Six Bizarre Facts about the Early Star Wars Scripts

Star Wars is one of the most iconic franchises of all time, with instantly recognizable characters like Han Solo, Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia.However, like any great piece of fiction, George Lucas developed Star Wars over the course of several years and the story went several radical changes before it began to resemble the classic set of movies we know today.Several years ago, Dark Horse published a comic book based on George Lucas’s original script called The Star Wars, which featured totally different (yet familiar) versions of the characters we know today.Here’s six facts you might not know about early versions of Star Wars and its sequels:

Star Wars Was Always About Anakin

After Lucas finished the prequel trilogy, it was clear that the Star Wars stories were as much about Anakin’s fall and redemption as they were about his children Luke and Leia.  It makes sense, then, that the original Star Wars script focused on a character called Annikin Starkiller, a brash padawan studying under famed general Luke Skywalker.  Annikin was a mix of the backwater farmboy that became the Luke Skywalker of the movie, and the brash and petulant man-child seen in Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith.  In one draft, Annikin even punches out Princess Leia (who at the time was related to neither Luke nor Annikin) when she refuses to leave with him when he rescues her from the Empire.  It’s okay, though, Leia and Annikin patched things up by the end of the original script, and Annikin becomes Leia’s consort and bodyguard after he helps destroy a Space Fortress threatening her world.

The Force Wasn’t Present in the Original Star Wars Scripts

While the Jedi were always part of Lucas’s vision of Star Wars, the earliest scripts made no reference to the Force or any other sort of extranormal Jedi ability.  In fact, the original Star Wars Jedi were simply skilled warriors who taught Padawan apprentices how to fight.  It wasn’t until a later draft of Star Wars that the Force made its first appearance, which coincidentally marked the first appearance of the Sith in Jedi lore.

Originally, learning the ways of the Force was passed down through the Skywalker line from father to son in order to prevent weak-minded people from learning “the ways of the Bogan” (what we now know as the Dark Side of the Force.).  However, the Sith could use the Bogan to attack their foes (dishing out wounds that couldn’t be healed by science) and even power giant space fortresses like the Death Star.

The Bogan and its light side equivalent, the Ashla, were eventually incorporated into the Star Wars lore as the names of the two moons of the planet that the Jedi Order was founded on.  Force users used the moons to represent the duality of the Force. 

Luke Was Almost a Girl!

The protagonist of Star Wars underwent many changes over the course of various drafts.  Originally named Annikin Starkiller, Lucas eventually changed the character’s name to Luke Starkiller.  However, when he realized that his movie didn’t have any important female characters, he considered changing Luke to a girl in order to give the genders a little more parity.  He eventually decided against this idea and instead made Leia a more important character in the next draft.  

So the next time you see someone complaining that the new Star Wars movies have female leads, remind them that Lucas himself liked the idea of having a woman at the center of the Star Wars movies.

Luke and Leia Weren’t Originally Siblings

Considering Luke and Leia kiss multiple times in Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, it’s pretty obvious that Luke and Leia weren’t supposed to be siblings.  Originally, Luke, Leia and Han were supposed to be part of a core love triangle, while Luke’s sister, a character named Nellith, would be introduced in the third movie as a second Jedi in training.  While Han and Leia were fated to get together, early drafts of The Empire Strikes Back had Darth Vader trying to use Luke’s feelings for Leia to seduce him to the Dark Side. Unfortunately, Lucas decided to drop this angle and instead clumsily made Leia and Luke twins, leading to countless jokes about the almost incestuous relationship the two Skywalker siblings shared.  Of course, now that Han Solo is out of the way in the new trilogy, maybe Disney can revisit that Luke and Leia relationship again! 

Han Solo Was a Green Alien

Han Solo wasn’t always a ruggedly handsome human. In the original Star Wars script, Solo was a Urellian, a tall reptilian alien with green skin, gills and a penchant for hunting Wookies.  In the Dark Horse The Star Wars comic, Solo looked a bit like a less leaf-y version of Swamp Thing. Solo only had a small part in the original script, helping Luke and Annikin safely smuggle Princess Leia off her home planet of Aquilae and tagging along on their later adventures.  Lucas later gave Solo a bigger part in later scripts, changing him from a mercenary to a lowly employee of Jabba the Hutt that helps Luke escape Tatooine to collect an 8 million chrome bar reward from Luke’s father and his friends.

Lando Was a Clone

Early drafts of Empire Strikes Back included a surprising link to the Clone Wars.  Lando Kadar, the character that eventually became smooth talking Lando Calrissian, was a clone survivor of the Clone Wars.  After the conflict scattered many of the clones throughout the galaxy, Lando fell in with the natives of Hoth and became the leader of an Orbital City floating in the skies above the planet.  

One script had Lando explaining his surprisingly deep thoughts about being a survivor of the Clone Wars to his friends. “It didn’t seem strange to us to see our own faces endlessly repeated in the streets of our cities,” Lando said in the script. It gave us a sense of oneness, of belonging. Now, when every face is new and different, I feel truly alone.” 

While Lando dropped the Clone angle, he kept Lando’s giant Orbital City, which later became Cloud City.