Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;974417Nobody knew, least of all George Lucas.

Considering the reaction from his film school buddies after they first viewed the original cut, my bet is Lucas was pretty sure it would tank. Heck, Brian de Palma had to rework the opening text crawl to make it accessible to a general audience. This leads us to a Star Wars truism: Star Wars is Best when Lucas' fingerprints are least.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;974417Nobody knew, least of all George Lucas.

That is what makes it so delightful!

Quote from: daniel_ream;974376The Death Star trench existed so they could do Dam Busters, and the Battle of Hoth existed so they could do Stalingrad.  Full stop.

No screenwriting decision in any Star Wars movie had anything to do with internal setting consistency or sense of place.  It's ten-year-old George Lucas' favorite movies in a blender.

I think this is undoubtedly true of the first Star Wars movie.  After that, I think there was something more of a larger plan being formulated.

Quote from: RPGPundit;975407I think this is undoubtedly true of the first Star Wars movie.  After that, I think there was something more of a larger plan being formulated.

I'd say that's why the movies got worse and worse, with the only exception being The Empire Strikes Back. And even that one had glaring contradictions to things in the first movie.

Quote from: RPGPundit;975407After that, I think there was something more of a larger plan being formulated.

A great many of the memoirs of the uncredited co-conspirators (like Gary Kurtz and Leigh Brackett) disagree with you.

I think the Iron Empires comics might have some good material on this.

Quote from: Trond;975591I think the Iron Empires comics might have some good material on this.

What are they?

Quote from: Biscuitician;975644What are they?

Iron Empires Comic Books

Google search of Iron Empire Images.

Graphic Novels are available at Burning Wheel.

Quote from: Dumarest;975482I'd say that's why the movies got worse and worse, with the only exception being The Empire Strikes Back. And even that one had glaring contradictions to things in the first movie.

Honestly, I don't think the first trilogy would work had they not developed a plan and instead just made a bunch of WWII space movies. First trilogy is great IMO. Jedi was actually the first one I saw in the theater as a kid and I've always liked Empire and Jedi best out of the three.

Thanks

Quote from: Dumarest;975482I'd say that's why the movies got worse and worse, with the only exception being The Empire Strikes Back. And even that one had glaring contradictions to things in the first movie.

Couldn't be that 'glaring' as I never noticed them but then I'm no SW fanatic. I enjoyed the original films, especially Empire, and the comics in the 80s as a kid but never became as taken with them as so many others. I've enjoyed the two most recent films, couldn't sit through the prequels.

Quote from: daniel_ream;975504A great many of the memoirs of the uncredited co-conspirators (like Gary Kurtz and Leigh Brackett) disagree with you.

Well, its obvious to me that there wasn't much of a plan at the start, because no one really expected the movie to be such a huge success as to guarantee tons of sequels. But at some point plans were formulated.

IIRC, George Lucas didn't come up with the idea of Darth Vader being Luke's father until he started working on Empire. There's a huge amount of "making it up as we go along" in the original trilogy, which is why it's good. Too much backstory planning ruins a work.

Quote from: RPGPundit;976575Well, its obvious to me that there wasn't much of a plan at the start, because no one really expected the movie to be such a huge success as to guarantee tons of sequels. But at some point plans were formulated.

"Some" plan? At "some" point? Sure.

I had a lunch with Gary Kurtz for a project once. (He was the producer on American Graffiti, Star Wars, and Empire Strikes Back.) He told me the entire notion of Lucas having any sort of epic outline for the movies was laughable. There was no big plot involving the Skywalker clan up through all work on Return of the Jedi. There was no multi-movie epic in anyone's head. It was all made up along the way.

We know that Leigh Brackett had several meetings with Lucas before she went off to write the first draft of The Empire Strikes Back. Based off those conversations with Lucas, Darth Vader was not only not Luke's father, but the ghost of Luke's father arrived to tell Luke how proud he was of him. The notion that Vader was Luke's father only came about as the script developed.

From other contacts I have in the SFX world: When it came to make Episodes 1, 2, and 3 pre-production was begun without any sort of script. I mean that literally. Artists, production designers, creature designers where scrambling to get images and models made with a shoot date looming while Lucas was literally walking around with a yellow legal pad trying to figure out what the story was going to be. They had a release date they had to meet, shooting dates scheduled, the talented staff at LucasFilm... and no script or story.

I think the best notion of a "plan" one can really nail down was this: "Episodes 1, 2, and 3 will explain the backstory of Darth Vader." And of all the plans one could have that is probably the most boring plan you could think of.

If anyone wants to believe Lucas had some sort of plan at some point, awesome. But from everything I've read and heard suggests otherwise. He made claims to such plans, of course. But from folks directly connected to the movies I have no reason to believe those claims are true.

Quote from: ChristopherKubasik;976721"Episodes 1, 2, and 3 will explain the backstory of Darth Vader."

Probably the best way to make Darth Vader no longer intimidating or even interesting is to explain him and his psychic pain over losing his mommy. (To be fair, I've only seen/heard bits of the three prequels while passing back and forth through a room where it was playing, but the parts I heard and saw sucked.)