THE SECRET HISTORY OF STAR WARS

[thomasallencummins]

www.secrethistoryofstarwars.com/

I was given this link by someone who clearly held some very strong feelings about Star Wars, George Lucas and how events have unfolded according to GL, the media and fans in general. The ebook (which is free to download from the site) is very well written by an professional author who has done some exhaustive research in order to examine every aspect/timeline/circumstance that dealt with the origins and evolution of how and why Star Wars is what it is today.

After reading the first hundred pages or so of The Secret History of Star Wars I'm left with a couple of impressions.

1.) Whether he intended it or not, whether George Lucas wrote the line or Harrison Ford ad libed it, "I'm making this stuff up as I go along." is an Indiana Jones quote that seems to describe Mr. Lucas' approach to Star Wars and his portrayal of it's history. GL made up Star Wars on the fly because he was motivated to create a fun SCI/FI, big budget movie that he would enjoy watching himself. He clearly didn't have the Star Wars we know in mind when he originally decided to make the film. He came up with Star Wars because he needed something specific to put on screen, not just a vague notion of a Flash Gordon type story. That George put his butt in a seat, pulled together all of his influences and came up with the script for SW is something I'm sure we are all grateful for.

2.) After Star Wars was a hit, George did it again. He got the opportunity to make more Star Wars films and came up with some ideas that would further his story, making revisions to concepts he laid down (on the fly mind you) in the first film so that he would be able to keep moving things along. Whatever it was that we all thought Star Wars was when we saw it the first time, it had now been changed to be part of something much larger. For good or ill. I agree that GL's revisionist history of events is troubling. Maybe he thought fans of his movie would respect him and the subject matter more if he told a few white lies and made it seem that he'd always had a grand vision for Star Wars as if GL could be confused with the likes of Isaac Asimov or J.R.R. Tolkien.

In the end my take is that in spite of all the long hours, hard work and wrangling with financing/studios/critics/directors/actors etc. George Lucas seems to have had a lot of fun making 6 Star Wars movies and the guy made a huge fortune doing it. I didn't enjoy the other 5 films as much as I loved the first one but I did enjoy them all to one extent or another. I'm not willing to chuck my collection of Prequels and remastered original trilogy Star Wars dvds however I can completely identify with those of you who only own the original Star Wars on VHS and draw a line in the sand saying "This far. No farther!"

Perhaps, in order to keep things tidy, George Lucas should have created a separate universe to portray his "The Fall and Redemption of a Tragic Hero" story. I think we'd all feel more comfortable if he had.

However something tells me we'd have an opinion about that too. :-)

[ram]

Great post, atomic. I agree with a lot of what you said. I haven't checked it out, but that book does sound like a treasure trove of info. I'll devote some time this weekend to reading it. For now, I just want to respond to this:

In the end my take is that in spite of all the long hours, hard work and wrangling with financing/studios/critics/directors/actors etc. George Lucas seems to have had a lot of fun making 6 Star Wars movies and the guy made a huge fortune doing it.

I think what may not be appreciated by the general public is that Lucas didn't just make a humongous fortune and keep it all to himself. My understanding of Lucas is that he put a lot of money back into the movie industry: he was a key player in bringing about the modern era of spectacular picture and sound quality at the movies that has left us all so spoiled as moviegoers now. And I'd be questioning the value of any DVD release today that hasn't been THX-mastered.

[thomasallencummins]

There's no denying the contributions that Lucas and his companies have been responsible for. I don't think the book referenced has any malice in mind. I think they are just making the point that Lucas' comments have been "revised" over time and there seem to be clear inconstancies that many find interesting.

[Avatar]

I'll definitely read the book. But in the end, I don't think it matters if Lucas had a grand vision or not...the vision came into being because of and in spite of him. It was an idea whose time had come, and even accidentally it became a seminal part of sci-fi history.

--A

[thomasallencummins]

Jul 10, 2008 14:38:07 GMT -5 Avatar said:

I'll definitely read the book. But in the end, I don't think it matters if Lucas had a grand vision or not...the vision came into being because of and in spite of him. It was an idea whose time had come, and even accidentally it became a seminal part of sci-fi history.

--A

I agree. That's how I feel as well. Even after reading the first 100 pages of the book and learning just how inconsistent GL has been with this comments and stated goals, my appreciation of SW will never be altered. The book is entertaining from a trival point of view only.

[ram]

This book is a doozy! I've only read up to the end of Chapter IV, and my head's already spinning with facts and dates. Since Chapter V talks about The Empire Strikes Back, I'm going to take a break first and sit down to watch Star Wars again - the original, un-tweaked version. Reading about those early days when Star Wars was an unknown entity has really helped me to think about the movie in a fresh way.

Yeah, good points by Avatar too. I love the Star Wars universe for what it is, even if it has the likes of Jar-Jar Binks in it. But you have to take the good with the bad, as in all things.

HOWEVER...after reading about all the niggly problems over Darth Vader's character, I have to admit I'm feeling more conflicted over him than I've ever been. Basically, I'm now really wondering if Lucas should've never gone the "I am your father" route and just kept Vader as he was originally conceived -- as an evil henchman of the Emperor and a dark Jedi who simply happened to be the one who murdered Luke's father, as Ben Kenobi said in the original movie. That would have avoided so much inconsistencies and backtracking over the years. As the book says, this "retconning" of Vader makes Kenobi look like a liar and manipulator, instead of a noble Jedi Knight who is telling Luke the truth about his father's death. So in a nutshell, Lucas developed Vader's character at the expense of Kenobi's integrity. Lucas could've gone in many other directions, but he had to choose the one that wrecked everything Kenobi said in the first film! No wonder the book compares that sort of thing to daytime soap tactics.

I don't blame Lucas for shifting the focus onto Vader...we all thought Vader was the coolest villain we'd ever seen at the movies. As the book points out, Vader was originally a marginal character but whose popularity with audiences caught Lucas off guard. I'm just thinking that there could have been a way to handle the character just as effectively without resorting to "Father Vader."

As for the other thing about Lucas's ambitions for a 9-part and even a 12-part saga after the success of Star Wars...I don't blame him at all. Imagine you wrote a nice little story or movie and it became a world-wide phenomen. Suddenly you have boatloads of money to go play some more in the universe you just created. I'd go nuts myself dreaming up all kinds of things, and probably go bankrupt because I don't have the discipline Lucas has.

[Avatar]

I think he was telling the truth about Annakin's death...just not the literal truth. Certainly I've never thought of him "negatively" for it.

--A

[thomasallencummins]

I'm still reading the book but with every page there is something new that fills my head with "what if's". In the end I'm okay with how things turned out but perhaps it could have been handled better.

[ram]

The book brings up a quote from Lucas that, the first time I heard it, had shocked me a little:

"Star Wars is about 25% of what I wanted it to be. It's really still a good movie, but it fell short of what I wanted it to be," he told Rolling Stone in 1977.

Then in the footnotes, the book explains further:

"In fact, it was probably 75% of what I wanted it to be, but to me it felt emotionally like it was 25%," he admitted of these statements on the Charlie Rose show in 2004.

That clears things up! So Star Wars wasn't that awful or incomplete after all. Sheesh, George.

And that bears out in the Special Edition. If the original movie really had been only 25% of what Lucas envisioned, then you'd expect to have seen a WHOLE lot more tweaks and additional scenes than there were in the Special Edition.

[Avatar]

Good point.

--A

[thomasallencummins]

Yes. I believe the truth exists in many forms. It's pretty tough to decide who's truth you want to believe. :-)

[Avatar]

Everything is true in some sense, false in some sense, and meaningless in some sense.

--A

[ram]

Aug 1, 2008 15:05:46 GMT -5 Avatar said:

Everything is true in some sense, false in some sense, and meaningless in some sense.

--A

That's deep. Or maybe you just learned to lie really well like Kenobi. ;D

I've fallen off the pace in my reading of this book, but I'm trying to pick it up again. One thing I had been thinking about was the comparison made between Star Wars and Where Eagles Dare. The author argued that SW lifted many plot elements straight from WED, even more explicitly than anything from Kurosawa's films.

Problem is, I think the author forgets that old and wise adage about a difference in degree equalling a difference in kind. Sure, on paper you could cleverly write down the plots of both SW and WED in such a way that it looks like SW is a complete rip-off of WED. But on the screen, which is where it matters, it should be obvious to anyone with a functioning brain that SW and WED are two completely different entities. If people watched these two films back to back, I'll bet they wouldn't think, "Hey, those two are exactly alike!"

By the way, I revere Where Eagles Dare. It's one of the best WWII action movies I've ever seen. I just don't buy the argument that Star Wars is a copycat of it.

Despite that, I'm still enjoying the book.

[thomasallencummins]

Aug 27, 2008 11:09:57 GMT -5 ram said:

Aug 1, 2008 15:05:46 GMT -5 Avatar said:

Everything is true in some sense, false in some sense, and meaningless in some sense.

--A

That's deep. Or maybe you just learned to lie really well like Kenobi. ;D

I've fallen off the pace in my reading of this book, but I'm trying to pick it up again. One thing I had been thinking about was the comparison made between Star Wars and Where Eagles Dare. The author argued that SW lifted many plot elements straight from WED, even more explicitly than anything from Kurosawa's films.

Problem is, I think the author forgets that old and wise adage about a difference in degree equalling a difference in kind. Sure, on paper you could cleverly write down the plots of both SW and WED in such a way that it looks like SW is a complete rip-off of WED. But on the screen, which is where it matters, it should be obvious to anyone with a functioning brain that SW and WED are two completely different entities. If people watched these two films back to back, I'll bet they wouldn't think, "Hey, those two are exactly alike!"

By the way, I revere Where Eagles Dare. It's one of the best WWII action movies I've ever seen. I just don't buy the argument that Star Wars is a copycat of it.

Despite that, I'm still enjoying the book.

I have to agree with you, ram. The book does go to some lengths to make the argument that Star Wars can be compared to other stories, other movies. Regardless of Lucas' inspiration or even outright plagiarism, Star Wars as a film is a VERY unique experience. (Outside of other Star Wars films of course).

[ram]

Just finished Chapter V.

I agree with the author's view that Lucas must suffer a lot of insecurity, like most creative people. The kind of insecurity that made him defend his changes to Star Wars with the line "that's just how the story has always been" and if people didn't like it, tough. This was especially the case with the prequels, of course.

It's too bad that, according to the book, Lucas felt he needed to present in public the false notion that he had a "master plan" all along for a Star Wars saga. The book makes the valid point that, in the real messy world of moviemaking, no writer could magically come up with a story and universe as richly detailed as that of Star Wars in one sitting, as if by immaculate conception. On the other hand, back in the innocent days of SW, there was no reason for us fans to doubt what Lucas said.

I have to agree with the book's contention that Lucas was reacting to the "mythic" perception of Star Wars in the public and media by going along with them. SW had become a cultural phenomenom, not just a mere movie, and that meant that its happy-go-lucky Flash Gordon origins weren't good enough.

Which is how we ended up with things like the Bill Moyers program on mythology guru Joseph Campbell and how he had a big influence on Lucas. I watched that and was impressed by Campbell. I had never heard of him before then. Needless to say, it was the Star Wars connection that got my attention. But the interesting point The Secret History makes is that Lucas himself did not meet Campbell, and did not explicitly study his works, until after Star Wars had been released. I'm not saying that Campbell was just full of hot air, because a lot of what he said made sense to me.

But this "revelation" does make it look as if Campbell was riding the coattails of SW to promote his books (not that there's anything inherently wrong in that), and that Lucas was abetting Campbell's cause because his name gave SW some scholarly prestige (not that there's anything wrong with that either).

Btw, I've yet to read any of Campbell's books, and I may not ever. Not because I dislike him, but because the Moyers interviews pretty much summed up all that I would ever want to know about Campbell.