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Post by Finarvyn on Oct 11, 2009 16:58:34 GMT -6
Early in my gaming lifetime I discovered Star Wars. Not "Episode IV: A New Hope" but just plain Star Wars. Back in "the day" a friend and I ran a game we called "Space Wars" (clever title, that :  to play our Star Wars campaign. (This was before WEG made an actual SWRPG, and we also played that one once it got published.) Anyway, reading A Secret History of Star Wars (discussed in this thread) got me thinking about the "good old days" before there were any sequels and certainly no "Saga". I thought I would list a few points from the book, and maybe tell a tale or two about our campaign, in this thread. Others can certainly add to my list if they think of anything.... 1. Obi Wan wasn't a sneak -- This was before "a certain point of view" and Obi Wan was honest with Luke. 2. Darth was his name, not a title -- Obi Wan called Vader "Darth" on a couple of occasions, and clearly not as some Sith title. 3. Vader was not Luke's father -- George Lucas interviews at the time gave hints of Luke's father and Obi Wan fighting with Darth Vader. Vader killed Luke's dad and Obi Wan nearly killed Vader but Vader escaped, falling into lava and requiring his special suit to keep him alive. 4. Luke and Leia were not twins -- I still cringe during that scene on the Death Star where they kiss briefly, now that Lucas has twisted details of the Saga. At the time it was hero rescuing princess, no more or no less. Heck, and Vader tortured Leia and couldn't "feel a tremor in the Force" during the event? Right. 5. Vader was really, really nasty! -- Later on, when we find out that the Emperor was an Uber-Sith and Vader just another toady, it's such a letdown. In the original it's hinted that Vader was in control over a weak Emperor, not the other way around. Vader was supposed to have hunted down and killed a bunch of Jedi who could defend themselves, not butchered a classroom of Jedi-children. More as I think of them..... |
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Post by geoffrey on Oct 11, 2009 19:44:54 GMT -6
I'm glad you're enjoying the book, Fin. The author (whom I primarily think of as "zombie", since that is the name by which he goes on Star Wars message boards) is a great guy, and I'm humbled by having a (very small!) part in the book.
I was very active for years (circa 2000 to 2006) on the message boards at theforce.net, then I switched to outerrimsieges.com. My activity level now is, I'm afraid, not much more than zero. Their "old-schoolers" are called "bashers" (as in, bashing the prequels). I started the perennial thread called "The Bashers' Sanctuary", and I had wonderful times bashing the prequels and defending the OT (the original trilogy).
*sigh* It's a bit of a melancholy feeling, with most of that all in the past.
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bat
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Post by bat on Oct 12, 2009 10:38:43 GMT -6
I will need to track down this book. I remember reading the novelization of the first film as a wee lad and being blown away. Vader IS a monster, he is described in menacing terms, it isn't a watered down, sympathetic villain as he becomes as the books and story trail along.
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Post by coffee on Oct 12, 2009 11:59:00 GMT -6
Not only that, but the novelization was specifically noted as being "From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker". Not Anakin Skywalker; not Darth Vader. Luke. He was the hero.
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Post by thegreyelf on Oct 12, 2009 12:58:00 GMT -6
I posted a defense of the prequels over in the other thread, but I do have to say my favorite retconning by Lucas is the "It was only ever intended to be six films" line.
Read the introduction/preface to Splinter of the Mind's Eye, where Lucas himself states that he had written "nine films, and [what he was telling] was the middle story, with the before story and after story to be told later."
If I remember correctly, he also states that the final Trilogy--the after story--was to involve the next generation of Skywalkers. At some point (probably around the crafting of the prequels) he decided that no, the whole story was about Vader and there was no after story.
Personally, I'd have found a "third generation" story to be rather interesting. And no, I don't count the EU, which I think is largely a great big steaming pile of crap with a few pearls buried deep in the middle. I do enjoy the Legacy comic series a great deal, however.
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Post by stonetoflesh on Oct 12, 2009 14:53:52 GMT -6
Great post Fin, I couldn't agree more. The more I hear about this book, the more I want to check it out!
It's not mere nostalgia that makes me appreciate re-reading the late '70s comics or books (like SME or Daley's Han Solo trilogy) -- the "classic" Star Wars universe had a wide-open feeling of adventure, unburdened by the Saga's soap opera baggage...
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Post by Finarvyn on Oct 12, 2009 18:01:31 GMT -6
Not only that, but the novelization was specifically noted as being "From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker". Not Anakin Skywalker; not Darth Vader. Luke. He was the hero. And to me this represents the place where the Saga deviated the most from the original concept. Early concept = battle of good vs evil. Simple and without baggage. Hero (Luke) rescues the princess. Obi Wan is a Paladin of the Republic. Han Solo is shady and he shoots first in the cantina. It's a lot like a basic D&D style adventure. Saga concept = introduction of "gray areas" so that Vader isn't really evil, just misunderstood. Obi Wan tells untruths to hide the fact that he's an incompetent teacher. The princess falls for the pirate rather than the farmboy. It's a lot like an Indie "storytelling" style adventure. Both have their strong points, but there is a certain fun aspect attached to the original movie as presented which gets lost under the Saga umbrella. Just my two galactic credits. |
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Post by verhaden on Oct 12, 2009 18:58:41 GMT -6
I've never been a huge Star Wars buff--my dad had me hooked on Star Trek: TOS at an early age. But I've always appreciated the first two Star Wars movies. I really like a lot of the aesthetics, but the movies never really seemed "right" as a whole. It's something I'd like to strip piecemeal for parts and reconstruct. This scene, in particular, I would have appreciated in the final cut: www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEPQ9OYOPnUI was somewhat impressed by the "Knights of the Old Republic" video games that came out on PC. It allowed people other than Lucas to muddle about in the Star Wars universe thousands of years before media entrenched, established cannon. |
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Post by apeloverage on Oct 14, 2009 18:41:48 GMT -6
There's a page of draft scripts here. It doesn't seem like George Lucas had the story all worked out beforehand, since the story changes quite a lot. |
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Bard
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Post by Bard on Oct 18, 2009 10:53:02 GMT -6
There's a page of draft scripts here. And by the way, anyone knows where can I find the Empire Strikes Back script by Leigh Brackett? That one I really want to read... |
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Post by greenfielder on Nov 13, 2009 22:41:28 GMT -6
I by no means want to begin a prequel/OT war. I was more of a Star Trek geek growing up, and I did enjoy the prequels especially the 2nd and 3rd.
At any rate, I think anytime a fantasy or sci-fi world is so completely filled in and mapped to the nth degree it loses its magic. IMHO, in its first appearance Ep 4 was full of stuff to see and notice- it was a new world and the movie just seemed to go by at a fast clip.
But watch it now if youve seen multiple times; it seems a bit slow.
Tolkien filled up his world with plenty of detail, backstory and history. But he only reference much of it obliquely or in passing and so to the reader there was much we were never fully made aware of. Theres still "more on the edge of the map" so to speak.
At any rate in the Extended Universe theres absolutely no room for new ground to be turned. Between comics, books video games and TV shows everything in the EU seems cataloged and numbered.
IMHO.
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Post by Falconer on Nov 14, 2009 13:08:54 GMT -6
The Empire Strikes Back is too good to ignore. It could be viewed simply as another "Episode" if not for The Return of the Jedi rushing things to a conclusion.
But I would give it up even the excellent ESB if instead we could have had a TV show (The Adventures of Luke Skywalker) continuation of the movie Star Wars, in the same format as Battlestar Galactica or Buck Rogers.
This is why I quite seriously enjoy the Star Wars Holiday Special. Stripped of the "variety show" elements, there are some decent stories in there, particularly the cartoon and the framing Han Solo & Chewbacca story. It's cheesy but it's unpretentious.
Another interesting thing to re-imagine is the Clone Wars, the Republic, and the Jedi knights based solely on 1977 materials.
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Post by grodog on Nov 14, 2009 21:44:18 GMT -6
I received _The Secret History of Star Wars_ for my birthday, and will begin reading it in a few days, I think. It sounds very cool per all of your comments, so I'm really looking forward to it  |
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Post by Malcadon on Nov 15, 2009 2:09:25 GMT -6
I always consider the original trilogy to be flawless, but I also find the original concepts to be vary interesting. As a son of an old-school SW fanatic and fan-fic writer, I grew up hearing all sorts of stuff about the SW fiction - like all the strange developments in the original story and screenplay. From what I remembered (mind you, its been awhile), Darth Vader was not Anakin Skywalker, but Obi-wan's Jedi Apprentice who betrayed him because he was a greedy bastard, the light saber was a magical artifact that was pass down from father to son (and only works for Jedi), Leia was originally going to be called Princess Luke (I think), Darth Vader crashed into a volcano, and Luke Skywalker (under a different name) destroyed the (original) Death Star with a fleet of Wookie fighter pilots. ESB and RotJ was both in a way a tack-on to the original, but it worked vary well - mostly because other people did the writing and gave the actors more freedom to add lib. I really enjoyed getting to see the classic movie on the BIG SCREEN, but I would have been content with just a digital cleanup - much of the added stuff was just annoying or pointless! The prequels was a huge letdown! The real heartache was the whole Methacholine concept - was he watching Dragonball Z or something? "Vagita, what is that green imp's power level?" "OVER 9,000!!!" Really? The "shroud over the Force" concept was equally stupid! I guess Star Wars really proves that state-of-the-art special effects truly don't make a movie.  |
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Post by Finarvyn on Nov 15, 2009 9:36:18 GMT -6
I received _The Secret History of Star Wars_ for my birthday, and will begin reading it in a few days, I think. It sounds very cool per all of your comments, so I'm really looking forward to it Just finished it last night. It's a great book, but has one flaw. The flaw is that it was about twice as thick as it should have been. While I felt the book was interesting, well researched, and well written, I also felt like the same points were driven home over and over. I kept getting that "deja vu" feeling of "wait, didn't I just read this?" and after a while it became a little distracting. Loved the book, however, because it reinforced some theories I have held for 30 years and also because it got be thinking about Star Wars again. I find that after a while I get bored with SW and need a jump-start. Now I want to re-watch the movies, re-read some of the books, and re-invent my RPG campaigns. (This same thing happened last spring with the new Star Trek movie. I had boxed up all my old TOS Trek books and games and stored them in the back of my closet, then the new movie got me to dust 'em off and re-appreciate them again.) |
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Post by makofan on Nov 16, 2009 10:00:28 GMT -6
I like to play WEG d6 Star Wars without any of the SW characters, just the basic universe itself as first presented in the "Star Wars" and "Empiee Strikes Back"
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Post by stonetoflesh on Apr 23, 2010 16:54:58 GMT -6
And by the way, anyone knows where can I find the Empire Strikes Back script by Leigh Brackett? Sorry for the thread necromancy... Brackett's ESB script can be downloaded here. Great summary here. |
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Post by geoffrey on Apr 23, 2010 18:25:13 GMT -6
Thanks for that script! I've been wanting to read that for years.  |
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Post by piper on Apr 23, 2010 18:46:17 GMT -6
Thanks from me, too!
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EdOWar
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Post by EdOWar on May 15, 2010 20:28:39 GMT -6
Early in my gaming lifetime I discovered Star Wars. Not "Episode IV: A New Hope" but just plain Star Wars. Back in "the day" a friend and I ran a game we called "Space Wars" (clever title, that : to play our Star Wars campaign. (This was before WEG made an actual SWRPG, and we also played that one once it got published.) Anyway, reading A Secret History of Star Wars (discussed in this thread) got me thinking about the "good old days" before there were any sequels and certainly no "Saga". I thought I would list a few points from the book, and maybe tell a tale or two about our campaign, in this thread. Others can certainly add to my list if they think of anything.... 1. Obi Wan wasn't a sneak -- This was before "a certain point of view" and Obi Wan was honest with Luke. 2. Darth was his name, not a title -- Obi Wan called Vader "Darth" on a couple of occasions, and clearly not as some Sith title. 3. Vader was not Luke's father -- George Lucas interviews at the time gave hints of Luke's father and Obi Wan fighting with Darth Vader. Vader killed Luke's dad and Obi Wan nearly killed Vader but Vader escaped, falling into lava and requiring his special suit to keep him alive. 4. Luke and Leia were not twins -- I still cringe during that scene on the Death Star where they kiss briefly, now that Lucas has twisted details of the Saga. At the time it was hero rescuing princess, no more or no less. Heck, and Vader tortured Leia and couldn't "feel a tremor in the Force" during the event? Right. 5. Vader was really, really nasty! -- Later on, when we find out that the Emperor was an Uber-Sith and Vader just another toady, it's such a letdown. In the original it's hinted that Vader was in control over a weak Emperor, not the other way around. Vader was supposed to have hunted down and killed a bunch of Jedi who could defend themselves, not butchered a classroom of Jedi-children. More as I think of them..... To me this would make an excellent basis for a Star Wars RPG, before all the gaps were filled in by the subsequent films and other cannon. I was about 6 or 7 when Star Wars came out and I still remember my Dad taking me to see it. Back then Star Wars was still mysterious and wide open...it could have been anything or gone just about anywhere. The Force was mysterious and powerful (not a bunch of bacteria), we didn't know what the heck the Clone Wars was (though it sounded totally cool) and Vader was the ultimate movie villain. True, we didn't have bad-ass Boba Fett yet either, but he could have been introduced without all the other story elements that start to throw things out of whack; and from a "wondrous wide open" perspective, Boba Fett was probably the best addition from ESB, introducing the concept of bounty hunters chasing smugglers across a wide open galaxy...how cool is that. |
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Post by Finarvyn on May 15, 2010 20:56:58 GMT -6
And honestly that's the way we played it back "in the day" when we used OD&D and tweaked it to be Star Wars. Cleric becomes Jedi, toss in some SW weapons and critters, and play!
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EdOWar
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
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Post by EdOWar on May 15, 2010 21:15:13 GMT -6
And honestly that's the way we played it back "in the day" when we used OD&D and tweaked it to be Star Wars. Cleric becomes Jedi, toss in some SW weapons and critters, and play! And that sounds really cool. I like sci-fi games like Traveller and such, but there are times when I don't want to worry about the science part of it so much. Just jump in your ship, hit the hyperdrive, land on a weird planet without worrying too much about its gravity or atmospheric density, whip out your blaster and shoot aliens in the face. Oh, and take their stuff, too. Edit: Hmm, now I'm feeling inspired.... |
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Post by Dave L on May 26, 2010 14:11:28 GMT -6
Well, I was 10 years old when Star Wars was at the cinema, and it was the first movie I ever went to on my own.
I can still remember sitting there, gazing up at the screen, when the Star Destroyer moves into view.
Woah!
The rest, as they say, is history.
I took on board the rest of the story as it came out, but for me, the original remains an iconic part of my childhood.
I've never role-played it, but if I did it would be using the archetypes from the original - and Vader would be pure evil.
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Post by Finarvyn on Aug 8, 2010 9:01:21 GMT -6
I've always thought of this alternate "non-saga canon" as being composed of two sources:
1. Star Wars (1977)
2. Splinter of the Mind's Eye (1978)
However, my sister reminded me today that the three Han Solo books by Brian Daley were printed in 1979, 1979, and 1980, which probably means they also pre-date Empire Strikes Back (1980).
I guess I was searching for anything prior to Obi-Wan's "certain point of view" and it would appear that those books would fit the bill.
So, my "revised non-saga canon" would appear to be composed of five sources:
1. Star Wars (1977)
2. Splinter of the Mind's Eye (1978)
3. Han Solo at Stars' End (1979)
4. Han Solo's Revenge (1979)
5. Han Solo and the Lost Legacy (1980)
Anything else I might have missed?
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jasmith
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Post by jasmith on Aug 8, 2010 10:14:09 GMT -6
I've always thought of this alternate "non-saga canon" as being composed of two sources: 1. Star Wars (1977) 2. Splinter of the Mind's Eye (1978) However, my sister reminded me today that the three Han Solo books by Brian Daley were printed in 1979, 1979, and 1980, which probably means they also pre-date Empire Strikes Back (1980). I guess I was searching for anything prior to Obi-Wan's "certain point of view" and it would appear that those books would fit the bill. So, my "revised non-saga canon" would appear to be composed of five sources: 1. Star Wars (1977) 2. Splinter of the Mind's Eye (1978) 3. Han Solo at Stars' End (1979) 4. Han Solo's Revenge (1979) 5. Han Solo and the Lost Legacy (1980) Anything else I might have missed? The only thing I can think of, is the old Marvel Comic Book series. I think it began its run in 77. Many, many years ago, I went back and read some of the early issues and all the discrepancies, created by the second and third films, were kinda interesting to notice. |
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Post by Falconer on Aug 8, 2010 11:16:24 GMT -6
The Star Wars Holiday Special. And the original novelization of the movie. Good list! Note all the books have "From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker" on them, which is another way to delineate this era.
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Post by geoffrey on Aug 8, 2010 13:17:14 GMT -6
Fin, the first 38 issues (and the first annual) of Marvel's Star Wars comics all pre-date ESB.
My personal Star Wars canon is the 1977 film, and that's it. Everything else is apocryphal. My understanding is that when Luke destroyed the Death Star, the Empire collapsed. Remember that only a day or two before Luke blew-up the Death Star, the Emperor dissolved the Senate (which had been throwing more and more support to the Rebel Alliance). The only thing that kept the subjects of the Empire "in line" was fear of the Death Star, which then destroyed Alderaan. Imagine the galaxy-wide outrage. When the Death Star was destroyed, the "former" Senators undoubtedly eradicated the office of Emperor and re-established the Republic. Remember that the Republic lasted for "over a thousand generations", while the Empire was a Johnny-come-lately that had lasted about 20 years. The Empire was a tiny, anomalous blip in a vast and glorious galactic Republic. It wouldn't take much to go back to being a Republic. The hated Death Star's destruction was more than enough to restore the Old Republic.
All the above is implied at the end of the opening crawl: "...that can save her people, and restore freedom to the galaxy." On top of that, the medal ceremony at the end of the movie seemed pretty relaxed and festive. If the Empire was still around, they would have gotten out of Dodge post-haste (as was portrayed in ESB when they left Hoth ASAP). After all, the Empire now knew where the Rebel base on Yavin-4 was.
All the above illustrates why the continuance of the Empire in the later movies and in the plethora of books and comic books doesn't sit right with me.
IMO, the best Star Wars stuff outside the 1977 movie are Brian Daley's three Han Solo novels. Fun, fun stuff. He perfectly nails the character of Han Solo. The adventures therein are precisely the sort of adventures I could imagine Han having before meeting Luke.
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Post by Finarvyn on Aug 9, 2010 8:38:02 GMT -6
My personal Star Wars canon is the 1977 film, and that's it. IMO, the best Star Wars stuff outside the 1977 movie are Brian Daley's three Han Solo novels. That's sort of where I'm heading with this, I think. I'd like to assemble a "non saga" type sourcebook or something so I can run a SW game similar to what would have been known pre-ESB. The original Star Wars movie is pretty complete, but since Vader escapes it makes sense to allow a further confrontation a la Splinter of the Mind's Eye, which was suppsoed to ba a low-budget sequel if the first movie actually made money. (Both books were written by Alan Dean Foster, which is an additional tie-together point.) The Han Solo books are fun, and they do add some interesting background to the character and the setting in general. I don't have Christmas Special or the comic books anymore (I know I collected the comics at one point, decades ago) so I doubt that I'll worry about those. Just one project among many that I'll probably start but never finish. |
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Post by piper on Aug 9, 2010 8:42:04 GMT -6
The full SW Holiday Special is on YouTube, though it is divided into sections.
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Post by coffee on Aug 9, 2010 11:13:49 GMT -6
The full SW Holiday Special is on YouTube, though it is divided into sections. And that's a good thing...you don't want to try to sit through that thing all at once! |
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to play our Star Wars campaign. (This was before WEG made an actual SWRPG, and we also played that one once it got published.)
