A sub-set of Star Wars fans, those who consider the last two installments of the franchise a crime against the greater myth, have clutched to the concept that George Lucas possessed a gran plan for the series of movies and if those had been made everything would be to their love.
In my opinion there never was a detailed gran plan for the interconnected stories of Star Wars. I was a teenager who the first film hit the theaters of 1977 and I remember desperately waiting for the film to come to town so I could see it. In those pre-internet days and before the time of 3000 screen opening weekends, movies opened in big cities and slowly, over the course of the entire summer, moved into new markets. Since I was stuck waiting for the movie to arrive I read the novel. While credited to George Lucas, the talented Alan Dean Foster, who worked closely with Lucas on that manuscript, wrote the novel. In the novel the Emperor is describe as someone who has become capture by the bootlickers and yes men of his court simply another cog in the great machine that is the evil empire. Lucas had no grand design for Palpatine and his role in the coming story. During the famous cantina scene, when Han shot Greedo from under the table, we are treated to the point of view from others watching who were bemused that Greedo allowed Han to get that hand under the table because that sort of ambush shooting was something Han had done to others. And yet when the 1999 Special Edition came out Lucas defended his re-edit with Greedo shooting first as his original vision and that poor editing, way to throw you ex-wife and her team under the bus, cause people to be confused as to who actually shot first.
Moving away from the novel, in the film Obi-Wan tell Luke that Vader betrayed and murdered father, then helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi. The father bit is Obi-wan being tricky, but when we get to Revenge of the Sithwe’ll learn that Vader killed the children, Jedi in training, while storm troopers dispatched the mighty Jedi by shooting them in the back.
When The Empire Strikes Back hit theaters the scope of the canvas grew and the story deepened. I think it was clear that Lucas always intended for Vader to be Luke’s father. The groundwork for that had been laid down in the first film, but it seems to me that Lucas had no clear conception of Vader’s relationship to the rest of the empire. In the first film Lea refers to Tarkin as ‘holding Vader’s leash’ and yet from the second film onward Vader is the Emperor’s man and carries his authority wherever Vader goes, hardly someone on a leash. Also the Emperor has now morphed from a bureaucrat to a powerful force master. By now the Emperor had become a central story element but from that description in the novel it is clear he was originally conceived in that role.
In The Return of the Jedi we are told that when Obi-wan first met Anakin Skywalker he was already a great pilot and that Obi-wan was amazed at how powerful the force was with Skywalker. He though he could teach Anakin the ways of the force as well as Master Yoda, but he was wrong. A power story of hubris that is contradicted by the events in the film The Phantom Menacewhere Obi-wan is a student himself, Anakin is a child/slave, and it is Obi-Wan’s master who wants to train young Anakin.
The conflicting story elements between the first trilogy and the prequel one makes it clear that there was not only no detailed plan for the events but that Lucas didn’t hold even a passing interest in continuity. I find it strains credibility to believe that he had a detailed outline for the next series of movies. And would not have flow by the seat of pants, as his history shows was his most preferred method.
