Star Wars Deleted Scene Shows Vader Wasn’t Originally Luke’s Father

A deleted scene in George Lucas’ Star Wars film from 1977 proves that Darth Vader wasn’t initially planned to be Luke Skywalker’s father.

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A deleted clip from Star Wars proves Darth Vader wasn’t always Luke Skywalker’s father. George Lucas blew people’s minds when it was revealed in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back that Darth Vader is the long-lost father of the story’s hero. It remains one of the best plot twists of all time, but the shocking familial lineage wasn’t planned from the get-go as evidenced by a scrapped scene from Star Wars: A New Hope.

Lucas liked to claim the overall Star Wars narrative was planned from the very beginning. In the 25th anniversary edition of A New Hope’s novelization, he said he knew while writing the original screenplay Darth Vader would ultimately be revealed as Luke Skywalker’s father. All that being said, there’s multiple pieces of evidence to debunk that statement, including a deleted scene from the original Star Wars.

As the Rebellion scrambles to disarm the Empire’s Death Star, Luke is reunited with Biggs Darklighter just before climbing into his own X-Wing. The pair’s excited conversation is interrupted by Red Leader, who’s concerned about Luke, who’s essentially piloting his first spaceship into battle. Biggs vouches for his old friend, saying he’s the best pilot bush pilot in the entire Outer Rim Territories. This assures Red Leader of Luke’s capabilities; however, an unused version of the same sequence ran a little bit longer with Red Leader also mentioning he met Luke’s father when he was just boy, and said if his son had half the skills of his dad, he’d be just fine.

Aside from this deleted scene, Anakin Skywalker is only mentioned a few other times in the movie, (but never by name). Some lines could be interpreted to tease a Darth Vader connection, like Aunt Beru saying Luke has “too much of his father in him” and Uncle Owen saying “that’s what I’m afraid of.” When he talks to Obi-Wan, the Jedi Master says Luke’s father was “betrayed and murdered” by Vader, which, of course, is true “from a certain point of view.”

Interestingly, Luke didn’t press more about his dad, or his mother for that matter, so Obi-Wan was able to get away without revealing that Anakin Skywalker ultimately became Darth Vader. In Lucas’ original plan, however, Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader were two different characters. The former was presented as a Jedi Knight – an ace pilot who fought against the Empire during the early years of the Rebellion until the latter tracked him down and killed him. This checks out with Red Leader’s claim in the aforementioned deleted scene which means that was the case even during principal photography of Star Wars.

While this disproves Lucas’ claims that he always planned to have Darth Vader as the surprise father of Luke Skywalker, the fact remains that the idea came from the Star Wars creator’s mind. In its own way, that’s almost even more impressive, considering such a big retcon ultimately became the surprise twist by which all other twists are judged. There’s often an emphasis put on modern franchises to make sure there’s a detailed roadmap years ahead of time, but George Lucas proved you can still find massive success in deviating from your plan.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/star-wars-darth-vader-luke-father-biggs-deleted-scene/