Wait, wait, wait.
When Vader’s mask exploded, wasn’t the reveal that it was Rick Moranis’ face?
That was the alternate version, where Vader was Luke’s father’s brother’s nephew’s cousin’s former roommate.
Where Luke was his own grandpa.
Except in the following movie he comes back to Dagobah after the brief interlude of almost getting his entire team (and leadership of “The Rebellion”) killed or fed to a sand vagina in an unnecessarily flamboyant and convoluted rescue of Han, instead of just using the people and droids who infiltrated Jabba’s compound to sneak him out, or plant thermal detonators throughout the facility and compel Jabba to release Han…and then Yoda declares his training completed right before expiring. So…I don’t know how good of a sensei Yoda is, but then the prequels repeatedly demonstrate how terminally inept the Jedi really are even though the ‘Empire’ that slaughtered them en masse is such a dysfunctional bureaucracy with an inept, self-aggrandizing, mercurial leader consumed with the need to big ever bigger and more beautiful fortifications to contain and destroy the Rebels that it was overthrown by a farm boy, a card cheat, a self-described rogue who is more lucky than good, and the ‘Princess’ who is basically cleaning up after everyone elses’ messes and finding ways to escape the traps that the ‘boys’ repeatedly get them caught in.
Consistent, it is not.
Stranger
In early 1977 us potential audience (and Starlog) didn’t know for sure if Vader and/or stormtroopers were robots. We had no idea about anything.
And count me in as another viewer that didn’t realize it was supposed to be Luke in the Vader suit in The Failure At The Cave.
Didn’t the Star Wars novelization have the emperor as a weak figurehead?
We all agreed in my circle that Yoda should have dumped the X-wing back in the swamp and make Luke take it out. Yoda’s teaching was of the “everyone gets a trophy day” school.
In Jedi, I liked Luke was all “I’m a Jedi, you’ve already lost” demeanor, but that damned sand vagina dentitia scene was just stupid. Luke was in over his head and no one knew it. Nearly beaten by a slug and a scum bounty hunter.
In a very brief, passing reference in the introduction, yes. Bear in mind that, despite having Lucas’s name on the book as “author,” it was ghost-written by Alan Dean Foster, based on the script, but not the final cut, of the original film; Foster added a lot of additional details which were not in the script.
However, it it appears that, at the time, Lucas was OK with how the Emperor was described in the novel. From Wikipedia:
Yoda: There is another…
Kenobi: Ahsoka? She quit. Besides, she’s too connected to Anakin.
Yoda: No, another.
Kenobi: Ezra Bridger? But he’s been missing for years.
Yoda: No–
Kenobi: Maybe Asajj Ventress? She seems to be getting less Sithy.
Yoda: …
Kenobi: Oh, what about Gunji, is Gunji still around? Or your nephew, what’s his name, Gogoo?
Yoda: (Sighs)
I think this was the original idea - to have the other be Vader’s former apprentice. It certainly was supposed to be an ex-Jedi in hiding. I think Ahsoka (equivalent) would have been Yoda’s best way to get into Anakin’s head. But then Lucas changed it to Leia and it got all convoluted and weird.
You were hanging out with Yoda?
I don’t think I did the first time. On subsequent viewings I can see it, and one of my siblings caught it the first time.
This was tricky, because I want quite clear on how much time was supposed to have passed. I mean, I know six months because that’s how long Lando was undercover, but it wasn’t entirely clear if the time span was the same duration as the movie gap.
So I agree it was real puzzler that before Yoda was all worked up about Luke finishing his training, but when Luke finally returns, Yoda says, “Nah, I was just messing with you. You’re good to go.”
Or something like that.
From the Snip:
Was it a convoluted plan that took all those pieces, or was that layers of contingencies?
I admit the thermal detonators has some allure for simplicity.
What was security rally like? We know that Jabba was not force susceptible, so the mind trick option didn’t work. And from what happened, Jabba clearly knew something was up with the bounty hunter that brought in Chewy. So it’s conceivable that Lando’s recon informed Luke that a straightforward sneak Han out rescue was likely to fail.
Except then why didn’t Luke know about the rancor and trapdoor?
A straight up assault by rebel forces might have just killed a hell of a lot of them against unimportant criminals, or been waived off by the Rebel leadership as too risky of alerting the Imperials of their location.
Getting Han out of the carbonite was probably a significant step for any successful rescue. And Jabba kept a sharp eye on that.
Knowing that the next step was the Sarlaac might have just been rolling with whatever Jabba the next. But think about Jabba’s psychology. He liked to gloat. He liked spectacle. Why line them up and shoot them when he can have a big, dramatic flair with the rancor - “oops, didn’t work, okay Mr. Jedi, I’ll feed you to a Sarlaac. See how well throwing rocks works for you there.”
That Lando didn’t reveal himself until then suggests that there was some idea of a plan. But I can’t imagine the plan said, “Ok Leia, Jabba is a nasty pig, so the best way to distract him is to let him take you prisoner, put you in a skimpy outfit, and chain you to him so he can ogle, drool on, lick, and let his pet monkey penis whatever grope you. No really, it’s the best plan. I’m not just saying that to get you in a bikini. Honest. Jedi’s honor.”
Of course C3Po was kept in the dark - he’s a blabbermouth and would have let the whole plan out the moment Bibb Fortuna eyed him sideways. Whereas R2 was the master spy.
How much was direct plan, how much was “If this works great, but if not, then…”, and how much of Jabba’s was known versus just reading his character and find with the flow is a bit unclear.
Almost as if the scriptwriter didn’t know what was going to happen next.
Yeah, the prequels don’t make the Jedi look so capable.
But you forgot the most important parts of the team - the slow, loud, arrogant, obnoxious droid that can’t shut up, the Furry giant that can fix anything, and the little droid that can’t talk but can make any computer sit up and beg. I mean, really, R2 is the real hero.
He takes the message to Obi-wan, and plays the young farm boy for a rube.
He provides the necessary Intel on where and how to deactivate the tractor beams, and also alerts them to the presence of Leia. Then is instrumental in saving them from the crusher.
Then R2 flies Luke through the corridor while Luke is focusing his chi or whatever.
Next is R2 that finds Yoda in the swamp, carefully putting Luke down right next to Yoda’s hovel.
He takes Luke to Bespin City, but accidentally loses him to Vader.
But it’s R2 that leads the most important element of the rescue - he smuggles in the lightsaber AND he keeps C3Po on track without telling him a thing about the plan.
That’s probably his strongest function - putting up with that damned annoying protocol droid that is an annoying ass. Seriously, who would program a droid meant for serious cultural and diplomatic interactions to be such a gibbering idiot? Oh wait, that was Darth Vader at his most cunning, using his childhood self to build the droid that almost killed the Rebellion.
Hey, it’s my lie, I’ll tell it my way.
I was 12 when Empire hit theaters. The twist was spoilered for me because the comic adaptation was dropped before the movie. And then I ruined it for all my friends. I may have invented spoilers. Sorry.
Side note, but we had a running joke in my TT-Star Wars RPG gaming group that everyone owned an Astromech droid of that class. And that literally everyone ripped out a fire extinguisher or the like to install a ‘ray-shielded’ hidden compartment, because, of course that’s how it worked for Luke and no one checked… or just wiped the droid as is the norm.
Leading to a joke where there’s a bit party at a Hutt palace, and someone sets it on fire. A dozen Astromech droids roll up to extinguish the burning hut and and countless blaster pistols, grenades, drugs and sex toys fall out instead since there wasn’t an honest, stock droid in the entire palace.
The “extra training” was just going to be Yoda trying to figure out how to tell Luke that Obi Wan was gaslighting him about his dad, without Luke flipping out like Anakin did.
I’ve said for years, that R2 is the only one in the whole saga who consistently knows both what he is doing, and why he is doing it. Most everyone else is just reacting to the situation as it unfolds around them, but R2 almost always has a plan, and works to that plan.
And of course no one else ever listens to him.
The term spoiler in the context of spoiling a plot or twist in media was first used a couple of years earlier than that comic. It was first used in print by Doug Kenney in National Lampoon. He is best remembered as the writer of Animal House and Caddy Shack. He played the character Stork in the former. Maybe he should be best remembered as the inventor of the spoiler.
I think you’re misremembering or conflating some things. I just pulled out my 1977 novel, and there’s nothing like that. Obi-Wan says “He was betrayed and murdered by a very young Jedi named Darth Vader. A boy I was training. One of my brightest disciples… one of my greatest failures. Vader used the training I gave him and the force within him for evil, to help the later corrupt Emperors. With the Jedi knights disbanded, disorganized, or dead, there were few to opppose Vader. Today they are all but extinct.”
(Interesting reference to “later corrupt Emperors”, in the plural.)
But in the novelization of Return of the Jedi, by James Kahn, Force ghost Obi-Wan has this to say. “You should not think of that machine as your father. When I saw what had become of him, I tried to dissuade him, to draw him back from the dark side. We fought…your father fell into a molten pit. When your father clawed his way out of that fiery pool, the change had been burned into him forever – he was Darth Vader, without a trace of Anakin Skywalker. Irredeemably dark. Scarred. Kept alive only by machinery and his own dark will…”
AFAICT that’s the first time in a novel or movie the fight between them and how Anakin wound up in the mask & suit has been described. I think Lucas may have said in interviews that Vader fell into a pit of lava, I vaguely remember reading that in fan magazines, but it’s definitely not in the original movie or novelization.
I swear the scene from Mustafar between Darth and Anakin was in there. I know I read it because when SW3 came out and they had the lava planet Mustafar, I was, “DUDE! I read about this!”
I blame the Mandala Effect 
Which was the SW movie that had what appeared to be Barsoomian flyers?
You worked with Homer Simpson?
I was 7 when the movie came out. I was floored by the revelation.
Doesn’t help that his asshole designers couldn’t find the 25 cents to install a small speaker instead of the slide whistle they gave him.