I think probably the vast majority of people know The Big Twist in Star Wars–that is,
Luke, I am your father
but of course we have to be nice and spoiler-box it. Now, I’m more than a smidgen too young to have actually watched the original Star Wars in theaters, and it just occurred to me: Were people actually surprised/shocked/awed at this Big Twist? Did the more Star Wars-savvy types have it all figured out already?
I was thumbing through my handy “translate random words into twenty-six languages” book when I came across the entry for
father. Did you know that father is Vater in German, vader in Dutch, and fader in Swedish and Danish? That right there is a pretty big clue, so maybe random Dutch people and compulsive-language-learner types were already in the know.
And, of course, whatever George Lucas’ myriad sins may be, no one ever accused the man of subtlety…
So tell me! Were you surprised at the time, or was The Big Twist fairly widely known already?
Well, my step-dad sort of ruined it for me when I was young, but I thought he was pointing to Lando Calrissian, which confused me greatly. I figured out the truth when I was still a little kid–just gradually from listening to other people talk about the movies. I was only vaguely surprised when I heard The Line.
I don’t remember even being interested in the ‘twist’ mainly because I’d read so many fantasy novels at that time that Star Wars was just fantasy cliques in space.
Farm boy turns out to be man of destiny check
Turns out to be a badass in magic and at swordplay check
Is taught by an eccentric hermit that turns out to be a powerful wizard check
Princess in danger! check
Silly plot twist relates the main baddie and the farm boy check
etc, etc. In High school I actually had to write a paper comparing Star Wars to westerns and I nearly flipped out on the teacher pointing out it rips off Fantasy stories far more then it ever did westerns.
There was no suggestion of this “twist” until the release of The Empire Strikes Back. In the original Star Wars, Obi-Wan said that Darth Vader had betrayed and murdered Luke’s father.
Sure, we were surprised. Except for those of us who read the review of TESB in Time magazine, which totally spilled the beans about the father/son relationship of Vader and Luke. I will never forgive Time for that. It was the worst spoiler of all time, IMHO.
[hijack]You have that book? The Something Something Dictionary of 26 Languages In Simultaneous Translation? The one I’ve been trying to find since basically forever? Where can I get it?[/hijack]
Oh, and I’m too young too, and when I saw the movies I already knew. Pity. I would have liked to have seen them with innocent eyes.
I watched SW: TESB when it first came out, and hadn’t read Time. I wasn’t particularly shocked or surprised; it was a mildly interesting twist, but not a shocking one.
Even tho the first movie said Luke’s Pop bit the big one, in the ESB, there was heavy foreshadowing of the twist. From dialogue to visuals. So when Vader said that, we all went, “Oh! So THAT’S it!”
What I have is actually “The Concise Dictionary of Twenty-Six Languages in Simultaneous Translation” by Peter M. Bergman–not an exact title-and-author match to either of the above links, as you can see. I’m not quite sure whether mine is just a different edition and which one you’re looking for…I hope that helps, though. And I have not even the remotest idea where my particular copy came from…stole it from my grandparents ages ago.
Small world, no?
[/hijacks right back]
Incidentally, if it’s not been done before, maybe we could use a Doper book-trading (selling?) thread? Might be fun.
I was hella surprised when John Claxton told me about it on the Rankin Elementary playground before I’d managed to drag my parents to go see it. The jerk.
No, you’re quite correct. It was the first movie, the one known, always and forevermore, as Star Wars.
The introduction of “episode numbers” is, imho, as much an insult to the intelligence of the audience as the character of Jar-Jar Binks. The fact that they both occurred in the same movie is only fitting.
I was ten years old, and didn’t read Time. I was stunned.
To put this in context, like every other Star Wars-obsessed juvenile, I’d been devouring everything printed about the much-anticipated sequel since 1978, when things began to trickle out. So I knew there was going to be a snow planet, a swamp planet, and a city in the clouds. (Though of course everyone else knew all that from the trailers.) But the major plot points weren’t spread around.
I knew Luke was supposed to break away from everyone else and meet a Jedi master named Yoda – but I was surprised when the little Fozzy Bear guy turned out to be him. (Going in, I had assumed that the Jedi master would be found in the Cloud City – not the swamp planet. Up until then, Jedi = Knight = Totally Idealized Form. When Dagobah turned out to be swampsville, I guess I should have figured out that Yoda wasn’t going to be a 6’9" Knight in silk robes and all, but like I said, I was ten. And a Jedi without even a lightsabre? Unthinkable!
So, anyway, yeah. Surprised.
(Saw the first showing at the Stanley Theatre, though, so I had no opportunity to have it spoiled by people who saw it first.)
This describes me exactly! Fall off the chair kind of stunned, definitely. Of course, I wasn’t the most perceptive 10 year old kid, either. Thankfully Dad was also a bit of a SW fan, so I saw it in the theater the first weekend it opened in our area, and so was able to avoid any spoilers in the playground.
I remember seeing the movie as a kid and right after The Line was delivered thinking, “Wow, that’s a pretty lame way to try to mess with a guy during a fight. Luke’s not gonna buy that crap.” So basically I just didn’t believe it; hell, didn’t want to believe it, because even at that young age I knew how cheesy it was. It wasn’t until hearing others talking about it I realized I was supposed to take it seriously.
And so I experienced my First Big Star Wars Disappointment. Little did I know there would be many more to come…
Really? I don’t recall ESB being called “Episode Five - The Empire Strikes Back” when it was first released in 1980. Nor do I recall Star Wars being renamed “A New Hope” back then either.
