Les Jones

George Lucas Rolling Stone Interviews

Monday, November 27th, 2006 | Star Wars |

This 1977 Rolling Stone George Lucas interview is fascinating. Some fanboys are convinced that Lucas conceived the entire Star Wars trilogy all at once, with everything mapped out ahead of time. It turns out he was making huge changes in the original move even as he was making it:

In the original script Ben Kenobi doesn’t get killed in the fight with Vader. About halfway through production, I took Alec aside and said I was going to kill him off halfway through the picture. It is quite a shock to an actor when you say, “I know you have a big part and you are going to the end and be a hero and everything and all of a sudden I have decided to kill you,” but he took it very well and he began to build on it and helped and developed the character accordingly.

Was the studio upset when you told them Kenobi would die?

Everybody was upset. I was struggling with the problem that I had this sort of climactic scene that had no climax about two-thirds of the way through the film. I had another problem in the fact that there was no real threat in the Death Star. The villains were like tenpins; you get into a gunfight with them and they just get knocked over. As I originally wrote it, Ben Kenobi and Vader had a sword fight and Ben hits a door and the door slams closed and they all run away and Vader is left standing there with egg oil his face. This was dumb; they run into the Death Star and they sort of take over everything and they run back. It totally diminished any impact the Death Star had.

The more recent “Cult of Darth Vader” is pretty good, too. One thing I learned from that is that “Darth Vader” is basically “dark father.” Makes sense.

3 Comments to George Lucas Rolling Stone Interviews

Michael
November 27, 2006

I don’t think George had the entire Star Wars series plotted out when he did the first one any more than I think the Matrix guys had their trilogy plotted out when that one came out.

Les Jones
November 27, 2006

Yep, but that’s the belief among some folks. The re-releases of the original Star Wars say “Episode IV: A New Hope” which some people think proves it. It doesn’t, of course. The original movie didn’t say that. Lucas added it later.

That’s why the time-limited originals are on my Christmas wish list. I want to be able to see the originals as they were released in the movie theaters.

Trebor
November 27, 2006

You know, I actually remember parts of that article from when I read it in ‘77. My parents subscribed to RS at the time and I read every article about Star Wars that they published. I wish I still had that issue, but it was lost a couple of moves ago…

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