A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

Early poster design (based on a classic poster from Gone With the Wind ) for The Empire Strikes Back. Art by Ralph McQuarrie. © 1980 Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL)  Who wrote The Empire Strikes Back? Star Wars - Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back  was written by three individuals: George Lucas, Leigh Brackett, and Lawrence Kasdan. George Lucas wrote the basic story treatment and created the new character of Yoda, although  his  version was different from what we see in the finished film. However, Lucas wanted to focus more on producing the movie and believed that his weakest skill was writing, so he decided to hire someone else to write the actual screenplay. Eventually, Lucas settled on novelist and screenwriter Leigh Brackett, who had written several successful science fiction novels and short stories, as well as scripts for  Rio Bravo, The Big Sleep,  and  The Long Goodbye.  She turned in the first draft of her screenplay to Lucasfilm,...

Owen Lars, Luke Skywalker, and Beru Lars. © 1977 20th Century Fox Film Corporation. In the original Star Wars films (before Return of the Jedi ) were there any clues given that Darth Vader was Luke's father? In  Star Wars  (aka  Star Wars - Episode IV: A New Hope ) there were no clues that Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith, was the father of either Luke Skywalker or Princess Leia Organa. All of the available evidence (story treatments, film outlines, internal memos, and various drafts of the screenplay) points to Vader being a separate and distinct individual from “Luke’s father.” Now, it’s possible, however unlikely, that  in his mind  George Lucas decided that Vader and Luke’s father were one and the same during principal photography, thus explaining why Uncle Owen is so reluctant to talk about the subject of his supposedly dead father and his connection to the mysterious “Obi-Wan Kenobi” in the dinner table scene in Act One of  Star Wars....

Was it Irvin Kershner who came up with the "Vader is Luke's father" plotline in The Empire Strikes Back? No. It was George Lucas’s idea. Lawrence Kasdan incorporated Lucas’s concept into his draft of  The Empire Strikes Back’s  screenplay. Irvin Kershner did not have any say into how the screenplay was written. His job as a director was to  interpret  visually what Lucas and Kasdan wrote (in Courier font and proper screenplay format) on paper.

On Quora, member Michael Justin asks: Will  Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker  flop like  Solo: A Star Wars Story? My response: Considering that most of the audience for the Skywalker Saga films is larger than the core of naysaying “Never Disney  Star Wars ” fan-group, I would say…”No.” Solo: A Star Wars Story  failed to perform well at the box office, not because of the success of a boycott led by  The Last Jedi- basher clique or because it was a lousy  Star Wars  film, but rather by its behind-the-scenes drama, a lackadaisical marketing campaign, spectacularly  bad  scheduling, and perhaps even a mild case of franchise weariness. Of all those factors, the most serious was Lucasfilm’s hiring and subsequent firing of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller as directors of a  Star Wars  films. Reportedly, the creators of  The LEGO Movie  wanted to give  Solo  an  Ocean’s 11  comedy-cape...

Did Solo: A Star Wars Story prove that people are losing interest in Star Wars? No.  Solo’ s failure at the box office  doesn’t  prove that people are losing interest in  Star Wars. If  Solo: A Star Wars Story  does prove anything, it is that: Bob Iger, the Chairman of The Walt Disney Company, erred badly by greenlighting too many  Star Wars  films back-to-back Lucasfilm erred by hiring Phil Lord and Christopher Miller in the first place, considering that  Solo  co-writer Lawrence Kasdan did not like their approach to the material Releasing  Solo: A Star Wars Story  on May 25, 2018 was a bad idea, even though it was meant to commemorate  Star Wars’  41st Anniversary Even worse, releasing  Solo  without giving much thought to mounting an effective publicity campaign, and on a date that was close to another Disney-owned studio’s blockbuster film’s premiere, was a bad move Star Wars  is...

Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) Written by: Lawrence Kasdan and Jon Kasdan. Based on characters created by George Lucas Directed by: Ron Howard Starring: Alden Ehrenreich, Woody Harrelson, Emilia Clarke, Donald Glover, Thandie Newton, Paul Bettany, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Joonas Suotamo On May 25, 2018 – 41 years after the premiere of George Lucas’s original Star Wars film, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures released Solo: A Star Wars Story, the second standalone movie in Lucasfilm Ltd.’s series of Anthology films set “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.” Written by Lawrence Kasdan ( The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark ) and his son Jon, Solo: A Star Wars Story was originally directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the filmmaking duo behind The Lego Movie and 21 Jump Street, but they were replaced four-and-a-half months into principal photography and replaced by Academy Award-winning director Ron Howard. It is based on characters and situati...

(C) 1980 Ballantine Books and Lucasfilm Ltd. In November 1980, Ballantine Books, an imprint of New York-based publisher Random House, published The Empire Strikes Back Notebook, a large-format paperback book which presented the complete script for Star Wars – Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. Edited by Diana Attias and Lindsay Smith (who later worked on Star Wars: The Radio Drama ), the book not only included the screenplay by Lawrence Kasdan and Leigh Brackett; it also featured selected storyboards drawn by Lucasfilm artists involved in the making of The Empire Strikes Back, including Joe Johnston – who went on to become a successful director – and his assistant Nilo Rodis-Janero. Here at last is the complete script of the exciting continuation in the STAR WARS saga—THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. Containing the dialogue and stage directions from the film, the script will take you—again and again—into the thrilling world of this space fantasy. Magnificently illustrating the scr...

Cover illustration by Nicolas Delort. (C) 2017 Quirk Books and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) TO BB-8 OR NOT TO BB-8? THAT IS THE QUESTION! The curtain rises on a galaxy-wide drama! New characters take the stage as Rey, Finn, BB-8, and Poe Dameron clash with Kylo Ren and the vile First Order. Star-crossed lovers reunite, a lost knight is found...and tragedy befalls the house of Solo.  The fault, dear Brutus, is in our Starkiller...What's past is prologue! A new chapter of the Star Wars saga begins, with The Force Awakens reimagined as a stage play from the quill of William Shakespeare - featuring authentic rhyme and meter, woodcut-style illustrations, and sly asides that will delight pop culture fanatics and classic-literature lovers alike, Join the adventure in a galaxy far, far away, penned in the style of the Bard of Avon. There has been an awakening in the verse! - Dust jacket inner flap blurb, The Force Doth Awaken: Star Wars Part the Seventh On October 3, 2017, Qui...

Cover art by Drew Struzan. (C) 2015 Del Rey/Random House and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) On January 5, 2016, Penguin Random House's science fiction/fantasy imprint Del Rey published the hardcover edition of Alan Dean Foster's Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the novelization of the film written by Lawrence Kasdan, Michael Arndt, and J.J. Abrams, directed by Abrams, and based on characters and situations.  Though Lucasfilm's corporate parent, The Walt Disney Company, allowed Del Rey to release the e-book edition on December 18, 2015, the same day of the film's theatrical release, it asked the publisher to delay the publication of the hardcover for a few weeks. Disney feared that if it followed the long-standing tradition of releasing the novelization of a Star Wars film before the theatrical premiere, fans would leak the film's plot - especially the "big reveals" that Abrams strove to keep secret - all over the Internet.  However, Disney-owned Lucasfilm p...