culturevulture73:the-cat-under-telperion:swmovies:When he comes back, I won’t get in the way. It’s n
culturevulture73:the-cat-under-telperion:swmovies:When he comes back, I won’t get in the way. It’s not like that at all. He’s my brother. I was watching all the deleted scenes from the OT, and there was a lot of Luke/Leia romantic subplot going on. I know there was at the time this HUGE ship war of Han/Leia vs Luke/Leia, and boy those deleted scenes really tipped the scales toward Luke. Lots of people, seeing those scenes now, concluded that originally Luke and Leia were not meant to be twins and that Lucas wanted to pull a Archie/Betty and Veronica style love triangle. I kinda of agreed, until I watched THIS scene again. The fact is Luke and Leia DO have a connection, a bond in the Force so strong they can use it and feel it when Luke is barely trained and Leia doesn’t even know that she’s Force sensitive. They istinctively loved and cared for each other (Luke went from I Want To Go To The Imperial Accademy to Let’s Save This Princess Rebel Leader just by seeing a kriffing holorecording of Leia), before they knew they were twins, and they both interpreted their love for each other as some form of romantic love: they KNEW they were more than just good friends, couldn’t exactly pinpoint what they were and, as it’s natural, they started considering the romantic love option. So what Leia is saying in this scene is that she does love Luke and she always did, but NOW she knows what kind of love she feels for him and what kind of love she feels for Han. She also realizes that the whole conflict she thought she had between Nice Guy Luke vs Bad Boy Han actually never existed, and that she was only ever romantically interested in Han.So, I’m not saying that I’m 100% sure that all the deleted scenes with Luke and Leia being lovey dopey were shooted after it was decided that they are twins. I also understand that incest is such a huge taboo that even if Lucas wanted Luke and Leia to be truly romantically involved before the reveal, the medbay kiss was already pushing the limits of what he could get away with showing.However, waving off all the romantic subplot between Luke and Leia as Lucas Decided They Were Twins While Shooting ROTJ, would greatly undermine the depth of Luke and Leia’s bond and the scope of their emotional journey as characters.I hate to break it to you, but that’s exactly what happened.They didn’t decide Luke and Leia were twins until they made Jedi. Because Luke was supposed to have another sister but Lucas was done by the time they got to Jedi - they all were. So Leia became the “other” and the love triangle resolves happily as does the whole trilogy (and no, the new stuff doesn’t count, they’re still living happily ever after, shut up).In retrospect, it works absolutely perfectly, but that was definitely NOT the plan from New Hope on. In fact, I can tell you that when I saw that spoiler, I didn’t believe it….In any case, you can tell from the scene above that Han really loves both of them, regardless of how you characterize it - loves them both enough to step aside gracefully even as Leia is rolling her eyes at the nerf herder…@roane72 wanna jump in here?I mean, yeah, it’s pretty clearly on record that Luke and Leia weren’t canonically “twins” until ROTJ filming and the rewrite that decided against bringing in another character as his lost twin. And if you watch the ad campaigns from the time of ANH, the emphasis is on the Luke/Leia romance. One of the first tag lines was “A boy, a girl, a universe.”And then there’s A Splinter of the Mind’s Eye, which is canon, and was intended to be a low-budget sequel to ANH if ANH failed. Han does not make an appearance, and the sexual tension between Luke and Leia is off the charts. When Luke thinks he’s about to die, he wishes he’d told Leia that he loves her. One would think that if Lucas meant for them to be twins, he might’ve not included that. ;) My personal theory is that they were 100% going toward a love triangle (Han needling Luke in ANH, for example) but by ESB, the chemistry between Carrie and Harrison was just too much. Every single story trope in ANH points toward Luke/Leia. People were having Luke/Leia themed weddings in the late 70s. And oh, the couples cosplay. This wasn’t a misreading or an accident. And as Lucasfilm was putting the story together for ROTJ, it became apparent that introducing a new major character in the third story wasn’t going to work, so Luke’s sister became Leia, and a whole lot of things in the first two movies got a lot more awkward. Do I think it was the right call? I actually do, despite having shipped Luke and Leia from the moment I saw ANH in 1977. Now it’s basic cultural knowledge, but at the time, it was shocking. It was a twist that no one saw coming, and it was pretty brilliant. And, as is the way with a lot of twists, the reason no one saw it coming is because the writers themselves didn’t see it coming either. :)ETA: now, all of that said, interpreting the story NOW as “Leia and Luke knew they were close to each other but didn’t know why at first” is a pretty brilliant retcon of all of the awkward moments, and I do love it… but that wasn’t what we were supposed to get out of it at the time. -- source link
#star wars#lukeleia#fannish history