# The Big Twist in the original Star Wars--were people surprised? SPOILERS **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 19, 2005, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-big-twist-in-the-original-star-wars-were-people-surprised-spoilers/304616 "2005-05-19T18:52:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2005, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-big-twist-in-the-original-star-wars-were-people-surprised-spoilers/304616/101 "2005-05-22T06:20:04Z")
I think the Fozzie/Grover association is somewhat dependent on how old you were when you saw _The Empire Strikes Back_. Me, I was old enough by then that _Sesame Street_ wasn’t something I really thought about with any regularity. But _The Muppet Show?_ I still watched that faithfully every week. Hell, not long before _Empire_ came out, _The Muppet Show_ had a pretty great _Star Wars_ special – featuring Luke Skywalker, C-3PO, R2D2, Chewbacca, and Mark Hamill. (Not to mention Darth Freakin’ Gonzo on _Pigs In Space_.) Best thing _ever_. So, anyway, for me, hearing Frank Oz, it really equated to Fozzie Bear, because it was more immediate. It didn’t click watching the movie, either – I can still remember when it hit me, sitting around with a couple friends, listening to the LP version of the _Empire Strikes Back_ for the first time on my little green portable record player, and everyone agreeing: “Holy crap! It’s _Fozzie Bear!_” “It is!” “Holy crap!” If anyone was thinking of Grover, they weren’t about to admit it. 😃 That being said, I certainly agree that (objectively) Grover sounds _much_ more like Yoda than Fozzie does. He also dispenses [wisdom](http://www.ilovewavs.com/TV/ChilShow/Sesame/Grover/SSGrvr34.wav) like a proper Jedi Master. ---
**Author:** ![Nurobath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a88e57/32.png) [@Nurobath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nurobath)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2005, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-big-twist-in-the-original-star-wars-were-people-surprised-spoilers/304616/102 "2005-05-22T07:08:44Z")
> [@Dr. Kenneth Noisewater](#): > > It’s the SAME GUY. Yeah, I know. Frank Oz also did the voices of a couple of dozen other characters as well. > [@Larry Mudd](#): > > I think the Fozzie/Grover association is somewhat dependent on how old you were when you saw The Empire Strikes Back. I agree. I was 13 when ESB came out and had grown up on Sesame Street. I also watched The Muppet Show a lot. True, The Muppet Show was more immediate but for some reason Fozzie Bear never even entered my mind with respect to Yoda’s voice until I read this thread. To me he’s always been Grover. On the plus side Yoda seems to sound a lot less like either of them these days and more like his own character. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2005, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-big-twist-in-the-original-star-wars-were-people-surprised-spoilers/304616/103 "2005-05-22T07:09:52Z")
> [@Spectrum](#): > > But given WHY there can be only two Sith I’ve not seen the more recent movies. Why can there only be two Sith? ---
**Author:** ![Cardinal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardinal/32/4000_2.png) [@Cardinal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardinal)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2005, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-big-twist-in-the-original-star-wars-were-people-surprised-spoilers/304616/104 "2005-05-22T07:29:07Z")
> [@Maus Magill](#): > > My brother and I were totally shocked. I remember discussing it with him (he was 14; I was 11). We decided Vader was lying. > > The Emperor’s “son of Skywalker” line obviously refered to Luke’s future child with Leia. (She didn’t really love Han either.) I was pretty convince he was lying, too. What would you expect of this guy, an honest offer? PLEEEAASE. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2005, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-big-twist-in-the-original-star-wars-were-people-surprised-spoilers/304616/105 "2005-05-22T08:16:48Z")
> [@Northern Piper](#): > > I’ve not seen the more recent movies. Why can there only be two Sith? There’s some (rather tedious) exposition that explains that the Sith, ages and ages ago, were a splinter faction of Jedi started by a heretical Jedi who taught that mastery of the Dark Side was necessary to gain a full understanding of the Force. Because the Sith were primarily motivated by the Will to Power, however, as the order gained followers it soon seemed destined to self destruct. They were going to wipe themselves out. So some bad-ass Sith had a brainwave and decided that the only way that the Sith teachings could possibly last in perpetuity would be if if it was a closely guarded secret. He did a bit of “reorganization” of the Order that amounted to wiping out _everyone_ else except for one weaker Sith, whom he took as an apprentice. He decreed that from then on, the Sith would be an Order of Two – A master can take only one apprentice at a time – and the apprenticeship doesn’t end until the master is dead. Both members of the order are dedicated to the perpetuation of the rich oral tradition of the Sith, so the apprentice has _some_ checks against prematurely slaying his master. Key knowledge is withheld until the old bastid is good and ready to shuffle of the ol’ mortal coil. At the time of the beginning of Episode One, it’s assumed that they had died out in obscurity. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2005, 8:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-big-twist-in-the-original-star-wars-were-people-surprised-spoilers/304616/106 "2005-05-22T08:27:47Z")
> [@Larry Mudd](#): > > Except, there it is in the early drafts of _Star Wars_. Luke and Leia being raised as siblings, (complete with blocking instructions specifying that he makes a move to kiss her before he heads off on his big quest, leaving her at home. The cliffhanger/teaser crawl for that version of the script revealed that his family had been kidnapped, _and_ there was going to be a search for the missing Princess Organa. So Leia has likely always been conceived as a farmboy’s sister, _and_ as a Princess – he just ended up reversing the order of the “twists.” Hell, it’s not even such an astonishing twist, when it comes to the fairy-tale form. Remember the mindfuck Frank Baum pulled on us with _his_ orphan farm boy, Tip, when _he_ had to find the missing Princess? [[spoiler, if you want one]](http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/People/rgs/ozland-264.html)While of course the “problem” of Threepio being out-of-the-loop in _Star Wars_ was created by something Lucas made up earlier, I don’t have any qualms about the way it was dealt with, since that solution to problems like that is first mentioned in the 1977 movie. 😃 Uh, I’m sorry, I still don’t buy that Lucas _wasn’t_ making it as he was going along, especially after having seen the latest film, there’s just too much that doesn’t add up. I almost wish I’d paid for the film ticket so that I could have demanded my money back. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2005, 9:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-big-twist-in-the-original-star-wars-were-people-surprised-spoilers/304616/107 "2005-05-22T09:14:53Z")
Well of course, to a very large degree, Lucas _is_ making it up as he goes along. It’s not like the he had the events of the six stories arranged neatly in 1975, or anything. But the idea that sometime in '81 or '82 he randomly decided to make Luke and Leia siblings just for the hell of it is just plain wrong. In one of the early drafts, they are both being raised in the Lars household, and the 'droids are sent by someone else to find Luke to make the big rescue mission – and the idea of a mysterious missing Princess Organa is introduced as a teaser at the end. Before that, the first script has Princess (and later, Queen) Leia Organa. (In that script, though, Luke Skywalker is an older General that she has a crush on.) But it’s quite clear that, at the time of the 1977 film, Lucas was already thinking of Leia and Luke as closely connected. He also kept switching around who does what. In some scripts, it was Luke that needed rescuing from the Death Star. I’m not saying there’s a three-ring-binder that all the plots set down in advance. (Not even the first three.) That’s ridiculous. If you read all the early scripts, though, you can see ideas that ended up being used in all the movies. Naturally each movie is begun as a new project, and jim-jammed to fit with what’s gone before. Me, I’m satisfied with how things fit together, by-and-large. Especially with the latest one. Yes, there are things that I don’t frickin’ like at all. Midichlorians? Eesh. Doesn’t fit. I could have done without Obi-wan meeting such a young Anakin – because it doesn’t fit with the “already a great pilot” line, no matter how he tried to spooje it together – and also because I really didn’t like having to watch a snot-nosed kid for that long. Eesh. But this last one? No complaints at all. Sorry you didn’t like it, but it coheres plenty fine for me. I mean, you know you’re going to have to suspend your disbelief, going into a fairy-tale space opera, right? Hell, the kind of films that _Star Wars_ is _homage_ to regularly got around cliff-hangers that they couldn’t write their way out of by backing up a minute or so and showing something that didn’t match the way the last episode ended. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![SolGrundy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbce88/32.png) [@SolGrundy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SolGrundy)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2005, 9:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-big-twist-in-the-original-star-wars-were-people-surprised-spoilers/304616/108 "2005-05-22T09:26:32Z")
> [@La Llarona](#): > > 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. Sure, but _The Empire Strikes Back_ is mostly in English, where “Vader” sounds more like (and is pronounced like) part of “Invader,” not a word in German and Dutch. Kind of like “Darth Sidious.” Plus, _all_ the names were cheesy, so they didn’t encourage a lot of speculation as to whether they had hidden meanings – Skywalker, Solo, Organa. As for whether it was a surprise, I’ve got pretty much the same story as most of the others. It was a _huge_ surprise for me, and the twist was exactly as shocking as it was intended to be. And like the others, I was even more a surprise that Leia and Luke turned out to be siblings; I thought “there is another” was referring to Han Solo. > [@Miller](#): > > The thing about the Sith is, evil and self-aggrandizing as it is, it’s still an ethos. But these droids, Dude. They believe in _nothing_. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2005, 9:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-big-twist-in-the-original-star-wars-were-people-surprised-spoilers/304616/109 "2005-05-22T09:47:16Z")
Rather than hijack this thread any farther, **Larry** , I’ll point you in the direction of [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=6183594), where I discuss some of the things I don’t like about the current film. ---
**Author:** ![Mac\_Guffin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/2bfe46/32.png) [@Mac\_Guffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mac_Guffin)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2005, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-big-twist-in-the-original-star-wars-were-people-surprised-spoilers/304616/110 "2005-05-22T10:12:24Z")
I remember, as a young lad, lying in my bed, reading the hell out the novelization of ESB. I had been an ENORMOUS Star Wars fan as a kid. I had seen the movie six times in the theater, literaly read the covers off the first novelization and the Giant edition of the comic book, and listened to the soundtrack till the groves were worn smooth on the album. I had bought the ESB novel before seeing the film and had vowed not to read it until I had seen the film. That lasted about an hour. When I got to the big, “Luke, I am your father!” bit. I jumped up, threw down the book and ran out of the room. It PISSED ME OFF. I was furious. I beleved it, don’t get me wrong. I was just pissed that Lucas would do such a thing. I was angered by my perception of the Cheesyness of it. I figgured the coincedenses involved would have had to have been astounding. But I got over it quickly, and read the rest. The more I thought of it, the more it made sense to me. Loved the movie. Then came ROtJ. When Leia was reveiled to be Lukes sister, that old anger came up again. I remember saying to my family, “Well what else then? Is Han his uncle? Was Artoo the family garbage can? Chewbacca was their the dog? What!” That and the fucking ewoks kinda ruined it for me. I had been hoping for wookies. The one thing that made me enjoy RotS was that it made all those aggravating coincedences suddenly seem a lot less coincidental. Lukes sister just happens to be looking fro a guy on the very planet that her erstwhile and unknown brother is living? Well Yeah. My conjecture here is that Bail sent her there to collect Obi-Wan and Luke. Without contact for 20 years, he probibly figgured that Ol’ Obi had been intensely training Luke the entire time. Didn’t figgure that Owen didn’t want Luke to turn into another Vader, or that Obi-Wan was pretty nervous about training Luke seeing as how he’d pretty much screwed up with his dad and all Beru: He’s just like his father, Owen. Owen: That’s what I am afraid of. That one line made SOOOOO much more sense after ESB. One wonders what would have happened if Leia had been successful in picking up Obi-Wan and brought him to Bail without Luke. Bail: So, where’s the kid? Obi-Wan: Well, um, he’s still back on Tatooine. His uncle wouldn’t let me near him. Bail: You mean you DIDN’T train him?! Obi-Wan: Well, noooo. I was meaning too, but every time I went over there his uncle threw rocks at me. Plus I was kinda busy learning how to live after I die. Took a lot of time. Bail: You realize that Yoda’s gonna have your hide for this. heh. ---
**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2005, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-big-twist-in-the-original-star-wars-were-people-surprised-spoilers/304616/111 "2005-05-22T12:16:11Z")
I love you guys. I’ve seen all of them in the theatre, and I have to admit that I get goosebumps each time I see those words fade up from black… " A long time ago in a galaxy far far away… " Now then. The post way back on page 1 about how Vader and Vater and Fater is father in various languages. What the heck happened when you went to see Star Wars in Munich??? Did moviegoers think to themselves, " Well, either George Lucas is an idiot or this fellow in the high-gloss helmet is somebody’s father" ?? Any German/Swedish Dopers remember going to see this film originally , and wondering about that? We can leave the Freudian Analysis and Joseph Campbelling of the implications of the name Father as it applies to this saga for another thread. 😃 Cartooniverse, who saw it yesterday and truly appreciated how neatly Lucas brought it all together at the end. Also, Cartooniverse said a silent prayer of thanks that Jar-Jar Binks was seen but not " be -talkin’-sai " heard. --shudder– ---
**Author:** ![Dunderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2005, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-big-twist-in-the-original-star-wars-were-people-surprised-spoilers/304616/112 "2005-05-22T12:29:38Z")
> [@Cartooniverse](#): > > Any German/Swedish Dopers remember going to see this film originally , and wondering about that? I’m Swedish. “Father” is “fader” in Swedish, and is pronounced completely differently from “Vader”. “Fader” is something like fah-duhr, while “Vader” is vay-duhr. Any connection didn’t occur to me until a newspaper article said “Vader” meant “father” in Dutch and pointed out the word’s similarity to the Swedish word. This was in 1997 when the Special Edition was released, if memory serves. Suffice to say I knew Darth Vader was Luke’s father long before I even thought about any similarity between his name and our word for “father”. ---
**Author:** ![Orual](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/779978/32.png) [@Orual](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orual)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2005, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-big-twist-in-the-original-star-wars-were-people-surprised-spoilers/304616/113 "2005-05-22T16:21:41Z")
> [@dqa](#): > > During _Empire_, Yoda says “There is another [Jedi if Luke is lost].” I thought for sure it must be Wedge. Why else would they keep around a two-bit, womp-rat shooting character like that? So I was seriously annoyed that my pet theory was shot down, and replaced by a quasi-incestuous situation that made no sense. Leia had shown some street smarts and toughness - that made her a good match for Han Solo, but hardly a Jedi candidate. > > And we never did get to find out why Wedge stuck around. Maybe he just wanted to attend the Ewok fiesta at the end. Wedge is just a very, very good X-wing pilot. He ‘stuck around’ because he was one of very few who managed to, you know, not die. ---
**Author:** ![Knorf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/58956e/32.png) [@Knorf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knorf)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2005, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-big-twist-in-the-original-star-wars-were-people-surprised-spoilers/304616/114 "2005-05-22T18:38:19Z")
> [@Zoe](#): > > If you don’t mind a slight hijack, I’d like to share a memory from seeing the original _Star Wars_ movie. Believe me, movies just weren’t like that thirty years ago. > > In the opening shot, when the space ship came on the screen, and it just seemed to go on and on _forever_ – seeming to fill up the screen – the effect on the crowd was audible. > > Now, in retrospect, it is nothing. And there is no way to see with our perspective. But it is an awesome thing to have cinema history unexpectedly change before your eyes. I dunno…I still think it’s pretty darn cool! ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2005, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-big-twist-in-the-original-star-wars-were-people-surprised-spoilers/304616/115 "2005-05-22T19:50:55Z")
Especially since you heard it first from behind you. Yeah, the Princess’s ship was stunning as it came across our view, guns blazing, and it being shot at. But when that Imperial ship came lumbering by… It literally filled the theater, it seemed to never stop coming! Quite a remarkable visual impact back then. Nothing even came close previously. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2005, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-big-twist-in-the-original-star-wars-were-people-surprised-spoilers/304616/116 "2005-05-22T20:01:01Z")
> [@NoClueBoy](#): > > Especially since you heard it first from behind you. Yeah, the Princess’s ship was stunning as it came across our view, guns blazing, and it being shot at. But when that Imperial ship came lumbering by… It literally filled the theater, it seemed to never stop coming! Quite a remarkable visual impact back then. Nothing even came close previously. It was definately an, “Oh my Og! What the hell is _that?_” kind of moment. Totally a gobsmacking moment, where you weren’t sure if that thing was the size of a planet or not, and then, later on in the film when you found out that they had something **bigger** , it was a total neural overload. ---
**Author:** ![Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Speaker_for_the_Dead)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2005, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-big-twist-in-the-original-star-wars-were-people-surprised-spoilers/304616/117 "2005-05-22T20:07:34Z")
> [@Tuckerfan](#): > > It was definately an, “Oh my Og! What the hell is _that?_” kind of moment. Totally a gobsmacking moment, where you weren’t sure if that thing was the size of a planet or not, and then, later on in the film when you found out that they had something **bigger** , it was a total neural overload. Amen. Nothing makes my jaw hang open like seeing the regular Star Destroyers compared to the Executor (Vader’s flagship) and to the Death Stars. They’re so _tiny_. ---
**Author:** ![AngelicGemma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/439d5e/32.png) [@AngelicGemma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AngelicGemma)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2005, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-big-twist-in-the-original-star-wars-were-people-surprised-spoilers/304616/118 "2005-05-23T14:46:35Z")
It was before my time, so when I did watch the films I already knew. ---
**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2005, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-big-twist-in-the-original-star-wars-were-people-surprised-spoilers/304616/119 "2005-05-24T15:58:01Z")
> [@AngelicGemma](#): > > It was before my time, so when I did watch the films I already knew. Kids these days… 😃 ---
**Author:** ![yojimbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yojimbo/32/232_2.png) [@yojimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yojimbo)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2005, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-big-twist-in-the-original-star-wars-were-people-surprised-spoilers/304616/120 "2005-05-24T16:33:14Z")
> [@Cartooniverse](#): > > I love you guys. > > I’ve seen all of them in the theatre, and I have to admit that I get goosebumps each time I see those words fade up from black… " A long time ago in a galaxy far far away… " Oh yeah. When STAR WARS comes up on the screen and the music explodes into the cinema my entrance fee is paid for. I’m a kid again. Then the suckage starts and the adult returns, but for those few minutes I’m an excited kid. I love that feeling. I was 9 when my father brought me to see TESB. It’s a very powerful memory. When Vader came out with the father line I was stunned. It was by far the most important event in my life up to then. My Da brought me again the next day and then let me cousin bring me again the day after that. For a few years Star Wars was the center of my life. Going to ROTS to tonight and looking forward to it. It will be worth the money as they still have the same opening 😉 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-big-twist-in-the-original-star-wars-were-people-surprised-spoilers/304616.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-big-twist-in-the-original-star-wars-were-people-surprised-spoilers/304616.md?page=7)