The first ever Star Wars movie was released as far back as 1977, and has since won over the hearts of nerds, geeks and moviegoers pretty much everywhere since. The ever-expanding galaxy far far away has had exposure through various forms of media including live action movies, animated movies, animated series, live action series, books, comics, video games, short movies, television specials etc. The fact that even now, almost 50 years later, it is still as big-if not bigger than ever, is a testament to just how valuable it is as an IP and how devoted its fanbase is. Although the story was masterfully told in the original trilogy, there were several things in it that were not always on the table and had to be made up along the way. Although a lot of it was made up along the way, it all worked perfectly and told a complete story that left little to be desired in its end. This article will elaborate on 5 things that were made up along the way in the original trilogy.
1. “No. I am your father.”
One of the biggest plot twists in cinematic history…and it wasn’t always planned. A lot of fans nowadays like to talk about how it was obvious since “Vader” can be translated to “Father”, but the truth of the matter is that it wasn’t planned from the beginning. Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader were different characters altogether, and not in the dual personality kind of way. They were completely different people, and what Obi-Wan said about Darth Vader killing Anakin was true…from another point of view. The plan to make Vader Anakin Skywalker came when he was working on pre-production of the Empire Strikes Back. It is worth noting that an alternative to this plot twist is the revelation that Obi-Wan was the one who killed Anakin, which would have also made for a very interesting story and conflict for Luke.
2. Han lives
This is not exactly groundbreaking or historical within the context of Star Wars, but it is worth noting that Harrison Ford wanted Han to die as far back as in Empire Strikes Back, and George did not want that to happen, with one of the reasons being that he was a fan-favourite character. Han was meant to meet his demise when he was frozen in carbonite, according to Ford’s requests, but the character was brought back and given more to do in Return of the Jedi, becoming a General and leading his own assault team. Ford also wanted Han to die in Return of the Jedi, and he would have died a heroic death in the final battle, but again, George was against it.
3. “Do not underestimate the powers of the Emperor.”
This may be the most shocking revelation in this article and many, many fans do not know about it, but the original intent behind the Emperor was that he was not Force-sensitive. Originally, the Emperor was just a politically powerful figure while Vader would be the muscle and the Force-sensitive muscle. It was not until the production of Return of the Jedi that the idea to make the Emperor a Force-sensitive being came up, in order to make the final fight between Luke and Vader more engaging, as well as better explain why Vader could not just kill the Emperor and take over, since that is apparently what he wanted to do when he fought Luke in Empire. A side note is that the Emperor’s look also changed. When he appeared in ESB, he looked completely different, played physically by Marjorie Eaton and voiced by Clive Revill.
4. Master Yoda
Another example of things that were made up and became iconic was the story behind the conception of Master Yoda’s character. Originally, Obi-Wan was to serve as Luke’s master, but Alec Guinness insisted that Obi-Wan be killed in the events of A New Hope. This left a vacuum, as Luke still needed a master. Although the idea of Luke being trained by a ghost sounds pretty cool, George Lucas thought it better to have a new character to train Luke in the ways of the Jedi…one that was alive. This resulted in the elderly Jedi Grandmaster, Master Yoda. The rest is history.
1. “The other he spoke of is your twin sister.”
This may come as a shock to many people, and there will be a lot of contention against this fact, but it does not take away from its veracity. Leia was not always planned out to be Luke’s twin sister. This was an idea George came up with during pre-production of Return of the Jedi…after the release of Empire Strikes Back. Seeing as there was a lot going on between Luke and Leia, as well as Han, the love triangle felt like it would be left unresolved if George left things the way they were, and so he decided to make them twins in order for any Luke-Leia shippers to rest assured that it was definitely not going to happen. This does indeed have its share of criticism because of the time Leia kissed Luke to prove to Han that she was not totally in love with the latter, and how Luke had a crush on her since he first saw her hologram. (We are not going to talk about the deleted scenes from Empire Strikes Back between Luke and Leia.) Another infamous scene that people will bring up to argue that it was always the plan is how Leia sensed Luke when he was in trouble. If one watches the movie, one will realize that Luke called out to Leia, and reached out to her through the Force. That is how she ended up ‘sensing’ that he was in trouble. He contacted her and revealed his location to her. It only works now in hindsight because it fits the story well, but that was not the original intention behind the scene.
P.S. the other Yoda spoke of was originally not Leia, but Luke’s sister who would have been revealed in the sequel trilogy, had George not changed his mind about it when devising the story for Return of the Jedi.
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