It feels like the alternative ending we never knew we needed.
Luke kills Palpatine. Luke then sits in chair realizing he is now the strongest Jedi. Would have left it open for an interesting lead up in the sequel trilogy where Luke is the protagonist.
We all knew we needed it in fact it was one of the biggest criticisms of return of the Jedi.
In episode V attack of the VVVVV(That was a joke but this is serious) in episode 5, Yoda says: “Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny,”. Luke failed his trial in the spooky cave he then proceeded to go to Cloud City on Bespin defying Yoda, as Luke flies away his red tail lights illuminate Yoda in red
Obi-Wan Kenobi: “That boy is our last hope.”
Yoda: “No, there is another.”
Setting up Leah as the protagonist of the upcoming trilogy with Luke as the antagonist.
George Lucas was quoted as saying Luke was supposed to pick up Vader’s helmet at the end of Return of the Jedi and become the Sith Lord.
The reason episode VI was the original hated star wars is because they threw this story line away in favor of crowd pleasing l, that Plus they were the first to recycle the death Star plot.
Edit: and Ewoks.
Then Disney would have gotten their kick-ass female lead (pending they write it correctly).
More importantly it would have given StarWars as a whole anywhere to go at all instead of it being an obviously self contained trilogy. They sold the entire franchise for a quick buck.
That might have been an interesting dynamic. Follow the “Like father, like son” trope and showcase Leia as the counter. She’d have become a fantasy/sci-fi Ripley analogue.
George Lucas was quoted as saying Luke was supposed to pick up Vader’s helmet at the end of Return of the Jedi and become the Sith Lord.
When did he say this?
I don’t know if I’d frame that was what the ending was “supposed” to be. Sounds like a spitballing session where Lucas both came up with, and then rejected the idea.
Kasdan immediately responded, “That’s what I think should happen” — but Lucas didn’t actually want to go that dark because “this is for kids.”
Sounds like nobody was stopping Lucas if that was what he’d wanted.
If all we had to go off from is the quote then I would agree but there is also concept art and leaked scripts but most importantly the empire strikes back was building thematically towards Luke turning to the dark side, I’m not sure how early he scraped the idea but he definitely had that as a goal in episode V.
That’s one possible direction, and I think because you favor it you are considering it the “true” and lost ending.
There was a lot of concept art, such as a volcano throne room that ended up being completely changed.
I think in the conversation between Lucas and Kasdan the fact that the idea seemed thrown out on the spot and novel means it wasn’t meticulously prepared for previously. Star Wars has never been as planned out as people think, it is full of soft retcons and handwaves. There’s a lot of concepts that get lost. Saying any given tossed off concept is what is “supposed” to have happened is just leaning into a personal preference.
Was the Volcano Throne room thrown out? See Episode III - Rogue One. He obviously wanted it and it did happen eventually but the earliest scripts for episode VI had him Join the sith, this would indicate that during the filming of Episode V he had that on his mind.
Uhm actually yoda was talking about cal kestis
honestly, that chair looks rather uncomfortable.
Heavy is the crown.
I read that the chair was originally supposed to have a motor in it to make it turn dramatically when the Emperor made his reveal to Luke and Vader. But the motor malfunctioned so they had Ian McDiarmid manually turn the chair by shuffleshuffleshuffling his feet on the floor with the movement hidden under his Emperor robes.
Much like the story of how Peter Cushing couldn’t stand wearing the boots that were part of Grand Moff Tarkin’s costume and so wore slippers instead whenever his feet were below the camera’s frame (basically all of his scenes), it kind of takes away just a touch of the gravitas of the Empire knowing that.
what’s more imperial than hiding your broken down shit behind grand robes and facade? or having boots that are so uncomfie that Grand Moffs with no fucks to give walk around in slippers?
Robot Chicken stuff.
