SPECULATION Who was originally planned as The Other?

Kyle Katarn

 

Her name was Nellith; you can find information about her on this site:

http://secrethistoryofstarwars.com/sisterthatneverwas.html

 

ORIGINALLY originally? Or... like... originally after Ep V.... or what?

Originally the idea was for Luke to go off and find his father, who would then finish his training and together confront the Emperor... but this was before Vader was Luke's father, before Leia was Luke's sister... before the dark times... before the empire...

Oh wait, I got carried away...

Originally...

It all depends on how "originally" you want to get...

 

The Star Wars. Did you read that comic based on that script?

 

When Empire Strikes Back came out we were all freaking out and trying to figure out who "the Other" was. A lot of people thought it could be Luke's mom. Some thought Luke's mom was actually disguising herself as Boba Fett.

It's a bit of a let down now 34 years later to find out Lucas had no idea who "the Other" was when that was filmed.

And that is part of the reason i never bothered with the novels that came after Return of the Jedi. I knew - and Lucas even admitted - that none of it was "official" and he reserved the right to change everything. You cannot get invested in a story when that is the case. And I didn't. Which makes me chuckle every time someone gets riled up about Thrawn or some other EU thingy that basically doesn't exist anymore.

I take comfort in the knowledge that there is a real, professional team at Lucasfilm now who is in charge of continuity and actually making sure everything "works" and there is a long term plan for the narrative. To me - that is really cool.

 

The problem with the EU is that you had a handful of great pieces of work, mostly done by Timothy Zahn, coupled with tons of horrid stuff. I had no issue with them dumping most of the EU, it needed to go, it was ridiculous and everyone contradicted each other (Boba Fett himself had about 10 different origin stories).

I get really annoyed myself when people try to bring in EU stuff when speculating about Episode VII, Ridley is not Jaina Solo stop trying to make it happen.

 

This × 1000

 

I can't say I get really annoyed, but I certainly get a schadenfreude smile imagining the shocked faces of these EU "experts" when Episode VII comes out and none of their beloved EU characters make an appearance. Man, it's going to be hilarious!

 

Part of the reason I favor Gleeson as Luke's son, the red hair to drive the EU people crazy

 

A big part of an individual's views on Star Wars really depends on WHEN they first experienced it. If you're like me and you saw Star Wars in the theater (actually a drive-in) when you were six years old - see how I just say "Star Wars" and not "A New Hope" or Episode IV?? ;-) ) then you come at this with a certain perspective.

If you were 8 when The Phantom Menace came out you have a different one.

If you were 9-10 in the early 90s when there were no movies but the books were being published - you've got another take on it altogether.

I could totally see myself being heavily invested in the EU if I had been a kid when those post Return of the Jedi novels were being written. Because that's all they had then.

 

Excuse me as a I subtly return to the topic of conversation...

gpawnday, nice find on Nellith! Never knew about any of that original plot.

Does anyone know why Lucas felt compelled to solve the mystery of "the other" in ROTJ? It seems that if he had this idea of a secret sister in hiding, and he had the desire to make at least one more trilogy, he could have left the mystery unsolved until he got around to making the ST. It would have been the greatest cliffhanger OF ALL TIME.

Instead he felt compelled to tie up that plot line with the bizarre revelation that Leia was Luke's sister all along. Go back and watch that scene where Luke tells Leia and you'll see that even Hamill and Fisher didn't quite believe the bizarre switcheroo Lucas had just pulled on everyone. It just doesn't make sense on so many levels (i.e. how did Vader not sense a connection with Leia early on; why was baby Leia given to Bail Organa, a prominent Republic leader, who was in direct opposition to Vader's boss; etc.).

Simply put, there was no need to have this plot twist. So why did Lucas do it? Anybody?

 

Does anyone know when Lucas decided Leia would be Luke's sister? I originally thought maybe he decided it somewhere between ESB and ROTJ, but it just occurred to me that he may have decided sooner.

Remember that scene in ESB when Luke is dangling from the antenna on Cloud City after the Vader duel, when Luke reached out to Leia through the Force and she felt his presence? Was that a coincidence, or was Lucas foreshadowing the big reveal in ROTJ? Does anyone know for sure?

 

The only difference between the EU and fanfiction (IMNSHO) is the level of distribution

 

From my memory of events of the time... and so the story went way back when... they were literally filming and the section of dialogue for Luke's fight with Vader said, "and then Vader says something to piss Luke off" Seriously, they were that far along in production and that little element of the plot had not been worked out. Then it all fell into place... Luke's sister, Vader could kill Luke and had the spare to corrupt... and she became the other