In the comics, Vader sends Boba Fett to find out who the kid with Obi-Wan was, and he finds out about Luke and tell Vader his name is Skywalker.
Big mistake in The Empire Strikes Back??
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IIRC he sends Fett out to confirm certain details after Vader had already come face-to-face with Luke, calling himself by name and wielding Anakin's old lightsaber no less. I think there's also a bit where he has an investigator check back into the Padme side of the story, which again is also about confirmation.
Wait, I thought that Luke and Leia fought Vader on the swamp planet of Mimban, at the Kaiburr crystal. 
I remember that book. Splinter of the Mind's Eye is a part of the old discarded EU "canon". However, we have seen Mimban in canon in Solo: A Star Wars Story.Wait, I thought that Luke and Leia fought Vader on the swamp planet of Mimban, at the Kaiburr crystal.
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Oh, I completely forgot about that first encounter.
Well, even George didn't take it that seriously since Empire happened.
before the dark times... before the empire (strikes back)
He didn't even take it that seriously before Empire. That story was always intended as just a back-up plan for a low budget sequel in case the first movie merely did OK. I've often wondered what his larger back-up plan was if that happened. One assumes just try and use that movie to scrape enough profit as possible to get 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' made, and hope that movie makes it big instead?
Anyway; if Star Wars had bombed, even that low budget sequel would likely have likely been off the table, especially since straight-to-video wasn't even a thing back then.
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A couple of insightful and intriguing articles on Splinter Of The Minds Eye...
and
'In the midst of fraught post-production on Star Wars, George Lucas was planning ahead. As we reported in our previous The Great Unmade: Splinter Of The Mind’s Eye, Lucas was hedging his bets. He wasn’t convinced that his space opera would be a great success, and considered using his ghost author for the novelization, Alan Dean Foster, to help him thrash out a sequel.
Rather than just be a tie-in novel, this could be a cheaply filmed follow-up. In October 1976, Lucas, Foster and Lucasfilm vice president Charles Lippincott had protracted story conferences about how to follow up Star Wars, and adapt this sequel for the screen.
Their conversation was recently transcribed by J W Rinzler, author of the acclaimed “Making Of” books on the Star Wars films, and appeared in Star Wars Insider magazine. Among the surprises that result from their brainstorming is the fact that:
- Lucas didn’t think Vader was a strong villain
- Leia could run off with a Wookiee, and possibly be killed off, or at least get a gruesome pummeling
- Luke would be tougher and more worldly (they didn’t think they’d get Harrison Ford back)’
SOTME was a fun read - a little bizarre given how the GFFA has evolved over the years (much like the other early works like the early Han and Lando trilogy novels. In SOTME... Vader having a blue lightsaber, Luke and Leia having some sexual tension, saber length being altered for certain tasks, George being okay with killing Leia off, the Kiber crystal, and stating that Vader wasn't a strong enough villain... (GL: “The other thing we haven’t dealt with is Darth Vader. But Darth Vader, as we discovered in this picture, tends to be pushy; he’s not strong enough as the villain to hold the villain role. he doesn’t have the persona that you need. You really need a Cushing guy, a really slimy, ugly….”)
George certainly put some time and effort into this in explaining the setting, lay of the land, and what he wanted, to ADF. As it would have likely served as a low-budget sequel to Star Wars if the 1977 film didn't do well, it is no surprise George would go that extra mile for it...
Foster said in 1996 “No one knew what kind of success Star Wars would achieve, and so George, thinking ahead, wanted to be able to utilise props and backgrounds and the detritus of filmmaking in a second film, thereby reducing its cost if necessary. So in writing the sequel, Splinter Of The Minds Eye, I was asked to come up with a story that could be filmed on a low budget. Which is why, for example, the story takes place on a fog-shrouded planet (really cuts down on the need for expensive backgrounds). For the same reason, the modestly expensive space battle I had written was cut from the story. It was, to say the least, an interesting way for a writer to approach a new novel.”
Kinda of cool that some of the content and elements from these older EU books are now being re-used in canon too.
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If only
I KNOW right? I mean that went out the window by... the end? of The Empire Strikes Back? Maybe?
He had it all planned from the start, of course. George, you sick bugger.
Ah it takes me back to one of the original trailers for Star Wars at the time...
Star Wars | TV Spot 1977 - (aka 'Forbidden Love') - 30 second advert...
^ In the 1st draft of Empire Strikes Back it was a woman named Nellith who was Luke's sister... it wasn't until ROTJ that Leia was rectonned in as being Luke's sister...
www.slashfilm.com/1566370/star-wars-luke-nellith-skywalker-not-leia-darth-vader
www.starwarz.com/starkiller/the-empire-strikes-back-first-draft-by-leigh-brackett-transcript
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That looks like a way different movie than what we got.
Yeah, not until Return of the Jedi. One, it wasn't known if Harrison was returning, and two, Leia wasn't originally Luke's sister.
Yeah, that one didn't age to well.
I just thought of something, was Han being frozen in carbonite written as a way to get Han out of the picture if Ford didn't come back for what eventually became Return of the Jedi?
Pretty much, mate...
ROTJ & Raiders of the Lost Ark producer Howard Kazanjian said this...
Howard Kazanjian interview | Producer | Star Wars | Indiana Jones
starwarsinterviews1.blogspot.com
and...
^ ugh - click on the 'watch on youtube' link to see the video...
The wiki for ROTJ (with links/sources): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Return_of_the_Jedi#Production
There is also SW & ESB producer Gary Kurtz on an early draft of ROTJ where Han was killed off early on in the movie - and Harrison also pitching to be killed off early in ROTJ too: “I thought it would give more weight and resonance. But George Lucas wasn’t sympathetic..” .
It has aged fine. The "plot twist" in Jedi has not aged well.
Star Wars was literally marketed as "The story of a boy, a girl, and a galaxy". There was a teeny bit of a triangle with Luke, Leia, and Han just because, c'mon, he's HAN. And they cast Harrison Ford! (I remember magazine articles back in the day who were just dying to know if Leia would pick Han or Luke.)
Luke is the leading man. And Leia is the romantic lead. "Who is she? She's BEAUTIFUL." This is the driving plot for the entire movie.
Lucas decided to take all of that (and it's not like the thread was abandoned in The Empire Strikes Back - "I guess you don't know everything about women yet") and he still chose to collapse some story ideas he had about the original leads being twins (that had nothing to do with Luke and Leia) and then another proposed plot for Luke having a long lost sister and collapse it down onto Leia. Because who really remembered all that stuff from the first two movies? Blaaaaahhhhhhhh! (There's a pertinent Peter Capaldi quote somewhere.)
Yes. Ford was the only lead who didn't sign for multiple pictures.
BTW, all of Obi-Wan's scenes in The Empire Strikes Back had lots of backup plans in case they couldn't get Guinness to come back. He filmed for a couple of hours at the very very last minute. (He really didn't want to do it.) One of the backup plans was that Luke would talk to... HIS FATHER.]
Oh, wait. Is the "Big Mistake in The Empire Strikes Back" making Vader into Luke's father? I understand now.
I've never heard that about Luke talking to his father before. That really makes you wonder how different Empire and everything after it would have turned out if Guiness didn't come back for the last two and/or Ford didn't come back for Return of the Jedi.
I've always assumed the only reason he agreed to come back for The Force Awakens is because they finally killed off Han.
I've seen any of the before, thanks. I'd heard about him wanting Han to die in Return, but I didn't realize there was question if he was going to come back for it at all.
I've always assumed the only reason he agreed to come back for The Force Awakens is because they finally killed off Han.
Luke talking to his father, and the revelation he has a sister (far off) was quite a read the first time I stumbled across it...
^ this screenshot is taken from the August 25th, 1977 interview with George Lucas in Rolling Stone magazine; titled 'George Lucas: The Wizard of Star Wars’ - which can also be found online here...
www.rollingstone.com/movies/movie-news/george-lucas-the-wizard-of-star-wars-2-232011
and this screenshot of their conversation from a ScreenRant 'Darth Vader’s Original Backstory (Before He Was Retconned To Be Luke’s Father' article...
That 1st draft script for Empire Strikes Back by Leigh Brackett has more info and is an intriguing read...
For me it is a pity they didn't make a comic series based on Leigh's 1st draft - like they did for Lucas' 1st draft in 1974 of Star Wars (it was released in 2013/14 - The Star Wars). Or an animated short etc... something different, exploring the early and different possibilities in the GFFA, and a bit of fun for sure. The same for the early Revenge Of the Jedi ideas and scripts too.
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