Well, except, of course, that Lucas has said that he’d written all the scripts ages in advance.
The set up, as Lucas gives us, in RotJ, is a bit awkward to justify. How many mothers do you know of, would be willing to give up one of her children? It would be slightly easier to explain this if the Jedi were a male only order, but, of course, they’re not. It would have been possible for it all to have been worked out, and even still been dramatic a situation (say, Anakin going totally nuts and ordering Padme killed, perhaps because of a prophecy that the child born of her would lead to his death, and they decide to seperate the children in order to better the odds that one of them would live), but Lucas isn’t up to the task as a writer, IMHO. That, or as some have said, he was tired of directing and just rushed this one through so he could go back to playing with his toys.
It was a blurb on one of the various shows about Star Wars that came out when AotC was released. I think I’ve even seen interviews where Lucas claimed to have everything written. Now, to be fair, Lucas might have simply mean the storyline, but my impression was that he meant the script. Certainly in the clips I’ve seen on the documentary on the DVDs for the original trilogy he makes a statement along the lines of cutting out the sections of his original script that he could film (aka ANH), while planning on doing the other parts later. That still doesn’t mean that the script he was talking about was the one which later ended up being filmed (movie scripts are averaged at one minute of screen time per page, so Lucas’s original script, if it contained all six movies would have had to have been around 700 pages or so), of course. I know that the script for the first film went through multiple permutations even before it was ever filmed (and was revised during filming as well), and I don’t think that it’s too much of a stretch to assume that they all went through similar changes.
Yeah, he must have meant the story and not the script. If you watch the Episode I dvd, it has a feature that shows the very day he started writing it and I was shocked at just how recent it was. He dropped his kids off at school, came home, and sat down with his yellow notepad and pencil. I haven’t watched it for a while, but I want to say that this was 1996 or 1997. If he hadn’t written that script yet, then he presumably had not written its two sequels yet, either.
Okay, so I re-checked the aforementioned documentary and I was somewhat wrong - he began writing episode I on 11/1/94. The first finished draft that they showed in the documentary was from January 1995 and his voiceover indicated that when he began writing, he had 15 or so pages of general backstory already prepared from over the years. My mistake for the wrong years listed above.
As far as constuction of the Death Star goes, the Empire could have commissioned several to be constructed at the same time, but at different locations. This is not that far fetched, because in times of war, the US has built many different kinds of ships in several different locations.
On to more important things, there have been huge holes in the plots of every Star Wars movie. And these things, when I percieve them generally ruin the movie(s) for me. I can name a few, in, “A New Hope,” the lack of sophistication of the x-wing fighters when compared to F-14’s the only advantage an x-wing seems to have is its light-speed capability. In, “The Empire Strikes Back,” did everyone forget about the Star Destroyers orbiting around the cloud city? I mean, how did Darth Vader get there? And, It seems to me that such a number of Star Destroyers could easily intercept a lone fighter craft. This same question can be raised in, “Return of the Jedi.” The fleet of Star Destroyers which the rebel fleet opted to engage, as opposed to being blown to bits by the second Death Star, just seemed to disappear after the Death Star was destroyed. This fleet could easily have wiped out the remaining rebel fleet, and the Ewoks, and the rebels on the ground after the Death Star MKII was destroyed. I like to refer to this movie as the Teddy-Bear Picnic. This is why I wait till movies come out on DVD.
I’ll grant you most of those, though I think that the reason they wanted to capture Luke on Cloud City was so that they didn’t have to risk the possibility of him pulling a kamakazi on a Star Destroyer, rather than being captured.
As for the bit about the Star Destroyer fleet, that’s a good point, but you have to wonder what would have happened to them when the DS II exploded, what with them being in close proximity to it and all. Especially since we know what it would have done to Endor.
It doesn’t upset me per se, it’s just that I really liked the image of Padme living the rest of her few remaining years on Alderaan, beautiful but sad, constantly pained by the loss of Anakin. I realize the story couldn’t have worked (although I do believe I can think up some reason for Padme taking Leia with her and Obi-Wan handing over Luke to the Larss); I would just have liked it to work, if that makes sense.
However, Lucas did have RotJ available when making RotS, and it would have been quite easy to make the stories match. Perhaps you wouldn’t get the “drama” of watching Padme die in childbirth (err, excuse me, because she lost the will to live :rolleyes: ), but hey, Lucas’ other clunky attempts to tie continuity (Qui-Gon discovering the secret to immortality, C-3PO’s mind wipe) weren’t exactly paragons of film storytelling either.
I also agree with Priceguy… having Padme live briefly on Alderaan, with her daughter, would’ve actually been quite affecting.
With the star destroyer fleet, and the rebel fleet, I think they would have survived the explosion of the second death star. These star ships are designed to survive such gargantuan explosions. They are shielded and armored, etc. and they can move.
There is not enough information about the second death star to say what it would have done to a planet when it exploded. The second death star may have been the size of a small moon, but it is not a small moon. The second death star is riddled with living spaces, and equipment housings, cargo bays and all.
Did you read the link (not that I’d blame you if you didn’t)? The author pretty much takes into account that the DS II wouldn’t have been a solid mass of rock like a moon would be. And I’m not sure how well the shielding of the ships would have been able to withstand the blast. Remember, both sides have been taking a lot of damage by the time the DS II blows up. I’d think that their best bet would have been to hit the hyperdrive switch and get outta Dodge.
I looked at the link, and I caught myself wanting to make a few points, but not wanting to turn the argument into a debate on whether the death star is more structurally sound than the moon of endor.
My overall point is that in all cases, the Empire has every advantage over the rebels, manpower, equipment, resources, etc. And yet they expect me to believe that individuals like Luke Skywalker and Han Solo are going to make a difference against such impossible odds.
