Eh. Could be.
Then again, it could just be the official line that people are being told.
Or it’s revisionism. You never know.
-Joe
Just out of curiosity, how many of you who are defending the notion that Darth Vader was intended to be the main character all along saw the original movie in 1977 and how many came to the saga later when others of the movies were out?
Well, I started the thread, and I saw the original movie in the theater when it came out. I liked the original sequels OK, but frankly I never even really bought the stuff about Vader being Luke’s father or Luke and Leia being twins. If you ask me, none of that seems to fit with the original movie, which is just a good old-fashioned space western with some mythical overtones. I cannot connect the Vader in the first movie with the guy in the third movie being cradled in Luke’s lap as he dies, let alone the whiny kid in these new movies.
The new movies are somewhat entertaining in their own right, of course, mostly due to the presence of Natalie Portman and some other fine actors.
I will only see the new movie three times … today.
First, “The original trilogy is about Darth Vader’s redemption” and “Darth Vader is supposed to be the main character of the original trilogy” are not equivalent.
Of course Luke is the main character and protagonist of the original trilogy – but his ultimate victory comes in the form of his father’s redemption. The trilogy has a definite arc. In the first act, the protagonist and antagonist are clearly delineated. Near the end of the second act, their relationship is elaborated on, and we find that the antagonist doesn’t want to merely destroy the protagonist, but to corrupt him. In the third act, this is turned around and good finally negates evil. Awwww.
As for when I got hooked into Star Wars, I saw the first movie in the theatre six times, which just wasn’t done. I’m glad that my parents were so accomodating.
This is me late in 1979. I’m pretty sure that Lucas cribbed Anikin’s unfortunate hairstyle in The Phantom Menace from me. 
That distinction is implicit in Exapno’s question. Otherwise, it would be a tautology
, or something.
It seems a bit silly to bring logic and debating terms into the Cafe, but if we must, the salient term would be “Straw Man.”
Nobody is defending the notion that Darth Vader was intended to be the main character of the movies.
Lucas has never said that Darth Vader was supposed to be the main character of the movies. It’s an indefensible notion – but that’s okay, because nobody’s championing it.
Is it too late to say “I thought they smelled bad on the outside,” or has the moment passed?
It’s passed, hasn’t it?
This is not the argument that Exapno made. In fact, he didn’t make an argument at all. He merely asked some people to clarify their stances by making a distinction between the two opinions presented. No proposition and no conclusion was presented.
Sorry, no straw man.
I saw the movie as a 9-year-old for the first time at a theater… in 1997. I guess I count, don’t I? To me, the original movie was a really cool ride and it was about, if anything, lightsabers, the force and cool ships. That’s to say the movie was made like your regular western and it worked regardless of sequels or more information than you can cram in 2 hours. And no, I didn’t think the movie was about Vader, but the fact that subsequent movies took this up doesn’t clash with what the first was really about, in my opinion.
No, you’re not. That T-Shirt “you” have on, and the poster behind “you” couldn’t have been released in 1979. Unless, of course, Lucas envisioned it all from the beginning. 
The book, which has the prologue from that website, is somewhere at my parents’ house. If you want, I could find it next time I go visit and scan it. I don’t know what else to do to convince you.
Hello. Can you find a single example of anyone in this thread saying that Lucas intended Darth Vader to the main character? Has Lucas ever said that Darth was the main character?
No.
“The original trilogy is about Darth Vader’s redemption” is totally different proposition, which can easily be supported, while “Darth Vader was intended to be the main character of the original trilogy,” is clearly false.
You can have a story in which the main arc is about the rescue of a princess from a terrible dragon. The princess can be totally minor character – she may not even appear in the story at all, except after the hero overcomes half-a-dozen obstacles, finally slays the dragon, and then dashes into her cell. She may have a single line. “My hero!” swoon
The story is still about the rescue of the princess. You can’t say that it’s not about her rescue because the farm-boy with the magic sword is clearly the main character.
If you look at how the story of the original Star Wars developed, it’s easy enough to argue that Lucas plotted the relationship between Vader, Luke, and Leia from very early on. Lucas cited Joseph Campbell’s Hero With A Thousand Faces as an inspiration before Empire Strikes Back was released, and the whole reconciliation-with-the-father routine is laid out explicitly there. Lucas gave many of his characters names that reflected their archetypes, which may be pretty sophomoric, but it’s a frickin’ fairy-tale, so he’s allowed. The individualist is named “Solo.” A bounty hunter is named “Greedo.” Fitting with the Campbell blueprint, the Goddess/Personification of ‘life’ is named “Organa” And the bad daddy is named “Vader.” In early drafts, there’s more contact between Vader and Luke, and Vader comments that he feels as though he’s met Luke before.
But it’s not even necessary to argue about when Lucas intended Darth’s character to become central to the story. If you look at the trilogy, it is. It’s totally key. Blowing up the Death Star? Minor triumph. Hell, Lando and Han managed to do it, too. (Well, this is a bit of a fudge because it was necessary to blow up the “first” Death Star to allow the first movie to stand on its own, and the climax of RoTJ was largely made up of stuff that was discarded from earlier drafts of the original script. Bleh.)
But as the original trilogy developed, it became about Darth’s redemption. Luke didn’t overpower him – he trusted that he was still human, and offered him a choice. He gambled and won. With that denouement, the trilogy became the story of Vader’s redemption.
That’s all. Nobody is saying that he’s always been the main character.
You are too young to remember how heavy advance marketing for The Empire Strikes Back was. The picture was taken in December 1979. The posters were fold out promos from Starlog magazine. The ESB T-shirt transfers were already available from Dog’s Ear. Not pictured, but I also had two 6" Boba Fetts for something like six months before that. The chemistry set (and poorly-fitting Star Wars® wrist-watch) are Christmas gifts, so there’s no doubt about the date.
Re: R2D2: “It should be in a museum!!”
And, as anyone who has watched the britcom “Spaced” knows, the most important character in the original trilogy was the un-named star destroyer gunner officer near the beginning, who didn’t order the “empty” escape pod blown up. No R2D2, no death star plans.
By the way, The Hook, I didn’t mean to sound condescending with that “You’re too young,” it’s just that it’s difficult to convey to folks who were born into a world in which Star Wars has always been a given exactly how significant it was for the generation for whom it was fresh and new.
You might look at me funny if I admitted that I orient myself with regard to the dates of all the major happenings of my youth in relation to their proximity to Star Wars watersheds. I remember when Elvis died because it was the summer of Star Wars. The Iran hostage crisis? It started in the winter that we were anticipating The Empire Strikes Back – 1979. A few weeks before the actual release (of ESB, not the hostages,) there was a disastrous rescue attempt. The whole thing was resolved in the New Year of ESB +1. (That’s 1981, to you.) I lost my virginity in the winter of 1982. I know this because I anticipated going to The Revenge of the Jedi’s opening with my One True Love, who turned out to be a fond memory by the time the summer of '83 rolled around, with its manifold disappointments.
This may sound crazy to you, but it’s how my friends and I oriented ourselves in time – and still people my own will casually use this mnenomic device when trying to pinpoint memories of the seventies and eighties, without a raised eyebrow.
Star Wars was unlike anything that had gone before. It might be hard to get a sense of how unique it was, if you’ve always lived with the Summer Blockbuster. Post '77, the franchise has always had legions of devotees following its new development from concept drawings on up. And Lucas was the first to use toys and stuff as a primary income stream, rather than a mere promotional tool. The sequels were largely financed by snot-nosed kids like me who had to have every toy available. Investors took a back seat. A radical new strategy.
Of course, it’s a strategy that gave us plush-ready Ewoks instead of bad-ass Wookies. The Dark Side made manifest. Hopefully, Georgie’s going to redeem himself with RoTS. Finally, we get to see Wookie’s kicking ass and taking names, like we anticipated from 1981 until that terrible, terrible betrayal in the dark that came in '83.
Sorry, I was a bit unclear.
My point was the part about “controlled by bureaucrats blah blah etc” might be the official excuse the Emperor has for not giving a damn about his people. You know, like “I didn’t want to raise taxes, but the [insert opposition political party here] made me do it!”.
-Joe
Really, all I was asking is exactly as acsenray interpreted it, just to see if there was a correlation between when people first saw the movie and their take on its meaning.
But I would also argue that if the trilogy is about Darth Vader’s redemption, he is the main character. That’s the way fiction and storytelling works.
This is simply wrong on every level. No writer would ever maintain this, nor would any English teacher. The princess is simply a device, a macguffin. She is of no importance to the story at all. Who the story is about is always the main character. That character is the one who is most affected by the actions of the story. This can be subtle in some fiction, but since no one can apply that word to Lucas that issue doesn’t arise here. The person most affected by the actions of the real Star Wars trilogy is Luke. Vader is merely a device for Luke to come to knowledge about himself. He is not central, he is not the main character, the trilogy is not about his redemption - it’s a side issue of Luke’s redemption and growth.
This begs the question, because it assumes that Lucas intended Darth’s character to become central. Which is the same thing as saying he’s the main character. But it is most certainly necessary to argue when. That is the exact argument of this entire thread. Some of us argue that Lucas changed the story halfway through to emphasize Vader more than he had originally planned; some of us don’t. I do.
Walt Disney started doing this in the 1930s, especially after the release of Snow White. The toys, the games, the comic books, the figurines, the clothing, the accessories fill entire books on collectibles. Disneyland and the television show merely built on a revenue stream long established. Lucas may have been the first of his generation to understand the economics but he invented nothing.
Trust me: I understand.
I understood that – but it needed to be pointed out that no-one at any point has said that Darth is the main character of the first three movies. This is the source of the dissonance that we’re experiencing.
Here’s where we disagree, and it’s kind of a silly thing to argue about. (Like any argument about a popcorn movie, I guess.)
The only sense in which the first three movies are “about” Vader’s redemption is in the broadest arc of the story. That’s not to make a totally reductionist argument that that’s all it’s about, but it’s the main thing. From the start, there’s a clear protagonist/antagonist dichotomy. In the middle, the antagonist makes a bid to recruit the protagonist. In the end, the protagonist forces the antagonist’s hand, and effects his redemption.
The three parts all have their own mini-arcs and side-plots, but that’s the gist of the overarching story. This is the only sense in which the original trilogy is “about Vader’s redemption.”
Who the first trilogy about is Luke. Luke is the protagonist. What the story about is the heroic task that he accomplishes. What was that again? Oh, right, he confronted, humanized, and redeemed his father. That was his Magnum Opus. Every step of his journey took him to that end. That’s the main theme of the trilogy, and redemption is threaded through the series as a leitmotif, as well. The action of the story humanizes Han in the first movie, and works the same magic on Lando in the second. Like Vader, they are forced to choose between their venal desires and the well-being of people who they’ve come to care about – and they make the right decision.
That’s an unfair judgement. Lucas is subtle enough to surprise. Obviously, Star Wars films aren’t meant to be subtle in the usual sense – they’re practically pantomimes – but looking over the script revisions, it’s clear that he’d intended the soap-opera family surprises since the beginning. He pared back the central mystery surrounding Luke’s father until was just a few lines in Star Wars. In early scripts, Leia and Luke were raised as cousins, with Leia being the supposed daughter of Owen and Beru, and Luke having a never-seen father who was “more of a legend than a man.” Then, the closing text crawl, after the destruction of the Death Star, was supposed to tease us with news that the Lars household was going to be kidnapped, and also that there would be a search for the Princess Organa. Still, people were gobsmacked when they learned that Leia was Luke’s sister, although it seems certain that was the intention from the start, incestuous kiss and all.
The climax of the trilogy is a side issue? Luke doesn’t participate in the destruction of the Death Star II, he’s already been there/done that. He’s saving his daddy. The last shot of the film is of Anakin as a smiling member of the choir invisible. (Choir translucent doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it?)
I think it’s pretty clear from the beginning that he’s a central character, and the main antagonist. If not him, who? In the first minutes of the film, when he boards the Rebel Blockade Runner, there’s no doubt who Bad Guy Number One is. Yes, he’s subordinate to Tarkin. So what? What does Tarkin do? Darth is the action man from the start. The first time Luke even hears of the concept of the Force, it’s in the context of how Vader’s corruption by the Dark Side led to his father’s death. Vader kills Luke’s master, and had Luke lined up in the crosshairs at the Battle of Yavin, seconds before Han redeemed himself.
When I say it doesn’t matter when Lucas decided to make Darth’s redemption the central theme, what I mean is that the premise we’re talking about is “Darth Vader’s redemption is central to the first trilogy.” By the end of the third movie, that’s a truism, if you consider the trilogy as a whole. Lucas has never said, “From the start, Star Wars is about Darth Vader.” So why concern ourselves as to whether or not it is?
It became about his redemption, though. In Act I, he’s just the bad guy, and as far as Luke knows he’s responsible for his father’s death, which came about when he turned bad. In Act II, Luke learns he is his father, and Ben was being euphemistic because he didn’t want to lay a heavy trip on him. He resists the temptation to turn to the Dark Side, but feels raw about the whole deal. In Act III, Luke appeals to his father’s humanity and Darth redeems himself by sacrificing himself out of love for his son’s pure heart. Joy, doves, showers of roses.
That’s all that’s meant by “The original trilogy is about Vader’s redemption.” It’s how the situation resolves. He was the heavy from the start and the trilogy was resolved when redeemed himself by tossing a grumpy old man down an elevator shaft.
If you look at all six movies, the general arc is Vader’s fall and redemption. That’s how the story has developed. If you just look at the original movies, it’s all leading up to his redemption. Sure, there’s no hint of the turnaround in Star Wars, but that’s okay, and there’s no contradiction there. Lucas always prefaces his remarks about the importance of Vader’s redemption with “Ultimately,” or “Taken as a whole.” That’s how the story developed, and it’s not revisionism. Greedo shot first, that’s revisionism. This? This is the organic growth of a story.
The difference is, Disney banked his merchandising loot. He still made movies they way the studios always did – with other people’s money. Empire Strikes Back was made, in no small part, with money made from toy sales. Disney never made a movie without investors to take it up the hoop if it turned out to be a pile of suck.
Feel free to insert a couple of couple of “is” 's in there where ever they seem appropriate. WTF?
Exactly! Well said.
My point was the part about “controlled by bureaucrats blah blah etc” might be the official excuse the Emperor has for not giving a damn about his people. You know, like “I didn’t want to raise taxes, but the [insert opposition political party here] made me do it!”.
-Joe
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That’s just what I thought, too. Emperor Palpatine deals with the big-picture stuff (including, first and foremost, keeping himself in power). He doesn’t sweat the small stuff, and is happy to let the huddled masses of Imperial citizenry think that he’s a remote figurehead at the mercy of his bureaucrats and bootlickers.
But just let one of said bureacrats and bootlickers get out of line, and they’ll see who’s the mack daddy of the Galactic Empire…
P.S. Interesting to note that George Lucas (actually Alan Dean Foster, his ghostwriter for ANH’s novelization) had Palpatine elected president, not supreme chancellor.