I kinda like this alternate history

[james_davis_nicoll]

Something I posted elsewhere:

POD: 1970s: A healthy Leigh Brackett pitches an interesting twist to George Lucas.


1980: Audiences are somewhat taken aback when, during the confrontation scene between Vader and Luke, Vader takes Luke's head off like an offending dandelion flower. Now the fate of the Rebel Alliance, rescuing Han and all that jazz rests on the shoulders of the last Jedi, Leia.

Comments

[graydon saunders (from livejournal.com)]

Ripley was originally a male role, though, and Luke and Leia being siblings, at least by some reports, _was_ an ass-pull in response to Mark Hamill's facial injuries in a car accident.

I can't see this happening _now_, never mind then. There's a very narrow range of acceptable female agency in a big budget film. Look at how much response the Black Widow role got in the Avengers, and that's still way off overt protagonist status.

[sean o'hara (from livejournal.com)]

Ripley's gender may've been unspecified in the script for Alien, but that doesn't apply to Aliens.

And Liea being Luke's sister was an ass-pull after Lucas decided he didn't want to do nine movies and needed a way to quickly explain the, "No, there is another" line. From what is known of the third trilogy as planned in the late '70s, the plot would've focused on finding the alternate after Luke failed against Vader.

[graydon saunders (from livejournal.com)]

Aliens is a very different movie, though, and goes to a great deal of trouble to set things up so Ripley is being badass for reasons of motherhood, a desperate defense of her child, rather than general pragmatic competence.

[botrytis.livejournal.com]

"From what is known of the third trilogy as planned in the late '70s, the plot would've focused on finding the alternate after Luke failed against Vader."

Where would one begin if I wanted to read more about what was planned?

[sean o'hara (from livejournal.com)]

There's Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays by Laurent Bouzereau, but being officially licensed by LucasFilm it has some heavy limitations on what it can say. Then there's The Secret History of Star Wars by Michael Kaminsky, which extensively documents both the development of the series and Lucas's BS about having it all planned from the get-go.

[joenotcharles.livejournal.com]

It couldn't happen now because Hollywood has become MORE slave to traditions as time goes on, especially with regards to blockbusters. Star Wars came at the beginning of the blockbuster phenomenon when the rules weren't as clear, and it was in the 70's when there was a lot of experimentation without the rigid separation into big-budget vs indie films. Empire came later, but Lucas still had the influence to make the films he wanted without studios vetoing ideas because they don't fit established ideas of what would sell. So if somebody had talked him into making Leia the protagonist, he could have done it.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I think they're actually more reluctant now to put a female lead in a big summer action movie than they were in the 1980s. (James Cameron had a particular fondness for it in those days, but somehow those giant smash hits were regarded as freak occurrences.)

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

...Admittedly, people probably figured that Schwarzenegger was the draw in the Terminator films.