One thing we never really see fleshed out in the original trilogy was Palpatine's hatred and anger at Vader for first losing to Obi-wan, and then basically overseeing the destruction of the first Death Star!
@@JosiahIsWrite and he worked mercilessly to replace Vader through numerous clones and padawans all throughout the original trilogy era some of which is still cannon. Vader's loss to Obi wan and subsequent injuries ruined his original timeline to disband the senate. He therefore had to play politics for 19 years and had to wait till the Death Star became operational to do so, only for Vader to then go and get the thing blown up LOL
Fascinating video! God bless you! It's really interesting to see how the ideas for these films evolved from their inception. I've long been a fan of ROTJ (most of it), but it's interesting to see where the concept started and how the ideas were eventually incorporated into the franchise.
@@JosiahIsWrite Not 100% sure. I really like how they handled a lot of ROTJ in the final cut, to be honest. Though the idea of an eightiespunk proto-Coruscant is really cool, I'm just so in love with the Prequels' interpretation of the capital planet that I'm not sure I'd want it to have appeared in the '83 film. _Usually_ the changes I think would've helped Star Wars films are keeping in a few deleted scenes here and there (e.g. Biggs talking about joining the rebellion in EpIV, Mon Mothma and Bail hinting at the formation of the Rebel Alliance in EpIII... things like that).
Awesome Ewok Village. I have those action figures in my collection, too. Not sure if Endor is a better location or Hoth, but overall, Cloud City is my favorite.
The dancer Oola was originally supposed to be escape Jabba’s palace. They supposedly created a storyboard for the scene (which I cannot find) but budget restraints prevented them from adding this in the film, and they unfortunately went with the sad ending for her.
@@ruffkuntry2574 interesting. I wasn't aware of that. I did think it was cool that for the Special Edition it was the original actress that filmed the scenes for the new stuff.
@@JosiahIsWrite She still looks great even today. I have the idea of Disney bringing her back to Star Wars in the Book of Boba Fett as Oola’s sister Nolaa Tarkona; a vengeful freedom fighter/assassin who learns of Boba killing Bib Fortuna (the guy who kidnapped her sister and made a slave to Jabba) and she swears allegiance to Boba joining his army as he fights the Hutt twins for control of Mos Espa. I have other great ideas for episodes involving her character in the show. If only I can get Disney on the phone.
@@ruffkuntry2574 it reminds me of a book I read as a kid, Tales From Jabba's Palace. It has different stories of the smaller characters. There was another one about Bounty Hunters as well. If you get Disney on the phone tell them I say, "hi."
The things I wish was changed on the final draft was Obi-Wan should've said he didn't let Luke know about his father to protect him - rather than "A certain point of view". The other is Leia having a more dramatic reaction in the discovery that she is a Skywalker and Vader's daughter.
Interesting. I haven't heard that but I have read that Return of the Jedi was going to reveal that Uncle Owen and Obi-Wan were brothers. Thanks for sharing!
@@JosiahIsWrite Dialogue from the December 19, 1982 Draft LUKE : I can't kill my own father. BEN :Then the Emperor has already won. You were our only hope. LUKE: Yoda spoke of another. BEN: The other he spoke of is your twin sister. LUKE: But I have no sister. BEN: Hmm. To protect you both from the Emperor, you were hidden from your father when you were born. The Emperor knew, as I did, if Anakin were to have any offspring, they would be a threat to him. That is the reason why your sister remains safely anonymous. LUKE: Leia! Leia's my sister. BEN: Your insight serves you well. Bury your feelings deep down, Luke. They do you credit. But they could be made to serve the Emperor. When your father left, he didn't know your mother was pregnant. Your mother and I knew he would find out eventually, but we wanted to keep you both as safe as possible, for as long as possible. So I took you to live with my brother Owen, on Tatooine...and your mother took Leia to live as the daughter of Senator Organa, on Alderaan. The Organa household was high-born and politically quite powerful in that system. Leia became a princess by virtue of lineage... no one knew she'd been adopted, of course. But it was a title without real power, since Alderaan had long been a democracy. Even so, the family continued to be politically powerful, and Leia, following in her foster father's path, became a senator as well. That's not all she became, of course... she became the leader of her cell in the Alliance against the corrupt Empire. And because she had diplomatic immunity, she was a vital link for getting information to the Rebel cause. That's what she was doing when her path crossed yours... for her foster parents had always told her to contact me on Tatooine, if her troubles became desperate. LUKE: But you can't let her get involved now, Ben. Vader will destroy her. BEN: She hasn't been trained in the ways of the Jedi the way you have, Luke... but the Force is strong with her, as it is with all of your family. There is no avoiding the battle. You must face and destroy Vader!
I think those two ideas may have been connected. Meaning, it's the control of the midichlorians that allow him to come back to life. That's purely speculation on my part, but Lucas did say he wanted to explore things on a microbiotic level.
The need to stay gone like it’s a choice seems like the flaw - obiwan was an average in power Jedi. Anakin the chosen one coming back would fit more realistically.
It comes down to the budget. You can't have two death stars, the imperial planet and a giant volcano throne room set. And also Wookies and not have it cost at least 50 million and George wanted it to 30 million.
@@JosiahIsWriteI didn’t like Ewoks even as a kid. They made stormtroopers look stupid and a joke. Wookiee’s would have been better and no Death Star but just a large final naval battle with the fleets going toe to toe in a couple locations. He had to know after ESB that Jedi was gonna be huge and make its dough back and then some. Go all out!!
It is great to have the core group together... however, in the great "Empire Strikes Back", we don't really get the trio side by side... We do get many, many great emotional scenes with pairs of these characters interacting directly. And we do have the crux of the conflicts being about trio characters saving one another.
It just brought to mind when Luke says "Your overconfidence is your weakness." And the Emperor replies, "Your faith in your friends is yours." They're apart, but their relationship is really what wins in the end.
The OT is not the problem when it comes to inconsistencies. Lucas screwed up when he wrote his prequels. He screwed up, not the OT. The rough draft was a good rough draft, just that.
Bah, the inconsistencies were there right from the beginning. Star Wars was never perfectly cohesive film-to-film. I think a lot of people who were there for the original theatrical releases didn't realize it because of the three year gap between films, and a lot of folks who got into the franchise in the late '90s and early '00s don't realize it because of the special edition alterations. I think there has always been a requirement for precision handwaving stemming from all manner of inconsistency... everything from _ambiguous terminology_ to _unforeshadowed familial ties_ to _unclear imperial hierarchies_ … the OT has never been perfect (and quite frankly, it probably doesn't have to be 😅).
Keep in mind David Lynch’s interview about meeting George Lucas makes GEORGE seem like the weird one. “He took me to this place that only served salad and he showed me this thing called a Wookiee”
Thank you so much! To quote Josh Ritter (who sings the brief song clip in the video) "I'm singing for the love of it, have mercy on the man who sings to be adored."
@@alexnejako777 I still have another video I'm working (very slowly) and there is so much cool stuff like that teaser. The thing I love about RUclips is preservation and access to stuff like that.
I keep telling everyone That Jedi was not originally meant to end with Luke turning to the dark side and putting on Vader's helmet or Han getting killed in battle with Luke riding into the sunset. It was always meant to end with the dancing Ewok celebration but with Obi-wan and Anakin coming back to life.
@@JosiahIsWriteWhile it is true Lucas originally planned to episodes 4-9. From what I have researched. He always planned to have Vader die in the third movie. Even in 1977. And when the Emperor was defeated by Luke in episode 9, there was still going to be a happy end.
@@lloydshanahan154 I'm curious about how much of the sequels he had in mind at the time of Jedi. Because based on multiple interviews from that time, he was really ready to be done with Star Wars.
@@JosiahIsWrite Interestingly enough his original draft of A New Hope from 1973 has a lot of elements of both Empire and Jedi in it. After two Jedi escape Alderan with princess Leia, they go through an asteroid field and hide in one of the Asteroids just like Empire. But they end up stealing an enemy ship and land in a forest planet were they meet the friendly natives just like Jedi. And of course they are wookies that help them capture an enemy base just like Jedi. and this event is followed by a big space battle as well. It's clear he had a lot of material to draw from. As for the prequels, in 77 he always intended the prequels to be a trilogy. He also wanted them to have a more politically driven plot. He always intended to have Yoda use a lightsaber (based on his original draft of Empire). And Lucas also wanted to have Darth Vader get his suite from a battle with Obi-Wan that caused him to fall in a pool a lava. Plus, his original outline of Star Wars from 1973 actually starts very similarly to how the Phantom Menace Starts.
@@andrewj1754 true, and I love the idea of setting up Leia more as the military leader, but as I said in the video, I also just want to see the heroes be together.
I always bemoan the idea of Leia as "the sister." It just was the key to tying everythting together too neatly and sets up why the prequels have to kind of feel way too disjointed. And i get licas feeling like he just wanted to wrap it all up for a while. The Rinzler book really illustrates just how burned out George was. And the pressure they felt to give another sort of TWIST because Empire was so effective in that regard. Really it ends up making no sense with Leia being the sister. Visually there is so much to love in rotj but thematically it loses a bitm by rushing to wrap up it dampens Palpatine
I can't recall if it's in that book or another, but he Lucas described the process of the film as pushing a boulder up a hill. As a father to kids and with a wife, now being around the age Lucas was at the time you can't discount how significant the pressure of his personal life was. Thanks for the comment!
That is correct, but I'd say the idea of Wookies was there. As you said they were in the earliest of drafts and then after Empire when it was time to write it Lucas knew he was going in a different shorter direction. Thanks for the comment and clarification!
@@JosiahIsWrite I believe what happened is that out of his original longer Star Wars script he kept the ending with the destruction of the Death Star but removed the Wookies flying the X-Wings etc. for the first film, Star Wars. When the possibility arose for sequels he used the same ending again for ROTJ but with Ewoks fighting on the planet instead of Wookies flying X-Wings. Basically his longer version of Star Wars became 3 films but he had already done half the original ending in the first film, with the Death Star, so he just repeated it in the 3rd film. The Wookie planet got lost along the way.
I don't mean to imply that, but I think a narrative was created after the fact that it was all planned point by point. At least in this instance, the broad strokes of the story all stayed the same. I think the quote I used from George Lucas about puzzle pieces is really key to understanding his process.
@@chrischreative2245 I personally love seeing how it changed and developed as he continued to work on it and how all that resulted in what we now know as Star Wars.
One thing we never really see fleshed out in the original trilogy was Palpatine's hatred and anger at Vader for first losing to Obi-wan, and then basically overseeing the destruction of the first Death Star!
Great point! He seems to really despise Vader, and yet as you said, "hey, screw up, manage our most important project!"
@@JosiahIsWrite and he worked mercilessly to replace Vader through numerous clones and padawans all throughout the original trilogy era some of which is still cannon. Vader's loss to Obi wan and subsequent injuries ruined his original timeline to disband the senate. He therefore had to play politics for 19 years and had to wait till the Death Star became operational to do so, only for Vader to then go and get the thing blown up LOL
Totally agree with your thoughts on Padme's death in ROTS!!
That setup with your action figures is the coolest!!!
The kids love it as well.
Fascinating video! God bless you! It's really interesting to see how the ideas for these films evolved from their inception. I've long been a fan of ROTJ (most of it), but it's interesting to see where the concept started and how the ideas were eventually incorporated into the franchise.
@@TKToons it's very informative! Is there anything that they decided not to do you wish made it in?
@@JosiahIsWrite Not 100% sure. I really like how they handled a lot of ROTJ in the final cut, to be honest. Though the idea of an eightiespunk proto-Coruscant is really cool, I'm just so in love with the Prequels' interpretation of the capital planet that I'm not sure I'd want it to have appeared in the '83 film. _Usually_ the changes I think would've helped Star Wars films are keeping in a few deleted scenes here and there (e.g. Biggs talking about joining the rebellion in EpIV, Mon Mothma and Bail hinting at the formation of the Rebel Alliance in EpIII... things like that).
@@TKToons yes! Corusant without CGI would be amazing!
Awesome Ewok Village. I have those action figures in my collection, too. Not sure if Endor is a better location or Hoth, but overall, Cloud City is my favorite.
Thank you! It was super fun to build. Hoth is number one for me, but among those choices there are no wrong answers.
The best part of the video is the original Ewok song at the end. That is so much better than the ending music the movie has now.
100%.
Good job on this one. Keep em comin!
Thank you so much! It was a fun one to make.
The dancer Oola was originally supposed to be escape Jabba’s palace. They supposedly created a storyboard for the scene (which I cannot find) but budget restraints prevented them from adding this in the film, and they unfortunately went with the sad ending for her.
@@ruffkuntry2574 interesting. I wasn't aware of that. I did think it was cool that for the Special Edition it was the original actress that filmed the scenes for the new stuff.
@@JosiahIsWrite She still looks great even today. I have the idea of Disney bringing her back to Star Wars in the Book of Boba Fett as Oola’s sister Nolaa Tarkona; a vengeful freedom fighter/assassin who learns of Boba killing Bib Fortuna (the guy who kidnapped her sister and made a slave to Jabba) and she swears allegiance to Boba joining his army as he fights the Hutt twins for control of Mos Espa. I have other great ideas for episodes involving her character in the show. If only I can get Disney on the phone.
@@ruffkuntry2574 it reminds me of a book I read as a kid, Tales From Jabba's Palace. It has different stories of the smaller characters. There was another one about Bounty Hunters as well. If you get Disney on the phone tell them I say, "hi."
The things I wish was changed on the final draft was Obi-Wan should've said he didn't let Luke know about his father to protect him - rather than "A certain point of view". The other is Leia having a more dramatic reaction in the discovery that she is a Skywalker and Vader's daughter.
Missed opportunities for sure.
Love seeing the deleted scenes, behind the scenes, etc. in this.
In the shooting script for Return of the Jedi, Kenobi is revealed to be Uncle Owen's brother.
Interesting. I haven't heard that but I have read that Return of the Jedi was going to reveal that Uncle Owen and Obi-Wan were brothers. Thanks for sharing!
@@JosiahIsWrite
Dialogue from the December 19, 1982 Draft
LUKE : I can't kill my own father.
BEN :Then the Emperor has already won. You were our only hope.
LUKE: Yoda spoke of another.
BEN: The other he spoke of is your twin sister.
LUKE: But I have no sister.
BEN: Hmm. To protect you both from the Emperor, you were hidden from your father when you were born. The Emperor knew, as I did, if Anakin were to have any offspring, they would be a threat to him. That is the reason why your sister remains safely anonymous.
LUKE: Leia! Leia's my sister.
BEN: Your insight serves you well. Bury your feelings deep down, Luke. They do you credit. But they could be made to serve the Emperor. When your father left, he didn't know your mother was pregnant. Your mother and I knew he would find out eventually, but we wanted to keep you both as safe as possible, for as long as possible. So I took you to live with my brother Owen, on Tatooine...and your mother took Leia to live as the daughter of Senator Organa, on Alderaan.
The Organa household was high-born and politically quite powerful in that system. Leia became a princess by virtue of lineage... no one knew she'd been adopted, of course. But it was a title without real power, since Alderaan had long been a democracy. Even so, the family continued to be politically powerful, and Leia, following in her foster father's path, became a senator as well. That's not all she became, of course... she became the leader of her cell in the Alliance against the corrupt Empire. And because she had diplomatic immunity, she was a vital link for getting information to the Rebel cause. That's what she was doing when her path crossed yours... for her foster parents had always told her to contact me on Tatooine, if her troubles became desperate.
LUKE: But you can't let her get involved now, Ben. Vader will destroy her.
BEN: She hasn't been trained in the ways of the Jedi the way you have, Luke... but the Force is strong with her, as it is with all of your family. There is no avoiding the battle. You must face and destroy Vader!
"My need to stay in the netherworld has been resolved?" Vader comes back to life?
I like this even less than midichlorians.
I think those two ideas may have been connected. Meaning, it's the control of the midichlorians that allow him to come back to life. That's purely speculation on my part, but Lucas did say he wanted to explore things on a microbiotic level.
The need to stay gone like it’s a choice seems like the flaw - obiwan was an average in power Jedi. Anakin the chosen one coming back would fit more realistically.
It comes down to the budget. You can't have two death stars, the imperial planet and a giant volcano throne room set. And also Wookies and not have it cost at least 50 million and George wanted it to 30 million.
Great point. Also Ewoks were created specifically to sell toys. Which totally worked on me as a kid.
@@JosiahIsWriteI didn’t like Ewoks even as a kid. They made stormtroopers look stupid and a joke. Wookiee’s would have been better and no Death Star but just a large final naval battle with the fleets going toe to toe in a couple locations. He had to know after ESB that Jedi was gonna be huge and make its dough back and then some. Go all out!!
@@chrischreative2245 as an Ewok fan I know that wookies would have been SO much better. I do wish it was a big huge all out battle as you said.
It is great to have the core group together... however, in the great "Empire Strikes Back", we don't really get the trio side by side... We do get many, many great emotional scenes with pairs of these characters interacting directly. And we do have the crux of the conflicts being about trio characters saving one another.
That's a great point. The relationship remains central even when they are apart.
It just brought to mind when Luke says "Your overconfidence is your weakness." And the Emperor replies, "Your faith in your friends is yours." They're apart, but their relationship is really what wins in the end.
The OT is not the problem when it comes to inconsistencies. Lucas screwed up when he wrote his prequels. He screwed up, not the OT. The rough draft was a good rough draft, just that.
Bah, the inconsistencies were there right from the beginning. Star Wars was never perfectly cohesive film-to-film. I think a lot of people who were there for the original theatrical releases didn't realize it because of the three year gap between films, and a lot of folks who got into the franchise in the late '90s and early '00s don't realize it because of the special edition alterations. I think there has always been a requirement for precision handwaving stemming from all manner of inconsistency... everything from _ambiguous terminology_ to _unforeshadowed familial ties_ to _unclear imperial hierarchies_ … the OT has never been perfect (and quite frankly, it probably doesn't have to be 😅).
Keep in mind David Lynch’s interview about meeting George Lucas makes GEORGE seem like the weird one. “He took me to this place that only served salad and he showed me this thing called a Wookiee”
Haha. There are so many ways to be weird.
Underrated channel
Thank you so much! To quote Josh Ritter (who sings the brief song clip in the video) "I'm singing for the love of it, have mercy on the man who sings to be adored."
Awesome video 😃
Thanks! It was fun to make on every level, from research, to editing.
Dude, was that the music from SNES Super Return of the Jedi at the 1:30 mark? That's awesome!
UPDATE: Yep, just saw the video game footage, haha. My ears knew that one.
It is! It's also used for the end credits.
@@zooropa04 I wasn't planning on using any clips of it, but after I put the music over the crawl I had to use it somewhere!
Very wise decision, haha.@@JosiahIsWrite
Really cool to see what might have been.
It was awesome to see the Revenge of the Jedi teaser.
@@alexnejako777 I still have another video I'm working (very slowly) and there is so much cool stuff like that teaser. The thing I love about RUclips is preservation and access to stuff like that.
Love it! Very cool Ewok village.
Fun seeing what might have been.
Have you read the closet sex scene in the 1973 rough draft when it was called “THE Star Wars”?
I have not! Can you point me to a copy. I have read The Star Wars story synopsis from May 1973, but it doesn't have that scene in it.
@@JosiahIsWrite this should be it: maddogmovies.com/almost/scripts/starwars_rough5-74.pdf
I keep telling everyone That Jedi was not originally meant to end with Luke turning to the dark side and putting on Vader's helmet or Han getting killed in battle with Luke riding into the sunset. It was always meant to end with the dancing Ewok celebration but with Obi-wan and Anakin coming back to life.
This is the earliest rough draft I'm aware of and as you said those are the main beats of the story.
@@JosiahIsWriteWhile it is true Lucas originally planned to episodes 4-9.
From what I have researched.
He always planned to have Vader die in the third movie. Even in 1977.
And when the Emperor was defeated by Luke in episode 9, there was still going to be a happy end.
@@lloydshanahan154 I'm curious about how much of the sequels he had in mind at the time of Jedi. Because based on multiple interviews from that time, he was really ready to be done with Star Wars.
@@JosiahIsWrite Interestingly enough his original draft of A New Hope from 1973 has a lot of elements of both Empire and Jedi in it.
After two Jedi escape Alderan with princess Leia, they go through an asteroid field and hide in one of the Asteroids just like Empire. But they end up stealing an enemy ship and land in a forest planet were they meet the friendly natives just like Jedi. And of course they are wookies that help them capture an enemy base just like Jedi. and this event is followed by a big space battle as well.
It's clear he had a lot of material to draw from.
As for the prequels, in 77 he always intended the prequels to be a trilogy.
He also wanted them to have a more politically driven plot.
He always intended to have Yoda use a lightsaber (based on his original draft of Empire).
And Lucas also wanted to have Darth Vader get his suite from a battle with Obi-Wan that caused him to fall in a pool a lava.
Plus, his original outline of Star Wars from 1973 actually starts very similarly to how the Phantom Menace Starts.
@@lloydshanahan154 yeah, I mean 7-9, not the original films or prequels.
The premise for the story is not bad. Start with action on the sanctuary moon led by Leia.
@@andrewj1754 true, and I love the idea of setting up Leia more as the military leader, but as I said in the video, I also just want to see the heroes be together.
I always bemoan the idea of Leia as "the sister." It just was the key to tying everythting together too neatly and sets up why the prequels have to kind of feel way too disjointed. And i get licas feeling like he just wanted to wrap it all up for a while. The Rinzler book really illustrates just how burned out George was. And the pressure they felt to give another sort of TWIST because Empire was so effective in that regard. Really it ends up making no sense with Leia being the sister. Visually there is so much to love in rotj but thematically it loses a bitm by rushing to wrap up it dampens Palpatine
I can't recall if it's in that book or another, but he Lucas described the process of the film as pushing a boulder up a hill. As a father to kids and with a wife, now being around the age Lucas was at the time you can't discount how significant the pressure of his personal life was. Thanks for the comment!
They should put an Ewok village in Disneyland.
There already is, it's part of Star Tours.
Wookies weren't in the original draft of ROTJ. They were in the original draft of Star Wars.
That is correct, but I'd say the idea of Wookies was there. As you said they were in the earliest of drafts and then after Empire when it was time to write it Lucas knew he was going in a different shorter direction. Thanks for the comment and clarification!
@@JosiahIsWrite
I believe what happened is that out of his original longer Star Wars script he kept the ending with the destruction of the Death Star but removed the Wookies flying the X-Wings etc. for the first film, Star Wars.
When the possibility arose for sequels he used the same ending again for ROTJ but with Ewoks fighting on the planet instead of Wookies flying X-Wings.
Basically his longer version of Star Wars became 3 films but he had already done half the original ending in the first film, with the Death Star, so he just repeated it in the 3rd film. The Wookie planet got lost along the way.
I like to rip the stuffing out of Ewok plushies.
Ewoks are the worst! LOL.
Cool.
Wouldn't be the same without the illustration of some points by your two cookie destruction machines.
Very true.
Could someone please just, for the love of God, just shut up about Han, Leia, and Luke not being together in a karfing movie... ?
I'm extremely jealous of your Ewok village 😊
Thank you. I plan on doing a video about it soon. All handmade by me, although it's not quite finished yet.
@@JosiahIsWrite that's some mad crazy skills you've got. I thought it was part of some toy range. 👏👏
This all seems to imply Lucas was making it up as he goes , as opposed to having a grand plan all along.
I don't mean to imply that, but I think a narrative was created after the fact that it was all planned point by point. At least in this instance, the broad strokes of the story all stayed the same. I think the quote I used from George Lucas about puzzle pieces is really key to understanding his process.
Star Wars was too long to film in one movie so they had to split it up.
@@chrischreative2245 I personally love seeing how it changed and developed as he continued to work on it and how all that resulted in what we now know as Star Wars.
Neat.
Cool Ewok village.
Neat.