LITERATURE

LUKE, I WAS NOT YOUR ORIGINAL FATHER

April 16 2013
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By Ben Novotny
STAR WARS PATERNITY SECRETS REVEALEDvader
Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s father. Your dentist knows this, your grandma knows this, your Albanian host family knows this. Simply put, everyone knows this. But I’d bet Jabba’s backfat you didn’t know that George Lucas hadn’t decided to make Darth Vader Luke Skywalker’s father until 1978, the year after the first Star Wars movie came out? Neither did I, until I read The Secret History of Star Wars by Michael Kaminski.
 
Published in 2008, Kaminski’s book is a must read for any die-hard Star Wars fanatic. It goes into great detail about how all the films were written and the inspiration behind each of them. Personally, I found the tidbits about the original backstories for the first three movies the most fascinating sections of the book. The backstories for A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi offer Lucas’ original vision for the prequel trilogy. For instance, Lucas had intended Luke’s father to be a stand- alone character in his first draft of Empire. This draft also included scenes with the character growing up alongside Obi-Wan Kenobi and later being killed by Darth Vader. It wasn’t until he had very severe writer’s block while writing Empire that Lucas decided to consolidate the two characters into one.
 
This wasn’t the only divergence in the Skywalker family tree. Lucas had also not originally intended for Luke and Princess Leia to be twin siblings. So when Leia kisses Luke at the beginning of Empire,Lucas honestly did not have incest on his mind [Editor’s Note: This is coincidentally the only time Lucas did not have incest on his mind.]
 
If you are a huge Star Wars buff like me and can’t wait two years for Episode VII to come out, I highly recommend reading The Secret History of Star Wars to try to pass the time. I guarantee it will be just as entertaining as going through an entire original Star Wars trilogy marathon.
           
Last Updated on Tuesday, 16 April 2013 12:32
 

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