The First Draft of Star Wars

The first draft of Star Wars was pretty awful. Mystery Man on Film takes a closer look at the 1974 version in which the young hero is Annikin Starkiller, Luke Skywalker is an elderly general, and Darth Vader is a minor character.
LEIA
Will we make it? Is there any hope? Stay with me... I love you.

Starkiller is slightly shocked at this outburst. The princess starts to cry and clings to him for support.

STARKILLER
No-one is going to die...so stop acting like a child, and start behaving like a queen. What is this silly talk of love? You belong to the people of Aquilae, and my job is to return you to them, nothing more. Now straighten up and get into a lifepod.

She's deeply hurt by his callousness. She breaks away from him and runs down a hallway into a lifepod. He is tired, and angry at the whole incident.

It makes you wonder what difference it would have made if George Lucas had rewritten the prequels a couple more times. Link -via Metafilter

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Now that we've seen what Lucas did with Chapters 1, 2 and 3, it's pretty obvious that he had some major behind-the-scenes help with the original Chapters 4, 5 and 6.

We'll probably never know who was the real 'man behind the curtain'.....
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When you start your science fiction epic masterpiece by titling it "The Journal of the Whills", the Fail Button has already been pushed. Lucas was lucky to be surrounded by the right technical people to get the ball rolling and turn it around.
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I highly recommend the book, The Making of Star Wars: The Definitive Story Behind the Original Film. It gives a great account of the birthing pains Lucas went through to get the first movie made. It really _was_ quite an heroic feat (as well as a lot of his own money in the early production), but it also makes clear that his huge success allowed him to later surround himself with nothing but sycophantic yes-men instead of brutally honest creative collaborators. Many of his later creative endeavors would have been a lot more interesting and entertaining if he, himself had realized this.
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