![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
The Road to Star Wars, Part 1: Coming of Age
Continuing my trek through the early drafts of Star Wars available online, I've now re-read the "rough draft." In many ways, I think I find it the most interesting of those available. Now an actual script with names (although those now-familiar names were all up for disconcerting grabs in a revision of this first draft) and dialogue, it contains plenty of recognisable pieces (such as a sudden, unpleasant appearance in the field of view of "electrobinoculars" and watching a binary sunset), including some that seem to have inspired parts of the saga following Star Wars itself... but still in an intriguingly different arrangement. One change that's brought it closer to the Star Wars that we know, though, is that General Luke Skywalker has moved a little into the background, and the ten "boy rebels" have possibly been condensed into one youthful protagonist, Annikin Starkiller.
With that said, Annikin's "hero's journey" isn't quite as lengthy as Luke's became. He starts out as an all-but-trained student of his own father, Kane Starkiller, and while the "Jedi Bendu" are competent fighters even in the face of near-extermination by "the Knights of Sith," they don't quite seem to have psychic powers yet for all that people often refer to "the force of others". Nor do they quite seem to have all the other qualities and quirks of the Jedi when Annikin flirts with a cute young female aide, pinching her rear and then having an implied quickie in a "computer closet" with her, before being sent to rescue the initially ungrateful Princess Leia. That juxtaposition of names, no doubt, might cause brain synapses to fry among those who make an especially big deal about a certain kiss in The Empire Strikes Back, although others may just choose to freak out over Annikin punching the Princess out at one point early on. (As far as additional reasons to become apoplectic about this draft go, it might be best if David Brin doesn't know that the Jedi have been "the personal bodyguards of the emperor" for "one hundred thousand years," expanding the Empire across the galaxy in the process, before a mere "New Empire" rose with the aid of the Sith, or that "the Aquilae family" has ruled their world for "ten thousand years" and that if that noble line was to be broken the good citizens of that mostly desert world might well destroy themselves.)
The "New Empire's" effort to complete itself by conquering a beleagured world more or less drives the story, but it seems to me that in some ways Aquilae stands alone; there's no larger Rebellion. (I suppose that in this case, there's not quite as much to restore.) It does hope to get help from the "chrome companies" through the quite science-fictional way of cloning its most brilliant scientists and infusing those young replicas with concentrated brain serum, but not much seems to result from this in the end. (It does manage to mention "chrome" several times more, though, in a script full of references to "chrome multiplelaser rifles," "chrome lazerpistols," Threepio as a "chrome android," "the fascist black and chrome uniform of the legendary Sith One Hundred," and a "solid chrome desk" Kane Starkiller breaks his artificial forearm open on in a fit of rage. This is an image that would be repeated in the next two drafts, by a different character each time; I suppose we're lucky Anakin never broke his artificial arm in the same fashion in the new movies.) Instead, our heroes enlist the aid of primitive Wookiees, leading to many, many fanboy lamentations over the years about how tall Wookiees would have been so much cooler than short Ewoks. Still, this may at least manage to keep some of them from quite picking up on the Vietnam metaphor and tossing out the note of corrupt politicials calling off a starfighter attack on the Empire's all but nameless space fortress on the brink of seeming victory as a possible ideological counterweight. (The quite articulate "Artwo Detwo" and Threepio call the fortress "six twenty-nine, P.R. one" and "a class M station". There are other interesting ramifications to Artwo being able to talk, including that he delivers some lines that went to Threepio in the continuing development of Star Wars, thus making the two of them seem somewhat interchangeable in terms of personality, and that he plays dumb when he first meets Annikin and the Princess.)
The "battle of the primitives" does suggest that this is the draft George Lucas decided to break into pieces to make a first, more manageable movie. At the same time, though, to me there may be a sort of "disillusioning knowledge" quality to the draft, as it's clearly not the saga in complete just yet, as I sometimes wonder his comments can be interpreted. The draft may also contain the Sith "Prince Valorum," as opposed to the mere "General Darth Vader," rebelling to save Annikin, but this seems to be just a matter of the Sith becoming disillusioned with the honourless mechanism of the Empire and earning a reward in the process, not a last, desperate, resonant attempt to renounce evil and become someone capable of doing good once more. Still, to be offended just because George Lucas didn't come up with everything in a single flash of insight and then have to wait for years to get it all made, instead of being able to refine ideas along the way, seems kind of ridiculous to me.
Interestingly, there was once a MSTing written of this draft. Unfortunately, the MSTing's author seemed to have fallen into a trap that could afflict others, of proclaiming that because a work had been selected for "riffing" it had no redeeming qualities whatsoever. The MSTing seemed quite unpleasant indeed to me, dripping with sneering and bashing and veiled attacks on the actual movies to top things off, and I wound up deleting it and not missing it. (It even tried to draw freak-out parallels between the draft and the trailer for The Phantom Menace, just months from release at that point. That, mind you, may have helped leave me wondering if the space battle in the trailers would be in the middle of the movie, right where the now-familiar battle had been moved to in the draft, to end in disaster and leave the protagonists searching for help on Tatooine and underwater. I was surprised in an interested way to see how things did shape up. In any case, the draft contains a moment of mistaken identity involving one of the Princess's maids-in-waiting and an ominous enemy formation perhaps not that different from the Trade Federation army.) A little while later, when the "Fall of the Republic" MSTing was first announced, the leader of that effort also said he would be leading a MSTing of the first rough draft, describing it not as "bad," but just as "not like Star Wars as we know it." Encouraged by that but aware of the old, nasty "riffs" still lurking in my mind, I volunteered for the "Fall of the Republic" MSTing alone but with the comment that I hoped the other project would turn out well. Horrified that he had fallen without realising it into a discouraged sin among MSTers of trying to top previous efforts, the group leader canceled his work. I still kick myself for doing that.
With that said, Annikin's "hero's journey" isn't quite as lengthy as Luke's became. He starts out as an all-but-trained student of his own father, Kane Starkiller, and while the "Jedi Bendu" are competent fighters even in the face of near-extermination by "the Knights of Sith," they don't quite seem to have psychic powers yet for all that people often refer to "the force of others". Nor do they quite seem to have all the other qualities and quirks of the Jedi when Annikin flirts with a cute young female aide, pinching her rear and then having an implied quickie in a "computer closet" with her, before being sent to rescue the initially ungrateful Princess Leia. That juxtaposition of names, no doubt, might cause brain synapses to fry among those who make an especially big deal about a certain kiss in The Empire Strikes Back, although others may just choose to freak out over Annikin punching the Princess out at one point early on. (As far as additional reasons to become apoplectic about this draft go, it might be best if David Brin doesn't know that the Jedi have been "the personal bodyguards of the emperor" for "one hundred thousand years," expanding the Empire across the galaxy in the process, before a mere "New Empire" rose with the aid of the Sith, or that "the Aquilae family" has ruled their world for "ten thousand years" and that if that noble line was to be broken the good citizens of that mostly desert world might well destroy themselves.)
The "New Empire's" effort to complete itself by conquering a beleagured world more or less drives the story, but it seems to me that in some ways Aquilae stands alone; there's no larger Rebellion. (I suppose that in this case, there's not quite as much to restore.) It does hope to get help from the "chrome companies" through the quite science-fictional way of cloning its most brilliant scientists and infusing those young replicas with concentrated brain serum, but not much seems to result from this in the end. (It does manage to mention "chrome" several times more, though, in a script full of references to "chrome multiplelaser rifles," "chrome lazerpistols," Threepio as a "chrome android," "the fascist black and chrome uniform of the legendary Sith One Hundred," and a "solid chrome desk" Kane Starkiller breaks his artificial forearm open on in a fit of rage. This is an image that would be repeated in the next two drafts, by a different character each time; I suppose we're lucky Anakin never broke his artificial arm in the same fashion in the new movies.) Instead, our heroes enlist the aid of primitive Wookiees, leading to many, many fanboy lamentations over the years about how tall Wookiees would have been so much cooler than short Ewoks. Still, this may at least manage to keep some of them from quite picking up on the Vietnam metaphor and tossing out the note of corrupt politicials calling off a starfighter attack on the Empire's all but nameless space fortress on the brink of seeming victory as a possible ideological counterweight. (The quite articulate "Artwo Detwo" and Threepio call the fortress "six twenty-nine, P.R. one" and "a class M station". There are other interesting ramifications to Artwo being able to talk, including that he delivers some lines that went to Threepio in the continuing development of Star Wars, thus making the two of them seem somewhat interchangeable in terms of personality, and that he plays dumb when he first meets Annikin and the Princess.)
The "battle of the primitives" does suggest that this is the draft George Lucas decided to break into pieces to make a first, more manageable movie. At the same time, though, to me there may be a sort of "disillusioning knowledge" quality to the draft, as it's clearly not the saga in complete just yet, as I sometimes wonder his comments can be interpreted. The draft may also contain the Sith "Prince Valorum," as opposed to the mere "General Darth Vader," rebelling to save Annikin, but this seems to be just a matter of the Sith becoming disillusioned with the honourless mechanism of the Empire and earning a reward in the process, not a last, desperate, resonant attempt to renounce evil and become someone capable of doing good once more. Still, to be offended just because George Lucas didn't come up with everything in a single flash of insight and then have to wait for years to get it all made, instead of being able to refine ideas along the way, seems kind of ridiculous to me.
Interestingly, there was once a MSTing written of this draft. Unfortunately, the MSTing's author seemed to have fallen into a trap that could afflict others, of proclaiming that because a work had been selected for "riffing" it had no redeeming qualities whatsoever. The MSTing seemed quite unpleasant indeed to me, dripping with sneering and bashing and veiled attacks on the actual movies to top things off, and I wound up deleting it and not missing it. (It even tried to draw freak-out parallels between the draft and the trailer for The Phantom Menace, just months from release at that point. That, mind you, may have helped leave me wondering if the space battle in the trailers would be in the middle of the movie, right where the now-familiar battle had been moved to in the draft, to end in disaster and leave the protagonists searching for help on Tatooine and underwater. I was surprised in an interested way to see how things did shape up. In any case, the draft contains a moment of mistaken identity involving one of the Princess's maids-in-waiting and an ominous enemy formation perhaps not that different from the Trade Federation army.) A little while later, when the "Fall of the Republic" MSTing was first announced, the leader of that effort also said he would be leading a MSTing of the first rough draft, describing it not as "bad," but just as "not like Star Wars as we know it." Encouraged by that but aware of the old, nasty "riffs" still lurking in my mind, I volunteered for the "Fall of the Republic" MSTing alone but with the comment that I hoped the other project would turn out well. Horrified that he had fallen without realising it into a discouraged sin among MSTers of trying to top previous efforts, the group leader canceled his work. I still kick myself for doing that.
no subject
Funny how Anakin was a bad boy even way back when ;).
no subject
No doubt I'm biased, but I think "Fall of the Republic" made for a much better MSTing than the rough draft. Of course, we were a little less obsessed with just plain declaring it to be without merit every few "riffs."