I was sitting here thinking, trying to figure out how I knew that Darth Vader, at some point before A New Hope, fought Obi-Wan Kenobi fell into a volcano. I remember knowing this in second grade. Why the hell did I know this?
I realized that I was sitting in front of the Internet, so I asked it why I knew this. The Internet told me this, and mentioned a bunch of possibilities, including an issue of Dynamite, Alan Dean Foster's Splinter of the Mind's Eye, and finally, this interview with George Lucas from Rolling Stone, posted back in May of 1977 (!). Here, Lucas is talking about the backstory that he hopes to one day tell:
It's about Ben and Luke's father and Vader when they are young Jedi knights. But Vader kills Luke's father, then Ben and Vader have a confrontation, just like they have in Star Wars, and Ben almost kills Vader. As a matter of fact, he falls into a volcanic pit and gets fried and is one destroyed being. That's why he has to wear the suit with a mask, because it's a breathing mask. It's like a walking iron lung. His face is all horrible inside.
It's a good interview, and a great reminder of how much work and thought went into the original movie. (I'm not sure if "one destroyed being" is a typo or a very weird colloquialism.) Also, I don't want to be a George Lucas apologist, but I do think I hate the three prequels a lot less than most. In fact, I quite enjoyed them! Sure, there are a couple or three fatal errors in The Phantom Menace, but I think Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith do a decent job side-stepping these mistakes. I think all three prequels have the same idealistic spirit, dramatic urgency, and (for the most part) fun as the originals, as well as the attention to detail and deep respect for complex lore that made the Star Wars Universe so interesting for me in the first place.
I'm going to watch all six movies again! Who's with me?
21 comments:
I too remember this. My memory stems from reading Splinter of the Mind's Eye, which actually made a damn decent little comic drawn by Chris Sprouse., But now that I think about it, was it really from that book, or was it someone telling me about the scenario while I was reading the book all those years back in the Kahala Waldenbooks?
I don't hate the Sith one. I hate parts of it, and I hate those parts a lot, but I don't hate it as a whole. Mostly I felt that the movie dwelled on certain things wayyy too long, and other things not nearly enough. If It were up to me, and I could some how break the movies into parts, I think I would remove a lot of the Endor part of Return of the Jedi, and slap the good parts onto the tail of Empire, and pare down Sith a bit and mush it in the front. It would be more of a quadrology than a sexology, and quad is never as fun as sex. But I would feel a bit better about the whole experience.
The green wobbly bit is that I have a soft spot in my heart for Ewok merchandise, but I pretty much can't stand the Ewoks in Return of the Jedi. i don't know what that's about.
The fact that the Ewoks have a shiny god that looks a lot like a protocol droid is completely ridiculous. How would they know what "shiny" looks like?
That's just it, they don't have any understanding of "shiny". That's what blows their mind. It's like a walking sun.
George Lucas apologist!
Actually, that's a good point. And it's good to hear that everyone isn't completely upset about the Ewoks. I think that while they were played for cuteness, the art direction and design on their headdresses and village was pretty awesome. All those little beads and skulls really drove home the fact that they were very superstitious, and kind of vicious.
Is it possible the Little Dude Union is to blame, playing the Ewoks as waddling teddy bears instead of horrible little Chucky-Badgers?
I can honestly say I never had a huge problem with ewoks. They beat storm troopers to death with rocks! They also got completely decimated by giant laser guns! Ha ha! And the whole shiny god thing just seemed like another swipe from some Joseph Campbell/gods-must-be-crazy myth story. Jarjar? Younglings? Boring space battles? Boring characters? The "UR breaking my heart T_T" scene? The frankenstein scene? Ewoks have nothin on that dribble.
For a bunch of reasons I also think the phantom menace was the best of the worst three movies, although this is like pointing out which of three bowls of shit you'd rather run through your hair.
i choose the bowl of shit without corn. thanks.
See, I'd pick that bowl, because some of the shit is just corn. I don't mind a little corn in my hair.
Well, what's in the other two bowls? How close am I to a hose?
I also agree that the ewoks had some really snazzy headgear. When they were a xenophobic hunter gatherer society they were much better than when they accepted the rebs and played stormtrooper helmets as a xylophone, in my opinion. I like to imagine those helmets still had heads in them.
How else could they get the different notes?
majik?
They've gotta be at least a little bit magic or they'd leak all over the place and stink like crazy. Does the force help with that? And would you go to the dark or the light side of the force, because it'd be doing it for a good reason. Sanitation, and all.
I don't think stormtroopers had much of the force working for them. I think they'd be far more effective if that were the case.
Well of course not, silly pants. I was talking about using the force to stop their swollen-heads-used-as-bongos from leaking all over the place.
But wait. Who would be using the Force to do this? Luke? I mean, that's crazy. He's all exhausted and shit from you know, saving the galaxy and fighting the emperor, plus he's probably all emotionally overwrought by having to cremate his father who he just redeemed from the dark side. I don't care if he's a Jedi, that's a lot to digest. he doesn't have the time to stop the leakage of some stormtrooper heads. Leia's just learning about her role in the whole thing, she's not even prepared for that shit. I don't think the Jedi ghosts can do it, as from what i understand, they use whatever energy they have accessible to manifest on the earthly plane.
Who the fuck would be using the force to stop the fluids from running out of those storm trooper heads?
Think this shit through, man.
(whispers the words "tree sap" loud enough for Fugu to hear.)
Did you read about the Scottish police officers who follow the Jedi faith? I got a press release about this from Jane's. I thought it was for some kind of little-known mid-month April Fool's Day observed in Britain. But it turned out to be true. ??
I consider myself a fan but...this is a bit much. How do they even do lightsaber training? Without lightsabers? Let alone, little floating balls that shoot laser beams? whatever.
I've been off-line and just saw this post, so informative! My cousin told me a few months ago that I'd explained the whole Darth Vader origin to him in 1981 or so. I have no memory of doing so and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have read any of those things. How powerful and reliable the little kid/fanboy grapevine was even before the internet!
I think said grapevine fuels the Internet, Ruby.
Odori, that's a pretty neat story. Especially the buried bit about those two brothers founding a Church of the Jedi. I mean, people say weirder shit to get tax-exempt status, but I like to believe there's something more to this.
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