From: mohr@leland.Stanford.EDU (Paul William Mohr)
Subject: Re: Just how much of SW did Lucas make up as he
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 92 17:17:29 GMT

In article <1992Jul29.080433.16481@zoo.bt.co.uk> ipc@zoo.bt.co.uk writes:
>In article 4238@ericsson.se, etllnfr@babelfish.ericsson.se (Lyndon Fletcher) writes:

>>I always saw the Vader/Luke relationship as being a little contrived,
>>it always looked like an afterthought or something designed to shock an 
>>audience. Concidering the carefull characterisation of the first film    
>>it seems strange that Luke reacts so violently to the news. It's almost
>>like Lucas is using that grief to distract the audience from what is a
>>major plot twist. It's as if HE didn't believe it would stand up to close
>>scutiny.
>
>Too right, I still can't believe he intended Ben to be such a sneaky liar!
>The plot definately changed course between ANH & SW.

(I assume you mean 'between ANH & ESB.')  But...

Here I disagree.  I recently watched ANH again, and took careful note of
Ben's reaction when Luke asks him, "How did my father die?"  To me, his face
says it all--I wouldn't even call him a very "sneaky" liar since it looks
to me like he doesn't do it very comfortably.  Of course, I don't *know* if
this was Lucas' intention, and I don't know if Alec Guinness was directed to
play the line like he did, but to me it sure looks compatible with what
goes on in ESB.  I have heard that Lucas stated in "From Star Wars to Jedi;
the Making of a Saga" that he had always planned on Vader being Luke's father,
and I am inclined to believe this.  There's just too much "mystery" surrounding
Luke's dead father, Owen's aversion to talking about him, Obi-Wan's association
with him and so on.  I just don't believe that he was a navigator or whatever
on a spice freighter.

>>
>>Strangely I accepted the Luke/Leia relationship more easily. Every writer
>>puts a version of him/herself into their work. It was always obvious to  
>>me that Lucas's character in Starwars was Han Solo, he got the best lines
>>and the most interesting characterisation. Once you realised that it became
>>obvious that he either had to die mega heroically, or he had to get the girl.
>>For Han to get Leia, Luke would have to be out of the way (they had made too
>>much of Han and Lukes rivalry in the first film), I had thought Luke would
>>disappear off at the end of the movies to leave the field clear. Making
>>Luke and Leia brother and sister solved this problem quite easily.
>

The reason you give for accepting the Luke/Leia relationship more easily
than the Luke/Vader relationship is the same reason I don't like it.  It 
always just seemed to me to be a convenient plot device to achieve the effect
that you stated, to get Luke 'out of the way.'  It just doesn't seem to mesh
with what goes on in ANH and especially ESB (when Leia gives him a big smooch).
(Of course there *is* Yoda's statement about '..there is another..', but I 
think this was a last minute thing.  All IMHO, of course.)

You make a good point that it was an 'easy' way to solve the problem of Luke
and Han's rivalry, but I would have preferred to see a more 'difficult'
solution.  I can understand that they wanted to make ROTJ a happy ending
movie, but I would have liked to see a little more 'bite' in it.  (One ewok
dying doesn't count...if they *all* had died, well...)  







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