By Ron Vitale

     Ever hear of Annikin Starkiller, the Kiber Crystal, and Mace Windy? Unless you're familiar with the early drafts of Star Wars: A New Hope (ANH) these names probably mean nothing to you. But in May 1999, Lucas will bring to the big screen some of his early ideas. For all the fans itching to learn what will be in the new film, the easiest thing to do is to read through the old drafts of ANH and compare it to what we currently know about Episode I. Often we Star Wars fans forget about the earlier incarnations ANH. What we saw in the theater was only the final form. Before Lucas arrived at that point, there were several drafts of the screenplay.

     To help clarify things, here's a brief history of the ANH screenplay. The first typed notes of The Star Wars were written in May 1973. From that point the story went through four drafts and several revisions of the fourth and final draft. Initially in 1973, the entire story was written as a "forty-page outline entitled 'Journal of the Whills' about 'Mace Windy, a revered Jedi Bendu of Ophuchi,' as told by 'C. J. Thorpe, Padawaan learner of the famed Jedi." From this early version, Lucas went on to create the characters we all know and love: Luke, Han, Leia, and Chewie.

     Before Lucas finished the screenplay for ANH, he had the foresight to develop his ideas for the entire saga. In the Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays, Lucas explains: "There was a point when I was writing Star Wars where I just sat down and went through the entire story. I think it came around the third or fourth draft. I wrote a treatment or a book of notes that went through all the scripts, even the trilogy that I'm currently working on. It was reasonably loose, but it laid out the basic story of what happens, who does what to whom, and the various major issues." For the past twenty-two years, Lucas has had the general ideas for the first Prequel's plot written down. Now that he's in the process of making the new film, we can go back to the earlier drafts of ANH and discover what we'll see in Episode I.

     First off, Lucas is a master storyteller. When he first wrote ANH, he admits that he ". . . read a lot of books about mythology and theories behind mythology; one of the books was The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell. . . ." Joseph Campbell spent his time studying world myths and trying to make sense of them all. His work is best summarized by his belief that "we tell stories to try to come to terms with the world. . . ."

     Back in the 1980s before Campbell died, Lucas invited him to Skywalker Ranch and together they watched the Star Wars trilogy. At that time, Campbell commented that "Lucas has put the newest and most powerful spin to the classic story of the hero. Lucas has dressed in modern idiom--the message that technology is not going to save us. Our computers, our tools, our machines are not enough. We have to rely on our intuition, our true being." If you take away the lightsabers, X-wings, and other ILM special effects, Lucas keeps homing in on that simple theme: Man triumphs over technology. In Star Wars: A New Hope, Luke switches off his targeting computer and uses the mystical Force to destroy the Death Star. Leia, in The Empire Strikes Back, finds Luke hanging from Cloud City through the Force and not with scanners or detectors. And finally, in Return of the Jedi, Darth Vader renounces the Dark Side and takes off his mechanical mask to see Luke with his own eyes. These examples all point to Lucas' adherence to his belief in the power of the human spirit. Don't be too surprised if Anakin, Qui-Gon Jinn, or Queen Padme Naberrie Amidala are placed in similar situations in Episode I.

     If you don't believe that Lucas will revisit the ideas of Joseph Campbell, then pick up a copy of Star Wars: The Magic of Myth. Billed as a companion to the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, this book explains in detail the many phases of a hero's quest and is splattered with quotes from Campbell. For example, some of the more known stages of a hero's quest are: The Call to Adventure, the Wise and Helpful Guide and the Magic Talisman, and the Refusal of the Call. Remember Luke's meeting with Ben Kenobi and his receiving his father's lightsaber? And what about Luke's initial refusal to join Ben to help save the Princess? All these scenes in ANH strongly echo the essential parts of the hero's quest. What will be Anakin's call to adventure? Maybe he will at first refuse to help out. We shall have to see. But we're pretty certain that a younger Ben Kenobi will become Anakin's mentor and that a Queen will need their help (not a Princess this time). Again, it's easy to see how Lucas stays pretty close to the hero motif.

     In the early drafts of ANH, Lucas wrote about similar situations. Annikin and Deak Starkiller need to find the magical Kiber Crystal (this crystal amplifies the power of the Force) and save the Princess. The names may have changed but the themes remain the same. Trust me, understanding the hero's quest is key to understanding the plot of Episode I.

     Another common element between the early drafts of ANH and Episode I are characters of R2-D2 and C3PO. Originally, the droids were human "Imperial bureaucrats" but Lucas changed the idea in later drafts because he wanted characters who were the "lowest . . . on the pecking order." After he decided to develop this idea, Lucas admits that he thought the films were more "interesting" with events unveiling from the droids' point of view. Watch for this in Episode I. Remember that the droids are the only two characters who are scheduled to appear in all six films. When Lucas finished ANH, he admitted that he "really wanted to have this clean line of the robots taking you to Luke, Luke taking you to Ben, Ben taking you to Han, Han taking you to Princess Leia." Both droids helped introduce the rest of the characters to the audience. Because the humorous bantering worked so well in ANH, keep an eye out for how the droids draw the characters together.

     Outside of the droids, there are three names which pop up in early drafts of ANH and in the material we've received so far for Episode I. Annikin, Prince Valorum, and Mace Windy can be found in the early scripts of ANH. Interestingly, we've learned that Anakin, Mace Windu, and Chancellor Valorum are to be in Episode I. Coincidence? I think not. From the early drafts, Annikin Starkiller is "sixteen and is described as tall and heavyset." Mace Windy is a "Jedi Bendu of Ophuchi" and Prince Valorum is one of the heroes in one draft and an evil Sith Lord in an earlier rough draft. When we compare these facts to what we know now, we start seeing a resemblance. Anakin Skywalker is the young hero of Episode I and Mace Windu is a Jedi played by Samuel Jackson. Chancellor Valorum has been transformed into the ruler of the Galactic Senate. The names might have changed a bit and the characters themselves have also mutated but it's still easy to see the similarities between the two sets of characters.

     Finally, it's important to point out that Lucas is utilizing non-linear techniques in the filming Episode I. He's written the screenplay and finished primary shooting for Episode I but I wouldn't be surprised if major changes occur between the point we're at now and the final viewing of the film. In an interview in Wired magazine (February 1997) Lucas explains the process of how Episode I will be filmed: "I have been writing [the next Star Wars episode] for two years, but I've also been shooting and editing, exploring different kinds of actors for different kinds of parts, and shooting and figuring it out. It's not done sequentially at all. I'll be able to add more things and change more things. Then I can go back and finish shooting. Then as we cut that together, I have already scheduled another three weeks of shooting six months later to add more stuff and changed more things, and rewrite it in that period, and then I've got another three months, and then I've got another two weeks of shooting after that." Remember that right before the filming of ANH Lucas had hired Sir Alec Guinness and suddenly decided to kill off Ben in the middle of the movie. If it happened in ANH during a last minute change to the fourth draft of the screenplay, the same type of changes can happen once again.

     When we compare what we know now about Episode I with what we will actually see in May 1999, we all might be surprised. So how can we find out more about what Episode I will be out? Go back and read the early scripts of ANH and begin to recognize the hero quest themes found there. With all that knowledge under your belt, it's the best you can do until May 1999. Outside of being a personal friend of Lucas that is. . .