Early Sources of Star Wars Lore

Hey guys, I’m Andrew.
And I love how much ‘Star Wars’ content has come out during my lifetime,
But I wish I’d gotten to experience the sense of mystery the series had when it was young.
Before the prequels and EU fleshed everything out, a lot of the ‘Star Wars’ Galaxy was still shrouded in rumor and speculation.
And the thing is, a lot of it was right.
Like, did you know the word ‘Sith’ and ‘Palpatine’ are never spoken in the Original Trilogy?
Seriously, go watch it. I'll wait.
But somehow, people knew about them.
It’s the same way me and all my friends just knew that Vader’s burns came from a volcano.
But in the years before ‘Revenge of the Sith,’ where did we get that idea?
To find out how fans discovered these concepts, we’re gonna investigate some of the earliest sources of 'Star Wars' lore.
Starting with the novel.
One of the first ‘Star Wars…’ anythings that the public ever saw was this 1976 novelization of ‘A New Hope’ that came out six months before the movie.
It’s credited to George Lucas, but the book was actually ghostwritten by sci-fi author Alan Dean Foster.
He was working from an early version of Lucas’s script, so there are all kinds of deleted scenes and weird differences.
Missed ya, kid.
The novel is presented as part of this legendary tome called the Journal of the Whills.
And it opens with a prologue that tells us all about the evil Emperor Palpatine.
Lucas never bothered to name the Emperor in his early scripts, he was just "The Emperor."
Unless you count his placeholder, Emperor Cos Dashit.
Because "causes the shit..." is what the Emperor does.
Once more the Sith will rule the galaxy!
Honestly I feel like he could have kept that name and nobody would have been the wiser.
Palpatine’s name is never spoken once in the Original Trilogy, not even in the special editions.
The first time we heard it out loud was in ‘The Phantom Menace.’ Sorry.
How could that be true?
And hopefully, we never hear his new first name out loud.
Um, what is his first name? "Sheev" Palpatine?
You literally named him after an improvised prison weapon. Great.
The novelization tells us all about Emperor Palpatine and the fall of the Old Republic.
This early version isn’t the cackling mastermind from the movies.
He’s more of a puppet, like an aloof dictator who shuts himself away while his cronies run the show.
And he’s definitely not an all-powerful dark lord of the Sith.
Speaking of which, the Sith get their first mention in the book too.
People were definitely aware of the term, but until the prequels, evil Force users were usually associated with “Dark Jedi.”
Knock it off!
Lucas used the word “Sith” in a lot of his early scripts.
Like a character called Lord Valorum who’s a Knight of the Sith, a warrior clan that opposed the Jedi Bendu.
It's just words! Early 'Star Wars' is just bleugh.
What sounds cool? BENDU! SITH! Sheeeeev.
He eventually settled on “Sith” as a title for Grand Moff Tarkin’s enforcer, the Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Vader.
It definitely sounds cool, even if fans reading the novel had no clue what it meant.
The word “Sith” also came really damn close to being in ‘A New Hope.’
It’s in the final script five times, and there’s even a rare deleted scene where General Tagge says it out loud.
I tell you he's gone too far. This Sith Lord sent by the Emperor will be our undoing.
So it’s great that all these tidbits are in the novel, but how would you find out about it if you weren’t old enough to read?
Easy. The merchandise.
It’s hard to think of a sci-fi series with ship designs as awesome and iconic as ‘Star Wars.’
But kids obsessed with ‘Star Wars’ in 1977 would have had no idea what to call them.
Because the phrases “X-Wing,” “TIE Fighter,” and “Star Destroyer” are never spoken in the first movie.
And it’s not like they had ‘The Essential Guide to Vehicles and Vessels’ back then.
They’re mentioned in the novel, but most kids knew about them through the toys.
Imperial TIE Fighter and X-Wing Fighter from the 'Star Wars' micro line! Each sold seperately. New, from Kenner.
Back in '77, demand for ‘Star Wars’ was so huge that people were literally buying empty boxes to give to their kids at Christmas.
These action figures are not yet available! But this Early Bird Certificate Package is in stores!
With this colorful picture display stand and certificate to send in to get a set of figures by mail!
And in the days before home video, toys were how the franchise sunk its roots into an entire generation.
Everything from ships to creatures to random-ass cantina characters all got names courtesy of Kenner.
The biggest collection of vehicles, figures and play
Speaking of things we’re stuck with forever, what about the Ewoks?
The species never gets properly named in ‘Jedi.’
And neither do the individual Ewoks.
I guess Wickett and Chief Chirpa were too busy broiling Han and the gang alive for formal introductions.
But don’t worry, the merch has got you covered.
'Spaceballs' the lunchbox! 'Spaceballs' the breakfast cereal! 'Spaceballs' the flamethrower! The kids love that one.
I mean, toys are the whole reason the Empire didn’t build their shield generator on a planet of Wookies.
And what ‘80s kid doesn’t remember the Ewok Village Playset?
It's C-3PO and the Ewok Village playset! You have to put it together!
Or all the teddy bears and TV movies shoving Wickett and his annoying friends down our throats?
Yub nub!
It was like 'Star Wars Care Bears.' Don’t get me wrong, I don’t loathe the little guys the way I do Jar Jar Binks.
But I was always more into badasses like Princess Leia and Boba Fett.
Every kid who saw 'The Empire Strikes Back' walked away obsessed with the mysterious mercenary in the dope helmet.
But they never say his name in the movie.
Vader just calls him “bounty hunter.”
Han says it in 'Return of the Jedi,' but it’s so quick and breathless that it sounds like a sneeze.
Boba Fett?! Boba Fett?! Where?!
Still, everyone knew exactly who Boba Fett was, because he’d already appeared in the ‘Star Wars Holiday Special.’
I am Boba Fett. The ship you seek is nearby.
We don't talk about the 'Holiday Special.'
He’s the star of his own trippy animated segment, where he actually gets way more lines than he does in the original trilogy.
It will be easy to find the ship you seek. Follow me, friend.
The cartoon is probably the best thing to come out of George Lucas’s Christmas cash-in, but I can’t fault the guy too much.
He’s our last and best source of ‘Star Wars’ lore, the man himself.
George Lucas used to talk about how he had this grand design for the saga in mind the first time he put pen to paper.
Again it's like poetry, y'know, it rhymes. Every stanza kinda rhymes with the last one.
That’s like, 90% bullshit, but he started to flesh things out more once he realized his silly space fantasy was a hit.
Like Darth Vader’s secret past.
No, I’m not talking about Luke being his son, that came later.
DOES NOT WANT!!!
I’m talking about the duel that doomed Vader to life in his armor.
When I was little, I never really wondered what happened to him.
That’s because I already knew.
It was almost common knowledge that Darth Vader lost a lightsaber duel to Obi-Wan and suffered severe burns in a volcano.
And while the Battle of the Heroes was definitely in Lucas’s mind since at least the fourth revision of the script, there’s not much evidence for it in the actual movies.
But somehow, fans found out the truth, and they spread the story around for decades.
So who let the cat out of the bag?
George Lucas did.
In a Rolling Stone interview just after ‘A New Hope’ came out, he talks about how Vader killed Luke’s father (from a certain point of view)
A certain point of view...?
And duked it out with Obi-Wan over a volcanic pit.
Vader fell in, got fried and became “one destroyed being.”
There’d be hints and allusions to it in newsletters and other sources for years, but it
wasn’t confirmed until “Revenge of the Sith” showed us the entire fight in agonizing detail.
You were the chosen one!
And while the Duel on Mustafar was abso-f*cking-lutely incredible, it still didn’t live up to what I envisioned in my head all those years.
I love that fans today get to experience every inch of the ‘Star Wars’ universe, thanks to the massive amount of content out there.
But sometimes, I miss the magic of wondering what really went down a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.
ATTRIBUTIONS
Star Wars (1977)
Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (1983)
Kenner Toys
Lucasfilm Ltd.
Convention deleted scene: TheCinemaRealm [a]TPM - 9:51
[b]First Sith utterance is TPM - 27:38 [c]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ja4WudpzBYw best we got, we have permission to use it
[d]https://www.youtube- .com/watch?v=0CmGs9ixpNU
[e]https://www.youtube- .com/watch?v=RSsyroScBtE
[f]https://youtu.be/bNwz3bhLJYY [g]ESB 1:36:47
[h]ROTJ 32:59 [i]Holiday Special 59:10
[j]ROTJ 45:41

Early Sources of Star Wars Lore | NowThis Nerd

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