Star Wars (lost original "Luke Starkiller" scene of space opera film; 1977)

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Star wars a new hope poster.jpeg

The film's theatrical poster.

Status: Lost

Star Wars: A New Hope, is an iconic film, but the main character "Luke Skywalker" wasn't originally called Luke Skywalker, and this is mentioned in a now lost scene from the iconic movie.

Background

Four years before Star Wars: A New Hope released in 1977, George Lucas had written a 2-page film synopsis entitled "Journal of the Whills". This featured the training of a 'Bendu-Jedi' space commander named C.J. Thorpe by another character named Mace Windy. Movie studio executives found Lucas's story too complex and confusing, whereupon an annoyed Lucas wrote a deliberately simplistic 14-page story treatment, "The Star Wars", that scrapped Thorpe and Windy in favour of General Luke Skywalker, who was tasked with rescuing a rebel princess from an evil empire. A year later Lucas adapted this version into a rough draft screenplay, which introduced the characters of Anakin Starkiller and his father Kane. The Luke Skywalker character was also featured in this screenplay, described as a friend of the Starkiller family.

All three characters were however scrapped in Lucas' 2nd draft from 1975, in which a farmboy named Luke with no surname makes his first appearance. The draftalso featured The Skywalker, who was described as the protagonist and The Starkiller, his enemy. Eventually this all evolved into the familiar story of Luke destroying the Death Star, aided by Ben Kenobi and opposed by Kenobi's fallen student Darth Vader. In this version, Luke's father was killed when Darth Vader stole a Kyber Crystal to become a Sith Lord. The final draft - dated January 1st, 1976 - was similar to the theatrical release, save that the lead was named Luke Starkiller.

The Scene

In the 2nd part of the movie, where Han Solo, Chewbacca and Luke along with Ben Kenobi, C-3PO and R2-D2 infiltrate the Death Star in order to save Princess Leia, there is a scene where Mark Hamill, who plays Luke Skywalker, comes into Princess Leia's cell and says "I'm Luke Skywalker, I'm here to rescue you." according to Hamill, the scene originally had Hamill as Luke Skywalker run into Leia's cell and say "I'm Luke Starkiller, I'm here to rescue you."[1] however Lucas changed the surname to "Skywalker" on the spot, as he disapproved of the negative connotation of the surname "Starkiller" as Hamill was portraying a protagonist.

Availability

The clip has never been shown publicly, it most likely resides in Disney's tape vault along with other deleted scenes from the movie as Disney bought the entire Star Wars franchise along with LucasArts in 2012.

Gallery

Luke Skywalker behind the scenes history video.

See Also

References

  1. ↑ Mark Hamill's Twitter post on Luke's original name. Retrieved 14 Jul '22
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