“No, I am your father” – these words, spoken by Darth Vader to his unsuspecting son, Luke Skywalker, in The Empire Strikes Back constitute arguably the greatest plot twist in cinema history. This isn’t the only narrative surprise to catch fans off guard over the course of the Star Wars saga’s four decades and counting, either.
On the contrary, there have been unexpected character exits and revivals, unforeseen betrayals and acts of redemption, and even more unanticipated family connections. It’s all part of the dramatic appeal of everyone’s favorite galaxy far, far away as depicted in the numerous films, TV shows, novels, comics and video games that comprise the Star Wars franchise. That said, plenty of surprising revelations that were intended to appear in Star Wars instalmentls were abandoned before fans ever laid eyes on them. In more than a few cases, this represents a disappointing outcome: some of these storytelling shake-ups would have drastically improved the stories they were slated to appear in.
On the other hand, more often than not, these proposed bombshells – while undoubtedly tantalizing – would only have served to damage both the Star Wars franchise and its characters. In these instances, it’s a good thing that those involved behind the scenes decided to jettison these sensationalist elements before it was too late. You won’t believe how differently things might have turned out!
With this in mind, we’ve pulled together a list of 6 Canceled Plot Twists That Would’ve Saved Star Wars (And 14 That Would’ve Hurt it).
Hurt – Maz Kanata Is A Force User
The Force Awakens underwent some fairly substantial changes in the editing room, as anyone who has viewed the deleted scenes made available following the film’s release can attest. One of the biggest alterations director J.J. Abrams made to the final cut was the removal of a scene that portrayed Maz Kanata as a powerful practitioner of the Force.
Frankly, we think this was the right call. Revealing that the already enigmatic Maz is a Force user would have raised more questions than it answered – and not in a good way, given the timing involved. What’s more, this diminutive (semi)retired smuggler is barely seen in The Last Jedi, so fans would still be waiting for answers.
Hurt – Darth Vader And Boba Fett are Brothers?!
There’s an old saying that goes “There are no bad ideas in brainstorming” – but whoever said that clearly wasn’t a fly on the wall when George Lucas was figuring out the Star Wars prequels. How else would you describe Lucas toying with the notion that two of the series’ most iconic villains – Darth Vader and Boba Fett – would turn out to be siblings?
This would’ve come out of nowhere, as there is nothing to suggest that the Sith Lord and bounty hunter share anything in common other than doing the Empire’s dirty work. True, there’s nothing that explicitly rules it out, either – but it sure stretches credibility. According to Dale Pollock’s Skywalking: The Life and Films of George Lucas, Lucas himself came to this conclusion, dismissing Vader and Fett being brothers as “too hokey”.
Saved – Darth Maul isn’t the head of Crimson Dawn
Darth Maul seemingly met his end in The Phantom Menace, when Obi-Wan Kenobi sliced him in two and then sent him topping down a bottomless chasm for good measure. However, devoted Star Wars fans who follow TV shows Clone Wars and Rebels will know that this baddie was subsequently resurrected, complete with a new set of robotic legs and a malevolent agenda all his own.
This explains why the one-time Sith Lord shows up during the closing moments of Solo: A Star Wars Story, which is set many years after his apparent demise. However, the big reveal that Maul leads Crimson Dawn was an unnecessary distraction that left casual viewers confused. If only Ron Howard had chosen another name from the shortlist of potential candidates he’d been provided.
Hurt – Han Solo Owes His Life To The Wookiees
This entry is arguably more of an inversion of outdated Star Wars expanded universe canon than a genuine plot twist – although it would have surprised long-time fans all the same. Prior to undergoing considerable revisions in Solo: A Star Wars Story, a key component of Han Solo’s backstory included his first mate Chewbacca owing him a life debt.
It turns out this wasn’t an element of Han’s characterization that creator George Lucas felt that attached to, though. Indeed, Revenge of the Sith very nearly featured a cameo by a much younger Han, who was being raised by Chewie and his fellow Wookiees. Han would have gone from deserving his friend’s gratitude, to owing him and his entire species a great big “thank you," instead.
Hurt – Lando Is A Clone
The Empire Strikes Back effortlessly builds upon the narrative that began in A New Hope, and juggles the ongoing development of familiar heroes and villains alongside the debut of several new faces.
Basically, there’s a lot going on in this Star Wars installment – so unveiling Lando Calrissian as secretly being a clone would have added a needless extra layer of complication to proceedings. As related in Laurent Bouzereau’s Stars Wars: The Annotated Screenplays series, franchise creator George Lucas and screenwriters Lawrence Kasdan and Leigh Brackett nevertheless tried hard to shoehorn this thread into the plot, before wisely discarding it.
Saved – Leia isn’t Luke’s sister
You’d be hard pressed to find a more retrospectively icky moment than when Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia share a passionate kiss in The Empire Strikes Back. After all, once Luke discovers their shared parentage in Return of the Jedi, he also learns that he once locked lips with his own sister!
Things needn’t have been so gross, however Early drafts of Empire would have revealed that Luke’s twin sister was an entirely separate character, tentatively named Nellith. In addition to making the Luke/Leia romantic subplot decidedly less questionable, the introduction of Nellith would also have set up the sequel trilogy Star Wars creator George Lucas originally envisioned. We would have met her in Episode VII, when she finally emerges from her Jedi training on the other side of the galaxy.
Hurt – The Battle Droids Come Back Online
The Battle of Geonosis that wraps up Attack of the Clones is one of the most protracted and elaborate action set pieces in the Star Wars saga’s history. It incorporates gladiatorial combat, lightsaber duels, massive armies going head-to-head, and the most Jedi ever seen on-screen at once. Director George Lucas originally planned to make the conflict even bigger.
As originally filmed, a band of Jedi boarded a Trade Federation ship and deactivated the signal powering the mechanized Separatist armies, only to discover the new and improved droids were capable of functioning autonomously! It’s not a bad little twist, and it plays off the audience’s expectations after a similar mission succeeded in The Phantom Menace, but with the sequence running too long overall, Lucas and editor Ben Burtt were right to leave this segment on the editing room floor.
Hurt – Rey Crashes The Caretaker’s Dance Party
The portrayal of Luke Skywalker as a cranky exile in The Last Jedi was one of the most divisive aspects of this Star Wars outing. It’s probably for the best that director Rian Johnson omitted Luke’s final “lesson” to Rey from Episode VIII, since it paints the formerly kind-natured hero as an even bigger curmudgeon than he is in the version released in theaters.
In this scene, Rey is tricked by Master Skywalker into rushing to the aid of the peaceful Caretaker aliens, only to barge in on them in the midst of a lively hoedown. There was never any danger: Luke just wanted to prove a point to his idealistic pupil. Not only does Luke come across as uncharacteristically mean in this sequence, but the whole thing makes an already long film even longer.
Saved – Obi-Wan Is Actually Qui-Gon
The major problem George Lucas faced when developing the Star Wars prequels was trying to build suspense, given the audience already knows how things pan out. Lucas wrestled with this dilemma early on while scripting The Phantom Menace.
As the introduction to J.W. Rinzler’s Star Wars Storyboards – The Prequels nonchalantly informs us, an early draft of Episode I saw Obi-Wan Kenobi cut down during the climactic duel. Fellow Jedi Knight Qui-Gon (here the younger of the pair) would then assume Kenobi’s name to honor his fallen friend’s memory. So the Obi-Wan we remember from the original trilogy is essentially an imposter. This might not have gelled 100% with established continuity, but it’s a bold plot twist audiences never would have seen coming.
Hurt – Emperor Palpatine Is Anakin’s “Father”
This entry depends on how strongly you feel about Anakin Skywalker’s “fatherless birth” origin story in The Phantom Menace. Indeed, we’d bet that more than a few fans wish that Emperor Palpatine claiming that he’s technically Anakin’s “father” had made it into Revenge of the Sith. As recounted in The Making of Star Wars – Episode III: Revenge of the Sith by J.W. Rinzler, such a moment was scripted, though never filmed/
Palpatine creating the future Darth Vader with his dark side powers is perhaps more satisfying than the somewhat undercooked quasi-religious explanation we got, but it feels like too direct a callback to The Empire Strikes Back’s “I am your father” twist. It would’ve inevitably suffered in comparison to such a brilliantly executed twist.
Hurt – The Rogue One Crew Survives
When Disney acquired Lucasfilm, many feared that the less kid-friendly side of the Star Wars franchise would be downplayed in new installments overseen by the House of Mouse. This included director Gareth Edwards, who initially mapped out a more upbeat ending for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, in which our heroes somehow survive.
Viewers would’ve been surprised, as it was widely assumed that – with Jyn Erso and the rest of her crew absent from subsequent movies – they’d all be six feet under when the credits rolled. However, Edwards thought this would be too much of a downer ending for Disney, and he devised a finale that saw most of the gang escape with their lives. Once he found out his bosses were totally cool with a darker climax, he revised the script to end on a suitably bittersweet note.
Saved – Rey’s Parents Are Important
Another facet of The Last Jedi that split Star Wars fandom down the middle was the revelation that Rey’s mysterious parents were apparently nobodies. A vocal contingent of fans argued that writer-director Rian Johnson dropped the ball by providing an underwhelming resolution to such a hotly debated enigma. They expected the sequel trilogy’s main protagonist to be the by-product of an all-star union, and the opposite seemed to be the case.
In fairness, Johnson did mull over the appropriateness of big-name characters to fill the shoes of Rey’s folks, before settling on a pair of deadbeat junk dealers. Even if his reasoning was sound – Rey being denied a mythic heritage is a more powerful outcome, dramatically and symbolically – he’ll probably never convince his detractors that he made the right decision.
Hurt – Owen Lars Is Obi-Wan’s Brother
At this point, it’s starting to seem like revealing that characters are secretly related is the go-to plot twist for Star Wars filmmakers keen to mess with viewers’ heads. Seriously: George Lucas and fellow screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan even thought that Obi-Wan Kenobi and Owen Lars could work as brothers.
It was a persistent idea, too – surviving numerous rewrites of the Return of the Jedi script, and even cropping up in the film’s tie-in novelization by James Kahn. There’s a reason for this: it’s more plausible that Obi-Wan would hide Luke Skywalker at his brother’s place, rather than with the boy’s actual step-uncle, Even so, introducing the Obi-Wan / Owen connection during the same scene where we discover that Luke and Leia are also siblings would likely have been one bombshell too many.
Hurt – Obi-Wan Betrayed Anakin
In A New Hope, Obi-Wan Kenobi fills Luke Skywalker in on the circumstances surrounding his father’s demise. The way Kenobi tells it, his student Darth Vader broke bad and bumped off Anakin Skywalker – which turns out to be a lie, as Vader and Anakin are really one and the same.
Funnily enough, if Empire Strikes Back’s shooting script had been followed to the letter, Obi-Wan would still have been exposed as a liar, but in a very different way. Documentary Empire of Dreams: The Story of the Star Wars Trilogy confirms that – in order to preserve the “Vader = Anakin” surprise – alternate dialogue was substituted into the screenplay. This pegged Obi-Wan as being the person responsible for Anakin’s fate. It’s not a bad twist, but not as good as the one we ultimately got!
Saved – Han Solo’s Early Exit
Star Wars icon Han Solo finally meets his end in The Force Awakens by his son Kylo Ren’s lightsaber in a moment of stunning brutality. Everyone’s favorite smuggler nearly departed the series several decades earlier, though. Star Harrison Ford and co-screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan lobbied hard to bump him off in Return of the Jedi.
In interviews for Empire of Dreams: The Story of the Star Wars Trilogy, Ford and Kasdan make the valid argument that offing a character midway through the film would have raised the stakes. After all, if a main character like Han isn’t off limits, then nobody’s safe. Star Wars creator George Lucas vetoed the idea, however – which especially disappointed Ford, who was growing tired of playing the role!
Hurt – Luke Turns To The Dark Side
Attempting to bring the original Star Wars trilogy to a rewarding conclusion was a real struggle for co-screenwriters George Lucas and Lawrence Kasdan. Not only did they have the monumental pressure of audience expectations to contend with, but at the time, Lucas was still undecided regarding the series’ future. Would he follow up Return of the Jedi with yet another trio of films?
It was with the sequel trilogy in mind that Lucas pitched Kasdan on the “ultimate” plot twist: after defeating Darth Vader in Episode VI, Luke Skywalker turns to the dark side! It’s an undeniably intriguing concept that would have perfectly set the stage for Episode VII. However, it would also have resulted in a less emotionally satisfying wrap-up of both Luke and Vader’s character arcs, so we prefer Jedi’s happy ending.
Hurt – Obi-Wan’s Miraculous Resurrection
Return of the Jedi culminates in predominantly positive fashion: all our heroes survive, the Empire is defeated, and Darth Vader is redeemed just before he kicks the bucket. It’s such a sunny send-off, it borders on saccharine, but it could have been even more over the top.
How in a galaxy far, far away could this be possible? One iteration of Episode VI’s screenplay saw Luke Skywalker’s deceased mentor Obi-Wan shed his ghostly form and regain his physical body. Thankfully, screenwriters George Lucas and Lawrence Kasdan abandoned Obi-Wan’s unexpected resurrection. First of all, it undermines the Jedi Master’s moving self-sacrifice in A New Hope. Secondly, bringing him back to life would have made a largely consequence-free triumphant finale seem even less hard-won.
Saved – Padmé Nearly Attacks Anakin
Revenge of the Sith isn’t exactly Padmé Amidala’s finest hour. Watching as this formerly spirited, independent woman of action morphs into an increasingly passive figure is downright painful. Frustratingly, behind the scenes publications like The Art of Star Wars – Episode III: Revenge of the Sith by J.W. Rinzler contain pre-production artwork of an astonishing scene where Padmé very nearly stabs her husband, Anakin.
Padmé draws a concealed dagger during her final encounter with the newly-christened Darth Vader, fully intending to eliminate the threat he poses to the galaxy. Her resolve fails at the very last moment, when her love for Anakin causes her to pull up short. It’s a moment of heartbreaking irony that deserved to be seen.
Hurt – One Of The Inquisitors Is Really Starkiller
When Disney acquired Lucasfilm, the decision was made to ignore the vast majority of Star Wars continuity established outside of the movies, in favor of forging ahead in a new direction. This meant that popular characters were promptly relegated to non-canonical “Legends” status – and that includes Galen “Starkiller” Marek, star of The Force Unleashed video game series.
Interestingly, Star Wars Rebels executive producer Dave Filoni nearly restored Starkiller to the revised canon, disguised as one the TV series’ armor-clad, sark side-adept antagonists, the Inquisitors. Whilst Starkiller’s eventual unmasking would surely have been welcomed by fans of the Force Unleashed games, Filoni rightly reasoned that it would have sidetracked Rebels’ core narrative, and axed the concept.
Hurt – Vader Isn’t Luke’s Father
George Lucas likes to claim that he had the entire Star Wars saga pretty much planned out by the time cameras rolled on A New Hope, right down to Darth Vader being Luke’s Skywalker’s father. A quick scan of follow-up The Empire Strikes Back’s first draft dispels this notion, as screenwriter Leigh Brackett – working from Lucas’ story notes – depicted Darth Vader and Anakin Skywalker as two distinctly different individuals.
There’s no real room for ambiguity here, either: Brackett even penned a scene where Anakin’s ghost visits Luke, ahead of his confrontation with Vader. It’s clear that Lucas settled on the father-son plot twist later on – and we sure are glad that he did, as Empire without those four little words from Darth Vader wouldn’t be nearly as amazing.
Did we miss out any plot twists that would have saved (or hurt) Star Wars? Let us know in the comments!
