Indy's
Idealistic Ending for Episode III
by forumer Indy500. |
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| Part
Four |
| It
is anticipated that we will see Luke as a baby in Episode 3, and
of course, the missing footage gives us a grown up, eighteen-year-old
Luke. Some may argue that an epilogue at the end of Episode 3 that
skips us ahead 20 years to the time of ANH would be a "break in
formula" just too unorthodox for a SW film. I say, breaks in the
Star Wars "formula" actually are the Star Wars formula, considering
that as soon as Lucas seemingly establishes a cinematic "rule" in
these films, he bends it. For example, Episodes 1,4,5, and 6 all
begin with the same "pan down" camera move immediately after the
opening text crawl. With Episode 2 however, George broke with this
established "sacred tradition" by having the camera pan up instead.
Similarly, he showed us with the ROTJ SE that a Star Wars trilogy
is "allowed" to close with an epilogue that differs somewhat in
narrative style from the rest of the story. The ROTJ SE ending jumps
back and forth in time a bit; something that people don't normally
associate with SW, and so we shouldn't be too surprised if Episode
3's ending moments should give us something as "different" as a
jump ahead in time to the missing Tatooine footage. |
| The
three Tatooine segments were originally intended to play between
the scenes depicting the capture of Leia's ship, the escape of the
droids, and their capture by the Jawas. To consolidate that footage
into one segment and now show it separately as an Episode 3 epilogue
would create a time "overlap" with the beginning of Episode 4. At
the end of Episode 3 we would see Luke spying Leia's ship under
attack, and later Biggs sees the ships "just sitting there." Still
more time passes as we then see Luke and Biggs saying their goodbyes.
Then, when you watch the beginning of the next film, you experience
an obvious "rewind in time," because you're now seeing the attack
and capture of the Tantive IV again. Some may have a problem with
this, their argument being that in the Star Wars films we never
see an event happen, only to see that same event "replayed" all
over again from some other point of view. To this I would remind
the nay-sayers that George actually has utilized this "replay"
type of storytelling in Star Wars already. |
 |
It
occurs at the very beginning of The Empire Strikes Back, when the
Imperial probe droid crash-lands on Hoth. We see it's capsule enter
the atmosphere, colliding into a snowy ridge, and then we witness
the droid's emergence as it sets off on it's mission. Then, moments
later, we cut to Luke who spies the "meteorite" coming down again
- we're shown the same event twice, though it really only happened
once. |
| So
we see that for the sake of telling his Star Wars story, George
is okay with "bending rules". He's okay with overlapping time, or
even showing the exact same event twice, if it's from two different
points of view. Therefore, it is not so inconceivable that at the
end of the Prequels we'd get to see Luke's eyewitness account of
Leia's capture, and then at the beginning of ANH see that same capture
happen again, this time from her and the droid's perspective.
Lucas has talked several times about his conceptual approach to
storytelling, as in this quote :
| "I'm approaching these films, for better or worse, like
a symphony. I have a lot of themes that I keep repeating over
and over again through the whole thing. Different notes and
different instrumentation, but when you see all six movies
together you'll see that there are a lot of recurring notes
being played. Sometimes they're played with the oboe, and
sometimes they're played with the violin, and sometimes they're
played with a full orchestra. And it's done on purpose. And
it's also done in different facets. It's something I toyed
with in my very first film, THX, which is to take various
ideas and show different aspects of them, but out of context.
Instead of three acts it was almost like three different movies.
But each movie was telling the same story in a different way.
I became fascinated with that idea. It's a kind of 'visual
jazz' - it's like, you go off on a riff on the same idea,
and you just take a concept and you just interpret it differently
visually. It's hard to explain exactly how that works, but
it's like painting different views of the same thing and putting
them on the same piece of paper, a sort of Cubist idea. I
like the idea of cyclical motifs that keep recurring over
and over and over again." |
|
| Along
these lines, if the missing footage does make it into the saga,
then the Hoth and the Tatooine scenes will become abstract mirrors
of each other. Aside from the obvious "replay" storytelling device
that both would exclusively share, also recurring in both instances
is the scenario of a lone Luke Skywalker spying a far off Imperial
presence in the sky with his electrobinoculars, unaware in both
cases of what he is really looking at. Also, on Tatooine he loses
the Treadwell, and on Hoth, his Tauntaun. Thus, it is interesting
to see how the missing footage would visually and thematically relate
to ESB's beginning, but would the dialogue in the footage still
work for the saga? Since the time that the missing footage was originally
conceived, it has been debated that a portion of the dialogue has
now become contradictory to the SW vision that George has presented
since then. I say it has not (for a couple of reasons), and
I'll begin with a quote from an article in SW Insider #64 entitled,
"The Vehicles of Episode II." Author Daniel Wallace writes :
| "At more than 40 years old, [Owen's swoop bike] is still
more than adequate for checking the far-flung outposts that
make up the perimeter of a moisture farm. After purchasing
[it], Owen added two storage bins to the rear of the vehicle
for carrying vaporator parts and survival gear. Owen also
packs a weapon for scaring away Tusken Raiders - in later
years it will be said that Owen can hold off "a whole Tusken
raiding party with one blaster." |
|
| Of
course, that last bit is a direct reference to what Biggs says of
Luke's Uncle in the missing Anchorhead footage, and some fans question
if the bold statement could be possible. Well, Daniel Wallace's
assessment does follow some logic, since the farm's remote vaporators
do need to be routinely checked and maintained, and it's likely
that most of the time just one person would be venturing out alone
(as was expected of Luke in ANH) to perform these chores. Considering
the ever- present Tusken threat, then it only makes sense that one
should carry a weapon, and ANH shows us that Luke (even though he
would most likely be outnumbered in the event of an attack) indeed
toted a rifle along with him in his landspeeder. Despite his overconfidence,
the Sandpeople were in fact shown to be very vicious attackers when
they caught him off guard. So, could Owen stand any better chance?
Would it be at all possible for him to "hold off a whole colony
of Tuskens with one blaster," as Biggs claims? An answer would be
partly dependent on what the Sandpeople deem to be the most preferred
method of attack. The following is a description of Tusken attack
behavior, compiled from various written official sources :
| Extremely territorial and xenophobic, Tusken Raiders are
the foremost reason Tatooine colonists do not wander far from
their isolated communities. Sandpeople are resentful of incursions
in their territory and prey upon travellers, attacking with
very little provocation. Fearsome desert savages inhabiting
the rocky Jundland Wastes, the males of the species tend to
be the aggressors and are known for their fierce attacks,
sometimes on moisture-farmer homesteads or Jawa scavenging
parties. They can hide even in the featureless landscape of
the salt flats, where they sometimes lie in wait to kidnap
or kill moisture farmers who come out to tend their vaporators.
Tuskens usually stay away from towns and cities, but in the
dead of hot season, they emerge from the wastes after the
twin suns set to scavenge or steal from the edges of settlement
zones. They have even gathered numbers large enough to attack
the outskirts of smaller towns like Anchorhead, although they
are more likely to wait until an individual or small group
is isolated before attacking. |
|
| While
there is no question that the Tuskens are indeed dangerous and deadly,
apparently they also don't seem to produce a constant and unyielding
attack on any particular front. Instead, they wait for the more
preferred opportunity of their victims to be isolated away from
a main living hub, where stealth and the element of surprise can
give them an advantage. This description of the Tusken's preferred
attack behavior is not contradictory to anything that the existing
films show us : during TPM's podrace, Tusken snipers out on the
remote stretches of the racecourse opt to shoot from the relative
safety of their cliff side hideaways. In AOTC, we're told that the
vicious monsters caught Shmi alone, away from home. Then, while
her search party was some distance (about 23 miles, according to
"Inside the Worlds of AOTC") from any established settlements, the
Raiders "came out of nowhere" and killed 26 of them just before
dawn. In ANH we see that they ambush Luke after he wanders into
their territory, but the appearance of a shambling lone figure startles
them, and they run off to rally the strength of greater numbers. |
| So,
what are we to make of the Biggs dialogue that George Lucas himself
wrote, directed, and shot for the missing scenes concerning Owen
and the Tuskens, in light of how he has subsequently portrayed his
Tusken characters in the films? I submit that the possibility does
exist, that Owen just might be able to "hold off" a band of Tuskens
as Biggs (and George) claims. Of course, Owen's most optimal chances
of doing so would be in a position of offence rather than defence;
fending off a perimeter-alarmed encroachment upon his property for
instance, as opposed to being caught completely off-guard while
out in Tusken territory. However, it is also conceivable that if
Owen did get attacked while away from home, one blaster just might
make the crucial difference in allowing him to withstand his adversaries
long enough to make an escape, especially if the Raiders somehow
lost their preferred element of surprise. The bottom line is, Biggs'
lack of clarification as to exactly why he holds such confidence
in the abilities of Luke's Uncle actually creates the leeway for
any number of possible scenarios wherein Owen could've held off
a Tusken raiding party and lived to tell about it. After all, to
"hold off" a group of Tuskens does not imply a totally annihilating
victory, but rather, to merely keep them at bay for a time. The
possibility of Uncle Owen being able to do this (even if it's not
easy) definitely exists, and to postulate that it would be impossible
would be folly. That being said, let's look closer at Luke's excuse
for not leaving his Uncle Owen :
"The Tuskens have been getting really crazy. They've even
raided the outskirts of Anchorhead."
|
| Luke's
statement actually brings some merit to the notion that Tuskens
directly raiding a settlement is an infrequent type of behaviour
for them to be engaging in; however, I believe his excuse is merely
a red herring. Granted, the Tuskens may have really been acting
up as Luke claims, but he was only capitalizing on their recent
and unusual behaviour because he couldn't bring himself to tell
Biggs his real reason for canceling his application: He's too afraid
to make a stand against his Uncle. Biggs sees right through his
best friend, and he brushes the weak excuse aside with an equally
inflated answer. You see, whether or not Owen can actually hold
off a colony of Tuskens with one blaster is not so much the issue
here, as is the fact that Biggs and Luke both simply assume that
he can. Their presumptuous attitude is indicative of the delicate
balance between dread and daring that the Tatooine settlers seem
to continually straddle in regards to the Sandpeople; knowing of
the danger, and yet taking it for granted. |
| The
ANH script speaks of the "curved, double-pointed gadderfi- the dreaded
axe blade that has struck terror into the hearts of the local settlers,"
and yet Luke seemed to take the threat of the Sandpeople ("Or worse!")
pretty lightly. We see him scampering up a ridge to "go have a look,"
instead of running for his life while he still can. Uncle Owen himself
has witnessed the tragic and deadly aftermath of Shmi's lone foray
into the vaporator fields, and yet in ANH he is willing to send
his own young nephew out alone into those same fields. But
why, after what he saw in AOTC? And when Cliegg allowed his
beloved wife to go out in the early morning hours unescorted, it
wasn't because the Tuskens hadn't caused any problems yet. Quite
the contrary, the TPM novelization says that they had been "pillaging
outlying homes and way stations, waylaying caravans, stealing goods
and equipment, and terrorizing everyone in general" for as long
as young Anakin could remember. No, the settlers have a tendency
to get lulled into a false sense of security, and this is exactly
what befell Cliegg Lars, as the AOTC novelization reveals :
| "It's been a long time since we organized anything against
them," Cliegg replied gruffly. "We let the beasts run free,
and they're forgetting the lessons we taught them in the past."
He looked hard at Owen's skeptical expression. "You don't
even remember the last time we chased off the Tuskens! There's
the problem, right there!" |
|
| For
those who might tend to dismiss the Prequel novelizations into the
realm of non-canon, let's not forget the March 2001 issue of the
Official Site's "Homing Beacon," which featured R. A. Salvatore,
the author of the AOTC novelization. The following quote is taken
from that article :
| Like Terry Brooks, who wrote The Phantom Menace novelization,
Salvatore will get to expand the story of the film, and tell
of events not shown on the screen. With Lucas' guidance, he
is getting insight into the characters and complexities of
Episode II. "Even though it's a novelization and I'm playing
off someone else, I get to sit down with George Lucas and
listen to the guy who created all this. That's a life experience.
You don't turn things like that down. I was able to add in
a lot of things that I think will compliment [Lucas'] vision.
Some of them might not be approved, and I'll have to make
some changes, but that's part of the process too." |
|
| In
a nutshell, anything that has been allowed to remain in the Prequel
novelizations has been reviewed, discussed, and approved by George
Lucas himself. If the book has Cliegg ranting about how he has "chased
off the Tuskens" and "the lessons [he] taught them in the past,"
we can count on this being in accordance with George's vision for
his story and characters. The settlers tend to mistakenly assume
that the Tuskens can always be easily beaten, and Biggs merely demonstrating
this misguided perception in the missing footage does not contradict
anything at all. Really, there is nothing in the missing footage
that should prevent it from fitting in with the rest of George's
story. |
| Next,
I'll conclude by presenting a "virtual script" of the proposed Episode
III epilogue. |
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