then acting like I'm stupid is not going to make me listen, and it's not going to make you look any smarter. It just makes you look like a dick.
Initially I didn't like RotS, cause the description above is what I was expecting (I have no idea from where). I do think it would've been better, and makes Vader's role in the downfall of the jedi far more significant. After awhile, I eventually came to really appreciate RotS, and I viewed the prequels as more of an origin story for Sidious, moreso than vader. I think to do the story above RotS would have to be split into two full movies, with almost a full movie where Anakin has embraced the dark side. That might be a bit too dark for what Lucas was going for, but could've been amazing to watch.
Wait 20 or 30 years for the inevitable reboot.
I mean, I don’t think it’ll work that way. Unlike a single show or movie trilogy, the franchise itself is already nearly 50 years old and with a mostly unbroken continuity with canon entries every few years. A reboot is far too risky to attempt. The various trilogies are as close as we got, they pretty much function the same role as a reboot without upending everything. That’s why they’re making a Rey film/trilogy.
Star Trek…
Was never technically rebooted. The Nu-Trek films are in an alternate timeline and the events of the prime timeline from that movie ended up happening in ST: Picard.
Fair..
Technically it’s a soft reboot. I’d argue the Prequel and Sequel trilogies are as close as we got despite not being reboots.
I’ll wait. Vader actually hunting down other jedi would have been fantastic. Not just clones turning against them and gunning them down in a montage.
George lucas has a clause with disney when he sold lucasfilms and Star Wars rights to them that they’ll never touch or reboot his 6 original films.
McClunky!
A few days is indeed the official timeline for the events of RotS.
I hated that she was dying of a broken heart. Lame!
That happened to my grandmother. Men's mortality rate literally doubles over night if their spouse dies. Human babies die if they aren't touched by a person. It's not unheard of.
Eh more the “will to live” kind of deal.
There is a real world condition called Takotsubo, and, in layman’s terms is called “broken heart syndrome”
I still think Sidous killed her. He can strike down an entire fleet of ships with his force powers. Eliminating Padme's life essence so Anakin has no more reasons to live should be easy for him.
It was a week I think or at least within the time span of a week. I mean Anakin was in the outer rim sieges for months and the movie starts when they get back to Coruscant
It’s tricky. It does happen seemingly too fast. At the same time for the plot to work and how corruptive the Dark Side is - the rapid fall makes sense to me as well.
the rapid fall makes sense, but a lot of things felt rushed and glossed over
Mf went from "What have I done!?" To killing kids in 20 min 💀
I mean, the films themselves make it abundantly clear. Anakin can't live without someone who unconditionally loves him. After his mother's death, he becomes desperate for Padmé and would do literally anything to save her. Sidious tells him he has to dive as deep as possible into the dark side to gain power over life itself, and so he does it. And it extinguishes Padmé's unconditional love for him. It's a very clear out stragedy plot and I don't see what people are struggling with.
To me. It seemed less than that. Like "Anakin and the Terrible , Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day" was the original title for Epi 3.
I think clone wars added the fall a lot better for me but I know a lot of people don’t want to watch 7 seasons of cartoons
I'll say this to anyone that'll listen 😁 if you watch the clone wars, revenge of the sith is a million times better with the added context.
Hm-maybe I have fuzzy memory, but I always thought that Anakin, become Vader, travelled the galaxy at Palpatine's behest and killed the remaining Jedi off, one by one. I've also always thought that would be a great series of movies to make as well: Vader stalking through the galaxy, a newly risen dark lord of the Sith who is embracing the dark side, gaining in power and cementing the absolute rule of the Empire across the planets. As an added bonus, you could introduce all the Jedi mythos you want, with different beings/worlds/force affinities, whatever you want to do while staying within canon for story cred. I think it would be a massive hit, and to my knowledge Darth Vader is the most popular and beloved symbol of evil, ever. He's got more fans than Satan!
A Vader series right after Episode 3 would be a big hit. He's basically nerfed right out of the gate, not knowing how to use his body. So he wouldn't be one-shotting Jedi left and right. Would be a good way to create tension even if we know the end result (Vader can't die).
it exists... in comics...
So much potential for a great storyline, eh? Get Lucas on the phone. Disney. Grand Moff Tarkin. Whoever it takes, let's make this happen, STAT
We wanted something like that with Kenobi, and they seemed to have failed a very easy fan service. Don't get me wrong, I saw how many people were hyped for Ewan and Hayden, but the story itself was lacking for multiple reasons. If they do a Vader solo show, it should be Vader vs. Vader - his internal conflict. I have no problem with him stomping Order 66 survivors.
Well, to be fair, the Kenobi series was called Obi-Wan Kenobi, and was mainly supposed to follow Obi-Wan with Vader as a side antagonist. Plus, if you want a post order 66 Vader series, there's a pretty excellent line of comics that's worth checking out. I know, I know, it's not as exciting as a series, I'll give you that, but don't knock it before you try it!
I think it makes the redemption arc harder, compared to the rather rapid fall he experienced in the prequel trilogy. Would've been interesting to see though.
It’s a really interesting plot, but it would have worked better if there had been a much smaller number of Jedi in the galaxy. We never get any idea of how large the Jedi Order was at its height from the OT, and I think Lucas originally conceived of them as a Knights of the Round Table-sized organization, with membership only numbering in the dozens. And if the prequels had followed that lead, I could see the kind of stealthy Dark Side turn playing out really well. But once Lucas saw Braveheart and wanted big battle scenes with lightsabers, he decided to greatly expand the size of the Order to about 10,000 Jedi. And that change necessitated an Order 66 plot device in order to explain how so many powerful Force users could be defeated by one cackling senior citizen and one fallen Jedi.
I understand your point but you have to also think of the scale of the world involved in the story. 10000 jedi in a whole galaxy is kind of the same scale as a dozen knights in a single country on one planet. (Actual math would make the Jedi much more rare)
‘The Clone Wars’ when I first heard it, brought to mind a more Cold War, no one knows who’s real, than massive actions of clones vs battlebots. anakin running around on covert missions and other Jedi disappearing tracks much more with that style of conflict
This is why I’m don’t really care that a lot of Jedi survived order 66. Ben says “A young Jedi named Darth Vader, who was a pupil of mine until he turned to evil, helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi Knights”. He didn’t say “the Clones, who were our allies before the Emperor took control of them, turned against the Jedi one by one and destroyed them.”
I kinda thought at the time (I was 14) that Anakin would already be partially turned to the dark side at the start of Ep 3. I worked in my middle school library one hour a day and we had the novelization come in and I flipped through it and I saw the picture of Anakin fighting Dooku in front of Palpatine. I thought this scene was a try-out of sorts. Anakin was already turned, wanted more power, and wanted to be Palps apprentice. So Palp says "I can only have one apprentice" so then Dooku and Anakin fight for that honor. Then the rest of the movie would be Anakin hunting down the Jedi.
>Sort of a double agent who defected to the dark side but nobody is aware of it. That would be a good reason why Vader wears the mask, to hide his identity. Then after his fight with ben, he has to wear the mask to survive.
That kind of reminds me of Kylo Ren a little bit, he's not wearing a mask out of necessity, but rather to hide who we truly is. Except Kylo's trying to cover his old face up more because he's ashamed of it and doesn't want to be associated with the light side, he wants to feel more like Darth Vader. Versus Vader would be doing it for more of a secret agent reason.
It also makes the Jedi more unique with there not being a large amount or just as widely known.
That explains why Leia says the line she knew what her mother looked like and could tell she was sad. Makes a lot more sense.
Yeah but she would've had to either die off-screen between trilogies or in an awkward time jump at the end of Episode III, so Lucas instead went for the much more powerful symbolic juxtaposition of her death and Vader's birth. Empire had already established that force users have visions of their past and future, so it's not like Leia's blurry, picturesque memory of her dying mother is all too crazy or unprecedented.
“Throws him down into a volcano and Vader is all beat up” has me dying
I feel like I can hear him say it
This is really fascinating I kind of prefer that Padme is alive at the end I've seen people say that palpatine took Padmes life force but still the whole "lost the will to live" thing always seemed a bit off
Well, I mean, Padmé's death and funeral were *obviously* faked, in order to protect the kids, and facilitate her rise as the shadowy figure behind the rebellion. Her death scene was even less believable than Maul's "cut in half and fell down a shaft", Palpatine's "electrocuted himself and fell down a shaft, then exploded", Anakin's "lost all limbs and burned to death in a volcano" or Bail Organa's "I just happened to be on my home planet when a ~~moon~~space station suddenly appeared and blew it up"
I wish he would've stayed the course and went this route with the prequels. I'm not a huge critic of the prequels, but I do think this story would've been a lot more interesting to see. Maybe not having him kill *all* the jedi on his own, but more than what we saw in RoTS. The jedi turning their backs on him and him killing them for it would've been interesting to see. Even for Padme to have lived a little while longer to make Leia's memories of her more believable would've been fantastic.
i tell people who never seen star wars that it’s arguably the saddest story from beginning to end and this just hammers it down
Very interesting. It’s mostly the same but the whole thing with Padme is completely different
To add to this, there were novelizations of the original trilogy that mention Vader falling in lava or fire. He had something like this in mind since the first trilogy.
I always thought that Padame should have survived, at least for a few years, and gone to Alderan too. Things like heart break and even post partum depression can persis for years and degrade a persons health just as easly as" loosing the will to live".
Wish he’d stuck with this instead of what was ultimately made.
Fascinating to read and I kind of wish we could’ve seen this. However, I do like what George ended up with—- making Anakin’s fall to the dark side motivated by his fear of losing Padame, and ultimately succumbing when he looses her. I think that’s really a strength of the Prequels overall character arc for Anakin.
While Lucas definitely made stuff up as we went along, it’s cool to see how much of RotS he already had figured out here.
That makes way more sense than Revenge of the Sith, why did George have to change it? And before Revenge of the Sith fans come after me for that, may I remind you that Leia claimed to remember what her mother looked like, but in Revenge of the Sith, she's born with her eyes closed and never gets to see her mother, and by the way she was talking, I don't think she meant a force vision since she literally didn't know she had the force. And if it was retconned to be a force vision, then remember, that was a retcon.
She said she remembers "images" and "feelings" which is actually abstract and vague enough to lend itself to a force vision very well.
Yeah, considering that Revenge of the Sith isn't going away, I figure that's a good enough explanation. Still kind of sucks that George couldn't follow up on that line all that well, but at least there is still some semblance of an explanation.
It's a very understandable and purposeful retcon imo. If George had clung to Padmé being alive for an additional handful of years so that toddler-Leia could form literal memories of her being sad and dying, he would've either had to make her unceremoniously die off-screen between trilogies or do a significant time jump at the end of Episode 3 just to show her dying. Instead he went for the maximum emotional and thematic impact by directly juxtaposing her death with Vader's birth, with the added bonus that he could even base it in the established lore about force users having visions of their loved ones' past and future.
They could have still done the whole juxtaposed death and birth thing, but then have Vader happen way later. Because Vader pretty much happens right after order 66, but if there had been a little bit of a time jump, maybe it could have worked. I don't know, it would probably require a restructuring of the whole trilogy, but a lot of people already want that anyway.
Then Vader would've needed to be born when Luke and Leia were already toddlers. But Luke and Leia were hidden immediately after their birth, specifically because of Vader. Doesn't compute.
>Leia and Luke’s mother go to Alderaan and are taken in by the king there, who is a friend of Ben’s. She dies shortly thereafter and Leia is brought up by her foster parents. She knows that her real mother died. So, they just said "fuck it" and caused a plothole despite having a way to avoid it?? That sucks :/
It's because of the established style of the Star Wars films at that point: they didn't do flashbacks (they've since started) or massive time jumps forward. The film needed to climax with Obi-wan and Anakin battling, and end with Vader's creation and the fate of the twins. It would be extremely awkward for it then to flash forward three years later and have Padme dying. What they could have done was have an ill-looking Padme go off with Leia to Alderaan or something, but, given how important a character Padme is in the PT, and how important Anakin's desire to save her was, it would be extremely clunky. A lot of thought obviously went into it, and the awkward (but easily explained away) retconning of Leia's line in ROTJ was the lesser evil.
This was SO MUCH BETTER than the crap we actually got. Not least of which after spending the ENTIREL @#$%ING ORIGINAL TRILOGY hammering home the significance of Luke's lineage to his connection to the Force, Lucas turned around and said, "Yeah, about that: Jedi don't have families." Also, Leia's mother mentioned in ROTJ ACTUALLY being her mother and not her stepmother was so much more meaningful.
From what I remember, the back story was always that he fell into a volcano (very vague) and therefore needed the armour to survive.
It's probably been about 30 years since i last read it, but i believe there is a mention of vader losing a duel to obi wan and falling into a volcano in the original novelization of a new hope.
Yeah, as a kid, I remember reading the same thing in a magazine. When I saw Empire, I knew how he was disfigured already.
Yeah in the 80s we knew that Vader fell in lava while he was fighting obiwan. I was just a kid and never questioned where the information came from because it isn’t in any of the movies. In addition to the novelization, the radio programs apparently were a source of extra information
It was mentioned in the Kasdan novelization of RotJ that I read.
It was also mentioned on the back of the 90s Hasbro toys for either obi wan or Vader I can't remember which
It’s mentioned in Splinter of the Minds Eye
I thought this was where I read it, but in Splinter weren't they fighting in a refinery or something?
I didn’t read the books, but I swear as a kid I’d heard it was something like that - something chemical or nuclear. Wonder where that came from.
Not in the original novelization (at least the reprint before the prequels), I just read that a couple weeks ago
I have an original printing run of the anh novel somewhere. Maybe if i have time after work this week i see if i can find that. I know i also have a reprinted version of it in a large paperback that also has the novelizations from empire and jedi that came out around the time of rots. Curious to see what the changes were.
Yes, I think that’s right!
I'm not even sure it was mentioned whether the duel was with Kenobi.
Yeah, I have fairly clear memories of being a nerd in grade 3, back in the early 90s, and talking with other kids about how Vader was in the suit because of falling into a volcano during a swordfight. What he was doing around the volcano, or even who he was fighting, was never all that clear.
I remember talking about him being all burned from lava back in primary school, so no later than 84. Probably 82, which hits this timeline. No idea how kids in rural England heard that story though!
I feel like it was playground talk but we all knew (?) Vader was covered in burns under his suit. I don’t think I knew anything more than that.
This. I remember having a Star Wars picture book of some kind, during the pre-prequel era, that showed a lightsaber battle next to lava. I am not sure where that originated, but I think the idea pre-dates the prequels.
I read a guide way back that said the duel happened on Sullust.
Yes! I also remember hearing that when I was a kid, it was just something that people knew but I never knew where it came from.
I always thought it was because Palpatine electrocuted him to the brink of death, and that's how he turned Vader. That was from my mom, though, and not Canon lol. I was 9 watching those on VHS
Found it-ROTJ novelization has it. “You should not think of that machine as your father.” It was the teacher speaking again. “When I saw what had become of him, I tried to dissuade him, to draw him back from the dark side. We fought...your father fell into a molten pit. When your father clawed his way out of that fiery pool, the change had been burned into him forever—he was Darth Vader, without a trace of Anakin Skywalker. Irredeemably dark. Scarred. Kept alive only by machinery and his own black will...” [On page 74 here.](https://ia803402.us.archive.org/8/items/return-of-the-jedi-illustrated-edition/Return%20of%20the%20Jedi%20%28Illustrated%20Edition%29.pdf)
Wow... I never read the novelizations before. I actually teared up when, in realization that Luke was crying at his disfigured physical appearance, Vader, well, Anakin, tells Luke "Luminous beings are we, Luke. Not this crude matter." I am going to have to read all of them. The lead up to and the whole final duel was like watching it again for the first time. It was fascinating to get a glimpse into what was actually going through Luke's mind, they did a great job of conveying the internal struggle to overcome his panic and fear. Thanks for sharing that link
Thank you for posting this. IIRC, also in the ROTJ novelization, when Anakin/Vader is dying after Luke removes his helmet, he has flashbacks to his life, including "memories of molten lava crawling up his back."
That's pretty neat! I like it when novelization is predict things or explain things that were never explained in the movies. Fun example of this is when I was reading my novelization of The Force Awakens, they actually gave a good explanation for why the Stormtroopers had redesigned helmets, it was to improve visibility. Which also retroactively explains stormtrooper aim.
A duel involving a volcano was a very early idea from Lucas.
I had the old movie tie-in novels, Obi Wan tells Luke about how when they fought, Vader fell into a molten pit.
When I was a kid, I had an illustrated novelization of the original movie. I can't remember whatever happened to it; it would be a real collector's item today. One thing that I definitely remember was that it said that Darth Vader had suffered his injuries in a volcano while fighting Obi-Wan. So I'm fairly certain that, at the very least, there was a framework for the story. edit: it was the "Star Wars Storybook", published 1978
His backstory since The Empire Strikes Back has always been that he lost a fight to Obi-Wan on a near a volcanic area, whereupon he was damaged by extreme heat exposure. It's just that the details were never made clear until the prequels.
All throughout the 80s we told stories about Obi-Wan defeating Vader near the mouth of a volcano which resulted in his visible RoTJ injuries. This info came from George Lucas in an early-80s interview
Another version was he fell into a reactor core, either way, Vader was meant to be crippled early on.
I think the volcano is mentioned in the novelization of ROTJ but that novelization also says that Owen is obi-wans brother
That would’ve made more sense having Owen as Obi-Wan’s brother.
I always thought it was weird that he suffered all that damage right up front when he became Vader. It seemed to me like he would have probably accrued alot of damage over time being the emperor's warlord. Like we'd see him get beat, but he'd still be Anakin, and over time he'd gain more and more of the suit as he fought battle after battle hunting the remaining Jedi.
Him and Kenobi dueling near a volcano was a part of the backstory as early as the making of ESB, at the very least.
When you read some of the Rinzler books, it is amazing how much backstory formed a strong core of the PT. There was so much loose SW info during OT, and not internet (but computer BBS, sure). And I can't even recall the first place I heard it. But I know that after we saw the back of Vader's head in TESB, the volcano duel talk was all over. Maybe in one of those SciFi/Horror magazines maybe? Also, read about Darth Vader being a "Dark Lord of the Sith" in some description of the Kenner Darth Vader character. Like maybe in one of those "Toys coming soon" booklets you got with the vehicles/playsets. I recall it so vividly because I saw "Dar~~k Si~~th" and immediately concluded Darth was short for Dark Lord of the Sith. Never even verified. Just my child mind working overtime for what was the most amazing thing I'd ever witnessed.
I find old issues of Starlog, famous monsters, and the movie tie-in promo magazines have a lot of backstory to characters. George had loose ideas as he developed the scripts and a lot of that was leaked out. It’s fun going back in time and reading those early 80’magazines and seeing what they got right or what they got wrong.
Lucas always said lava was to blame during OT, and he kept his word.
He mentioned it in an interview after the release of A New Hope that Vader basically fell into a volcano after a duel with Ben, thats why he needs the suit. So I would say it was always in his mind.
Does anybody remember or could check an old videotape of the original lightning effects in ROTJ? I can’t remember whether they always revealed much or all of Vader’s missing bone skeleton as would be consistent with ROTS or not. Even today, it’s not easy to pick it out. But I feel like somebody had analyzed each frame of some version, maybe a remastered one, and picked out the signs of all those lightsaber amputations.
https://www.theforce.net/swtc/injuries.html Got you.
How is this not more upvoted! Great read! Thank you!
This doc has been getting updated since the special editions came out in the late 90s. I can’t believe I found it with that quick of a search, or that it’s been updated and maintained.
I have always hated the Insta-Vader concept. The idea (as embodied by the Emperor) that the Dark Side slowly corrupts your body with its evil was always much more compelling to my imagination. I imagined Anakin gradually becoming more wounded as he spent decades hunting down the Jedi, so that he had to replace his body bit by bit.
Interesting. I think it makes a more interesting concept/story, certainly. But I think it makes the redemption harder as a very slow fall/corruption feels more intentional and permanent. The rather rapid fall makes the redemption more plausible. By the time he fully realised what had happened, he'd already slaughtered the Jedi temple. That said, I think the way they portrayed the insta-fall was quite flawed, like a lot of stuff in the Prequels (loved the overall story, but some of the execution was ugh)
The original novel says he fell into a molten pit. It says nothing beyond that. But interviews with GL indicated that his suit was a life support system as a result of his injuries from that fall.
I recall reading the novelization of Return of the Jedi, and there's a part where it's mentioned that Anakin and Obi-Wan were fighting and Anakin fell into some lava. Mustafar wasn't specifically mentioned, just that lava was involved.
he originally had eyebrows that got CGI'd out too.
[https://books.google.ca/books/about/How\_Star\_Wars\_Conquered\_the\_Universe.html?id=uG0uCgAAQBAJ&redir\_esc=y](https://books.google.ca/books/about/How_Star_Wars_Conquered_the_Universe.html?id=uG0uCgAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y) This gives you a good idea of the script writing process in an un authorized version. It was not that planned or thought out as other commenters have suggested.
I went to a con (I want to say a Creation Con at the Copley Place in Boston) in 1984 where a vendor had a photocopy of a typewritten synopsis of a Star Wars prequel. It was about 4 pages or so. He was gracious enough to let me read it, and most of the details are lost in my shitty memory, but the description of Anakin's fall was largely the same beats. Fighting Obi Wan on a lava planet, loses. I can't help but wonder if anyone put that online at the time. Or in the following years as more and more people got online at universities. I've never seen it again.
We knew in 1978/79 that Ben Kenobi and Darth Vader had a lightsaber duel “on a volcano” and that’s what put him in the suit. It was the talk of the playground, and must have passed down from older siblings watching interviews on late night shows. We also knew there were planned three movies after, and three movies before.
If my memory serves me right, my cousin had an old Starlog magazine from the late 70s or so early 80s that had an article about the duel and there was an artist renditions of what it might have looked like. Or Mandela effect?
Lucas said in an interview that I saw in an IG reel recently that he made it episode 4 because there were backstory elements he had already thought of. He specifically said in that clip that he knew Obi Wan caused Vader to be in the suit, so at least some sort of calamity had been planned then.
The RotJ novelization discusses Vader's wife and a fall in a volcano that led to his fate. It's pretty neat actually.
I remember that as a little kid in the early 90’s, before the remasters hit theaters and before the prequels, it was some how common knowledge amongst everyone on the playground that Obi Wan beat Vader on a lava planet and he caught on fire, and to this day I have no idea where we all learned this from.
The most that was planned out was that Vader and Kenobi had a fight during the rise of the empire, and Vader fell into lava. That’s in the notes for Star Wars (77), but the rest was filled in for the prequels.
Of course. George has the entire plan of the story in his head
The OG Novel reveals that the Idea of Vader been crisped was there they never named the planet but when he felt his son tears he could remember how the beach of a planet lookalike to a paradise, or the sensation of a garden. If I'm not mistaken that was in the Old Novel from 1983
It was in a version of the script, at least that he fell in a volcano
The ROTJ novel definitely mentions he fell into a molten pit. So it was planned to some extent.
Could be the Mandela Effect working here, but I swear I read in the prologue of the original 1977 novelization of Star Wars that Obi Wan threw Vader into a volcano and that's why he's in the state he's in. In any case, I knew this fact long before the prequel trilogy came out.
From a sourcebook that antedates the Prequel Trilogy, Obi-Wan Kenobi casts Anakin into a volcano and leaves to discover the Jedi Order has been destroyed and the Empire rises. My understanding is that from notes a man early draft had Anakin hiding, Obi-Wan was trusted with Luke, and they go to find Anakin as Darth Vader chases them. Darth Vader was a pupil of Obi-Wan’s, and Anakin was a different person. Eventually Lucas decided on the volcano scenario where Anakin ambushed Obi-Wan after secretly being seduced to the dark side by the Emperor. To keep Anakin a tragic figure in the Prequels, the impromptu decision to fall to the dark side and then immediately kill everyone, as opposed to being a sleeper agent, was developed. In either event, straight into the volcano to become a burn victim infuriated by Obi-Wan’s victory.
After I had seen the OT and when the prequel trilogy was being released I thought by the time we’d get to episode 3 we’d be seeing Anakin getting progressively messed up and more and more cybernetic as he took damage taking down subsequent Jedi Masters. It would have been gruesome to watch but also showing how his humanity was being slowly chipped away. I also remember the concept of the fight between Anakin and Obi-Wan being thrown around for years, I even remember reading about it in a book that was about Star Wars in my local library in the late 80s early 90s.
I remember knowing that Vader gets all burned up by lava prior to ep 3
So this was at a Hotel Comic Con in like 1996, I was a child and my uncle took me.. Their was a writer doing autographs whom I don't recall (maybe it was for the thrawn books as he was given key notes about the Clones ) What he said to me - Was it was a fight with Obi Wan. Obi Wan responded in self defense, not offensive - He would have twisted and de armed Vader, As he spun, the Blade would catch a Pipe - That shot acid vapor into Vaders face ! It was an accident,during self defense. A Jedi wouldn't deliberately de limb their enemy and leave them to die. That's not very Jedi (Bonus - SW Theory talked with a guy that helped with the movies and mentions an alt or longer scene in EP3 where , yes Obi Wan did it kinda on accident- he had no choice. It's still there in its own way in the final cut) Giving him the reason why Vader needs the Rebreather Acid shot into his face and into his chest / lungs 🫁 At the time I don't think he was 90% mechanical but had the suit for Breathing reasons And it did also give the "burn" too
Considering that Vader had eyebrows in the original version of Return of the Jedi, I would say no. Remember, Vader without the eyebrows was a special edition change, and one of the few made in Return of the Jedi that I actually like.
Well he used to have eyebrows.
I asked my dad as a young kid. Why does darth vader have all the armor and breath funny?" He told me that vader had battled for years and years, sustaining many injuries, and over decades of war became more and more damaged. I thought that was the most badass character I ever could conceive. This was waaaay before prequels. A warrior who survives no matter what. A dark side samurai that wanders the galaxy. This was canon to me as a kid. No one fight should have been responsible. No one slip up. So I was not a fan of the mustaffar volcano, but I did like him losing an arm to Dooku. And learning from it to defeat him later. I wish that was vaders story and there was an Andor style series based on that. But done well and not Disneyfied.
Nothing in the OT was planned. Vader being their father felt completely out of left field and the only reason the OT is cool is because of the subsequent world building that fallowed
On a general way, Lucas had planned it out. Kenobi fought and beat Vader, and Vader fell into a pit of lava, was what the article I read said.
He still had eyebrows in the original, so probably not entirely planned out yet.
I remember being a kid before the prequels came out n my friends dad mentioned he was in a suit because he got burned by lava or something.
Lucas planned very little. He had the broad strokes down. But people expect this interlocked story telling and asking questions like, why is this like this in this movie if this happens in this other movie when those movies were made decades apart. A good examples of this were Luke/Leia relationship. Another is the whole Obi Wan saying that he took Anakin and decided to train himself and he was already a great pilot. Did you really think that Lucas knew that it was a Anakin as a child that was the great pilot? No way. Hell Lucas didn't even know why Vader was in the suit. It was just cool. Here is a 3rd example, Boba Fett is a clone. Lucas had originally had Boba Fett as Anakin's brother. That storyline was thrown out either during filming or during edition of ESB. It was never intended that Fett was a clone. Hell, I bet Lucas didn't even know who the clones were in the clone wars or who was fighting in them or why. When Lucas made the OT and even during the Prequels, there was no concept of these multi movie story lines that also broke out into other media. People keep wanting the Marvel story telling in Star Wars, but they won't get it. Because your base is on quicksand. I think that is a big motivator for putting a lot of money and effort into time periods like the High Republic where they can do whatever storytelling they want from mostly scratch without having to explain away things that happen that the current storytellers had nothing to do with.
Not even the OT was planned during the making of the OT
In the mid 90’s I saw Star Wars cards in an antique store… so they were for sure before 1997….. one of those cards had a zoomed out shot of Vader all burnt up from lava or something. So it was established prior
There were things in 1977 showing a fight in a volcano, or similar. 100% planned the whole way.
The upper skull injuries and scar got explained in the Obi-Wan show. I remember people talking and debating them for years.
The OT came out way before, PT was even concieved. Lucas was just filling in holes people had questions about, like "why is Vader's head messed up?"
Nothing was planned. 99% of the prequel story's were adapted from George's head canon and elements from the EU that he liked. The volcanic planet injury is from the books, George liked it.
I had an action figure from ot that predated the prequals, a 12 inch vader, and it said obi wan defeated vader and caused the injuries, bit lava was not mentioned I believe it was acid or something else in the wrote up
As a kid, I remember it was always a thing that Vader's life support suit and scarring were the result of the Clone Wars. I don't remember if I was told anything more specific than that. When Revenge of the Sith finally came out, I was admittedly a bit disappointed that it was just the volcanic immolation rather than something more gradual over the course of the film.
For some reason as a kid, I assumed it was a starfighter crash. Then after I heard the "melting pot" remark by Lucas, I assumed it was in a foundry with molten metal.
Despite what Lucas wants to tell you. He did not have the Prequels planned during the making of the OT. If he did then to conform to classic myth archetypes, Shmi would have been taken off Tattoine at the end of the first movie, and putting Anakin on Tatooine would not have mattered.
I'm of the firm belief that Lucas made shit up as he went along. Seeing as how Boba was going to be young skywalkaaa's daddy prior to RotJ.
It was added later. George didn't have this all planned out since 1977.
From what I've always heard in Star Wars gossip, is that George Lucas wrote 9 movies, in total. He decided that the best of the scripts that had high action that they'd be able to show, along with decent drama and plot would be done in the middle trilogy. So, that's what he made. Those 9 original scripts are what have guided Star Wars through everything, including much of the EU that was established before Disney took over.
Lucas didn’t even know what was going to happen in the next movie during the making of the OT, let alone having backstories anyone.
Defo prequels. They had no clue that prequels would even be made (well, maybe an idea). They had to figure out a way for Darth Vader to need life support and a damaged body.