I found this interesting in the interview with Lucas in the newest issue of Rolling Stone. I think we all knew that this was something originally planned in the first script, but I didn't know that Lucas wanted it to be so vague. My impression was that he cut it and meant for it to be that the midichlorians DID create Anakin and that Palpatine is lying.

Cool, I think it's great that it's vague... and really it doesn't matter that much

Though I definitely think it was implied that Anakin was created by the Sith. Don't you love the irony? The Sith created the one who would destroy them for good. Brilliant.

yep, it's very ambiguous, and obviously I picked up on it straight away. Kinda subtle, but hit me like a tonne of bricks if ya know what I mean. I really like how it's left hanging and Anakin's true origins are never delved into after that.

Like Lucas saying "ok fuckers make up your mind!".

Wow. Reading some of those posts really gave me a headache. "Lucas lies in the Rolling Stone article! I have proof!" Looks like some people over there are starving for attention.

And yet they are right.

I don't think it's so much that Lucas intends to lie though. It's simply that he changes his mind, which as creator he is absolutely entitled to do at any stage. I think it gets a bit tricky though when he talks about his more recent thoughts as if he had them at the time. That's trying to revise history and I can see how it could get to people - especially as I think many fans would love to know his thinking behind certain aspects. If he can't think back to those aspects and remember what things were like at the time then it is pointless asking him anything beyond the here and now.

Actually it would be very interesting to collect all his interviews and try to pinpoint the times where certain things changed...

Nice to see Georgie-boy intended Anakin´s conception to be vague enough for people to speculate.

Someone should make a LucasxDevincf erotic fanfic one of these days.

Proof?

Perhaps he said the characters were different to keep the revelation in Empire the shock it's meant to be.

You want proof that Lucas changes his mind and sometimes certain things he says do not match actual intention at the time?

Not really what I want to get into for reasons I'll write below but, well, here's just one example from the Rolling Stone interview -



So... Luke redeeming Vader (Lucas has just been talking about Vader in the interview by the way) was part of the original plan? Not quite. An early draft of Empire features Luke's father as a Force ghost, much like Obi-Wan. Luke's father was, just like we learn in ANH, killed by none other than Darth Vader. They were two seperate characters. If he meant Anakin as a seperate character, he was not a character needing redeeming as things were playing out at the time.

There are many others. Frequently the issue of there being 6 or 9 movies comes up. Again Lucas simply changed his mind after (or towards the end of) Empire. This is well documented. He has said, however, in some interviews that there was always only going to be 6 movies when that was not actually the plan during Empire. Even down to simple things like saying the SEs allowed him to do everything he couldn't do when he shot the originals - so he couldn't film Greedo's first shot?

The reason I didn't want to get into any of this is that it sounds petty. It feels petty even writing it but you asked for proof. Like I said in my last post, I think the man is perfectly entitled to change his mind and make new plans. That is a natural part of the creative process. I'm all for it. But he does change his mind and then claim it was all a part of his original plan.

Actually, if you're interested, The Annotated Screenplays is a book well worth picking up. It contains interviews, some from back in the day and some more recent from many people involved. It also contains portions of earlier drafts and descriptions of how early scenes played out. It's really interesting - especially seeing how some ideas were integrated into the PT. It's a good read.

I was thinking you were talking about them calling him a liar. That he was just full of shit and that he made things up as he went along.


I think when he says his original plan, I think he means when he started the movies, not writing up the general story.

No, I don't think the man is full of shit. I think he is a creator and the creative process is an organic, changing one. I do think, however, that sometimes in focussing on where he is now with the stories that he forgets where he once was and so some of the things he says are not always true. I should point out that the draft of ESB I referred to was written after ANH, so the movies were in progress at that stage.

But I maintain that he is entitled to change his mind, plans and stories. That is part of any creative process.

I think he might just slowly going senile.


Agreed.

Fatboy, I totally agree with the points that you just made. I just think it's funny how those people are so angry at anybody who disagrees with them about Lucas being a lier. It's really pathetic.

You can tell that those people have never written a thing before in their lives. For example, I'm currently writing a piece of Star Wars fan fiction and throughout the start-up process many of my characters have been re-written. Some locations, characters, and even some of my plot got changed up (I'm actually still in the middle of a lot of this).

So, let's say that I told somebody about my plot when I first started to write this story only for them to read my finished product and see it almost totally different. Am I a lier? No way. That's just the way that the creative process goes. It's too bad that some people just don't understand the creative process.

Sorry, I kinda worded my reply wrong Fatboy. What I meant to say is that even though Lucas has messed with the facts over the years some of what's being criticized on CHUD is related to the creative process. That's all. Sorry for the confusion!

w/e. i mean i think its really good that he left it ambiguous cuz it really puts the audience into the story. it lets them make up something of the star wars saga. <---hehe, sweet smiley...

You're so full of shit it's not even funny. As five people who witnessed a car wreck what they saw and you'll get five different stories. It doesn't mean they're lying. Different people remember things differently.

So it was "well-documented" that Lucas was going to do nine Star Wars movies? Bullshit! Even Gary Kurtz, whom he parted ways with, says that was a myth:

from the Houston Chronicle

May 24, 2005, 8:45AM

Is Lucas secretly planning another Star Wars trilogy?
By LISA ROSE
Newhouse News Service


Call them the Phantom Movies.

During the pre-release hullabaloo for The Empire Strikes Back in 1980, George Lucas suggested that the Luke Skywalker saga would not be complete after three films, or even six films. He spoke of intentions to make Star Wars a nine-installment franchise.

It was widely reported in print throughout the 1980s that he would create two follow-up trilogies, one going back in time to explore Darth Vader's roots and another turning the clock ahead to revisit the further adventures of his heroic son Luke Skywalker.

Yet it looks like that third set of films has vanished from the radar like a starship in hyperdrive.

According to Lucas, the new Jedi epic Revenge of the Sith is the swan song for the series. He believes the third prequel, which follows Anakin Skywalker's devolution into Darth Vader, provides the closure fans seek.

"The (series) starts with Darth Vader as a young lad and ends with him dying so I don't know where else I can take it," says Lucas. "It's what I wanted it to be."

The director denies ever stating that he'd make Episodes VII through IX, blaming the media for reporting rumors as fact in the early days of Star Wars.

Speaking to journalists earlier this month at his Skywalker Ranch headquarters in Marin County, Calif., Lucas said the hype was "created by you guys, not by me."

Technically, he never promised nine movies, but the news stories of Luke redux weren't pure fiction.

"We made an announcement to the press, 'There's enough material for three trilogies,'" says Gary Kurtz, producer of Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. "It wasn't that nine films were going to be made. It was to give you an idea of how much material was there."

Before Lucas wrote the script for 1977's Star Wars, he put together a novel-length treatment tracing the intergalactic exploits of Skywalker and son. In the blueprint, the plot spanned beyond Luke's young-adult years to portray him as an elder Jedi.

"He went on to become the master and pass on his training to someone else," Kurtz says, via phone from the U.K. office of his production company, Bella Jazz.

Kurtz adds that at one point, there was even talk of expanding the chronicle to 12 chapters.

"There were a lot of things bandied about. There were people who wanted to do novels, tangential stories that have nothing to do with the main story of the films. Every one of those could be turned into a film. There was an idea about using R2-D2 and C-3PO in a feature, or Han Solo's adventures. I suppose you could invent things forever, but I don't think anything concrete was too seriously considered."

According to Kurtz, the possibility of a third trilogy diminished when Lucas veered from his treatment to create Return of the Jedi. The original tale he mapped out didn't feature Ewoks or a second Death Star, and it culminated with the death of Han Solo. Princess Leia parts ways with Luke to lead those who survived her home planet's destruction.

The most critical change, however, was incorporating what would have been the climax of Episode IX, a showdown between Luke and Emperor Palpatine.

"The idea was that the Emperor would be hinted at and maybe seen occasionally but there wouldn't be a final confrontation with him until the ninth story," says Kurtz, who ended his association with Lucas after Empire, partially because he was displeased with the aforementioned revisions. Kurtz currently has three indie projects in the works, including 5-25-77, a comedy about a teenager's failed attempts to see Star Wars on opening day.

In Lucas' world, the Star Wars circle is complete. He plans to lower his directorial profile and work on smaller, more personal pictures, he says.

"I would lay money down that his heirs 20 years from now decide to continue the saga," says Anthony C. Ferrante, editor in chief of Cinescape, a genre-oriented movie magazine. "You can never say never. For the longest time I thought, 'No, he'll never do more Star Wars movies after Jedi. It's the '90s, he's never gonna get around to it.' But he did."



So an idea from Kurtz (who split from Lucas 25-plus years ago) , which Lucas had clearly rejected proves Lucas is a liar?

Holy shit Hamill would have been 40 by the end of the third trilogy

It wasn't "an idea from Kurtz." Did you even read what you posted?



"When Lucas veered from HIS treatment." It was Lucas's idea, not Kurtz's, that the final trilogy would deal with the ultimate confrontation between Luke and the Emperor. It was Lucas, not Kurtz, who said in a Rolling Stone interview that he had ideas for ten films. Eventually he realized he could wrap it up in one film, so he did. Years later, he began rewriting history by claiming he was "joking" in Rolling Stone and said that he'd never had plans to do more than 6 movies. That's a half-truth -- I firmly believe that he intended the series to end with the death of the Emperor. But to suggest that everyone else was wrong about what they thought they read was bullshit.

And why the fuck did you post that whole article in white?

To get your attention. I just wonder how those who call Lucas a "liar" would fare if someone found comments from journalists (not exactly reliable sources) claiming that 25 years ago, they said something different from what they say now. PROVE that Lucas said he was going to make more than six movies. Show me one direct quote from him where he said he would -not "might" or "is considering" or "could"- make more than six.

According to the Annotated Screenplays, Lucas was considering the idea of making Luke's family on Tattooine a bunch of midgets. He then dropped the idea and probably hasn't thought of it since. If some yo-yo comes forward and says "Owen and Beru were going to be midgets, right?" and he said "No", does that mean he's lying? Only to the most pitiful wankers who spend countless hours straining through pepper looking for gnat shit.

Why don't you PROVE you're not a fucking anal-retentive Lucas-apologist asshole first?

P.S. it's already too late.

To get back to the original topic of this post, the great thing about the vagueness of this reasoning, I think, is that it leaves it open to be interpreted by the character's point of view. As in, "Many of the truths we cling to depend greatly upon our own point of view."

To explain, maybe the Sith believe they created Anakin. Let's assume Plagueis is sitting around meditating trying to influence the midi-chlorians to create somebody -- the greatest Sith, say. But he never really knows if it happened. He didn't like walk up to Shmi and tap her on the shoulder or something. It was more vague. Then Anakin comes along and Palpatine hears the whole born of the midichlorians thing and thinks, "Holy Sith, Batman, Plagueis really did succeed." So, to their point of view, THEY created Anakin.

But according to the Jedi, Anakin was born of the Force itself. Which, in a way, he kind of was, even if the Sith had a hand in it. And so their belief is true, too, according to their point of view.

Kind of bizarre, but very like the way religions start. People see something inexplicable and start to explain it in their own way, so that by the end, you don't really know what's the truth and all you really know is the effect of the event.

Makes my head hurt thinking about it, which is always a good thing in a Star Wars film....

Great post.

I don't think that any of us can PROVE anything; all we can do is put forth our best evidence that supports our point and hope that others will condider those facts we present in a reasonable manner.

I was 7 years old when ANH was released and I absorbed anything and everything Star Wars through the summer of 1983. I remember seeing a People magazine (I believe that was it) with Carrie Fisher on the front posed with Jabba. The cover read something to the effect of "Life Without Leia" or "Life After Leia". I was shocked, because this meant that there would be no Episodes 7-9, or if there were then the original cast would not be in them. This thought could have only been in my head if I had read (over the previous six years) in multiple sources many times that there would be nine movies.

For my part, I weigh in on the side that there were (at one point) nine movies planned. Did Lucas lie? Maybe. Did he forget? Maybe. How about Kurtz? Maybe and maybe. We all too often take one piece of contradictory evidence and allow that to outweigh far greater amounts of evidence on the other side. For example, how many credible sightings and physical evidence is there of extraterrestrial beings visiting Earth? Tons. Yet one person claims to have faked a crop circle and suddenly all of that other evidence is thrown out of the window. I'm not trying to make an argument for or against UFO's and such, just to offer that because someone fakes a picture of Nessie, that does not mean that it does not exist. Just because we can't come up with a direct quote from Lucas does not mean that he did not plan on nine movies at one time. If and when we do find the quote, that doesn't necessarily make Lucas or Kurtz liars, either. People forget stuff, they change their minds and get confused. However, I do know that my 13-year-old brain was convinced before 1983 that there would be nine Star Wars movies, and it was only after the release of ROTJ that I heard any mention from Lucas' camp that there may be fewer.

I am currently scouring old Starlogs and other mags to find some quote from Lucas about nine movies, not necessarily to prove anyone wrong, but to put my own mind to rest. Sorry for the ramble, but after reading the debates, I really wanted to throw my hat into the ring...

Very well said.



mandingo, paragraphs are your friend.

Indeed.

I think the larger issue here is that many people who have followed Lucas's comments over the years are aware that he's become a revisionist historian, and not a very skilled one at that. It doesn't seem to matter whether it's some dopey weird twisting of a minor and meaningless fact (like saying that ROTJ was only called "Revenge of the Jedi" at first, not because that was meant as the real title, but in order to throw the media off track -- huh?) or whether it's something that actually alters the story -- the spin is that Lucas has never been wrong or mistaken, and if it appears that he was, it's someone else's fault.

Take this for example: in Entertainment Weekly #785, the September 24 2004 issue, Lucas is being interviewed in connection with the OT DVD release, and Greedo comes up (all bracketed words are as they appear in the interview):



OK, leaving aside the question of how you redeem someone who kills people -- or a bunch of padawan kids -- in cold blood, think about what he just said. He's saying he ALWAYS meant to have Greedo shoot first, but when it came time to edit, he didn't have the coverage. Now this is the age of "The Annotated Screenplays," the age of the internet; can ANYONE out there locate ANY version of the screenplay that says that Greedo shoots first?

So what are we supposed to believe? That out of all of the shots that were changed for the SEs, the only one that completely changes the tone of the scene is the one that is in no existing version of the screenplay of the 1977 release -- but according to Lucas in 2004, was always really meant to be there?

Or can we just believe that this control freak is pathologically incapable of admitting that he changed his mind?

Much easier to read

I'm still under the impression that 70% of the time Lucas is talking out of his arse. And yes exactly, people are allowed to change their minds... my understanding is that at some stage Lucas put the idea forward to Hamill or someone about the posibility of more movies and it all sorta got outta hand... just as I assume is the case here.

Well, no, actually here I believe the case is that some random person said 'Hey, wouldn't it be cool if there was a movie before Episode I all about Yoda?' and then... well you know how it goes. In those horrid places like... TFN... someone's opinoin somehow quickly becomes fact.

C'mon guys, Lucas isn't this stupid. And Fox doesn't have that much control.

You're right. Fox has NO control over what Lucas does.

1977 Rolling Stone interview

No specific comments with regard to sequels, but a lot of weird vague ones...

And for those of you subscribed to Hyperspace:

http://www.starwars.com/hyperspace/memb ... index.html

For those of you who aren't, just a brief excerpt from Bantha Tracks #8, Spring 1980:



Aah, he was "joking." Right?

holy shit I didn't think anything would annoy me more then my homeboy using his putter from the fairway on everyhole today, congrats cumbubble

[quote="KeithGap"][/quote]

for once the whole Palpatine tall tale/ Midichlorian aided Virgin birth makes sense. props to you dude

When I first watched and pondered TPM, I was very upset about the midichlorian idea because it seemed to take all the mysticism out of the Force in favor of a biological/genetic explanation. Now we have this neat little plot element in ROTS involving the possibility of Darth Plageus being responsible for Anakin's creation. I, for one, like the fact that this is left vague and open to interpretation.

Regarding some earlier posts about Lucas' creative process, I think it's funny how some of his ideas originally intended for this or that crop up in some form down the road. Like how "Willow" focuses on "little people" coming up against insurmountable odds and succeeding. I seem to recall this being an idea in an early draft of SW.

It just occurred to me why there is so much rage over Lucas "lying" about whether or not he was going to make 9 movies. Why should anyone give a fuck whether he changed his mind or not? To those of us who are the major die hards this is like the ultimate betrayal. He promised that there would be more movies. Now he's going back on it like our love means nothing to him. Excuse me I have to go bury my head in a pillow and cry myself to sleep.

pee pee