I like Leia as Luke’s sister because it eliminates the dumb “love triangle”. And because it makes Leia even more significant to the story, even if they didn’t follow through. Maybe it would have been even better if Yoda hadn’t died, and between Tatooine and Endor Leia had gone to Dagobah and received her full training, and in the end maybe she could have showed up and saved Luke (maybe with Anakin’s help) from the Emperor.
At some point, so the rumor mill went, the original plan was for episodes 7,8,9 to focus on Leia and her Jedi training. That would have been a natural follow-through on the revelation that she was Luke’s sister.
Did’ja ever notice:
In ROTJ, Luke is being flash fried by Emperor Lame-o (now, you’re really talking bad acting; he’s the worst) and twice – TWICE – the camera goes in for a reaction shot from Vader; Wow! what amazing facial expressions from that mask of his. Kinda reminded me of NOMAD.
Yep. Yep.
No, it doesn’t.
“Vater” means “father” in German.
The only redeemable aspect of ROTJ Act 1 is that it sets up Mara Jade’s major conflict in the first three Thrawn books of the EU.
Well, that and the bronze bikini.
Actually, I find Ian McDiarmid’s performance as the Emperor quite entertaining. Nothing about the emperor makes sense, but McDiamid is fun.
Vader means father in Dutch. Sort of. The Dutch word is pronounced quite differently. If you know about things like Grimm’s Law and how languages change, you can easily see the connection between “Vater,” “vader,” and “father.”
Lucas went to school with a guy named Gary Vader. He also brainstormed a lot of names, and the name “Darth Vader” first shows up in one of the early drafts as a fairly random Imperial general. This was long before the idea of making Vader the main villain, let alone Luke’s father, ever came into being. The similarity of the name Vader to the Dutch word for “father” is largely a coincidence.
Back in the day I’d always heard “vader” was meant to invoke “invader.”
Given that Lucas named the rogue Han SOLO, something that obvious seems on brand.
“I’m Han Solo.”
“I’m Luke, hetero.”
- Star Spats, Playboy Magazine
In the early 80s my local Sky City carried a 12-inch scale plastic Star Wars rip-off toy called “Dark Invader” side-by-side with ROM: Space Knight. I’ve never managed to find a trace of it on the web.
Thanks for the breakdown on why ROTJ is so weak. I thoroughly enjoy all three movies and never really put that much thought into their quality because I’m kinda basic that way, but I very much enjoyed reading these past few posts
Around the time of the prequels, former producer Gary Kurtz gave an interview where he discussed his falling out with Lucas and gave a brief outline of what they and Kasdan had come up with for the 9 episodes. Yoda’s “another” was to be Luke’s sister, but a new character, not Leia. Ep 7 was to be Luke searching for and finding her, with her getting Jedi-fied in the subsequent films.
Then Lucas said “fuck it, let’s wrap everything up the next one (Ep 6) and call it a day - make Leia the sister”
As a kid I found the Emperor scary and evil. Old people are often frightening to kids, and the Emperor looks 400 years old. He also seems to LIKE being evil. McDiarmid does a great job, there’s no complex backstory. The Emperor sets out every day to be evil.
McDiarmid is now 77, so he was only in his late 30s when ROTJ was filmed.
Close enough, dude!
We’re talking about a guy who thought “Darth Icky” and “Darth Insanius” would be good names for characters in a Star Wars video game.
Subtlety in naming characters has never been George Lucas’ strong suit.
Dutch, actually. But it may be coincidence, considering Lucas was using the name a long time before Darth Vader was the character he became. Having said that, I do think George Lucas had a lot of story ideas he kept to himself and didn’t write down until he saw an opportunity where they fit, so the character may have meant to have a fatherly role eventually, whoever the name was assigned to.
Definitely a coincidence since Darth Vader did not become a father until Leigh Brackett died writing ESB.
Seriously, it’s like I’m not even here.
Who said that?