More horrors from the fanfiction vault – Episode VII edition

Let’s start with a history lesson, about what we call the Dark Times. In 1985, Star Wars died. We were told there would never be any more films, the fan club closed down, the comic was (unsatisfactorily) wound up, there were no more books and no more toys. Apart from the Droids and Ewoks TV shows, which didn’t really interest me, and a brief flurry of interest when Return of the Jedi was released on home video in 1986, that was it. There was of course no internet back then, so unless you were lucky enough to know someone as obsessed as yourself, there was no-one to even talk about Star Wars with. What was a lonely fangirl with all these ideas about what happened next to do, except write them down?

This was the point where I really started taking fan fiction seriously, and trying to write fully-formed stories with plot rather than isolated soapy scenes inspired by random things. Oh, I still wrote those as well, but my main focus was on trying to put together stories that could be actual continuations or spin-offs of the actual Star Wars saga. Episode VIIs, if you will.

I had plots. I had three of them. I tried to write all of them, but none of them were ever finished. There was Target 1075, which was based on ideas from THE SCRIPT from 1980, there was The Final Chapter, which we’ll come to in a minute, and there was Thirty Years On, which was set 30 years after RotJ and featured the New Republic being threatened by an Imperial remnant allied with criminal organisations.

The Final Chapter is the most complete. Set about five years after RotJ, it centres on Leia and Han, their four-year-old daughter Kira, and Luke. They are threatened by the Emperor’s Force ghost, and I’m not going to say any more, because when I went back to look at the story, I realised it was almost finished, it basically just needed a climax. So I wrote one, tidied up the story a bit (it was mostly just a first/partial second draft) to make the plot more coherent, and posted it online (here). I’m not saying it’s great, it isn’t … it REALLY isn’t. Parts of it are hugely embarrassing, but I really was surprised at how well it stood up after all these years. I also wanted to get it out there for two other reasons: first, I had the idea of the Emperor coming back to threaten the big three 10 years before Dark Empire did it. And second, there’s a chance that Han and Leia may have a daughter called Kira in Episode VII (it’s Daisy Ridley’s character’s code name), so I want my Kira to be out there too.

 

I was 19 then …

More horrors from the fanfiction vault #3

Angst, romance and squick … oh my.

At some point before 1983, I discovered angst (in the fanfiction sense, not just in general!). Most of what I wrote between then and the mid-late 80s seemed designed simply to put the characters through as much suffering as possible.

Again, they’re mostly in school exercise books. I’d discovered that if you asked a teacher for a new book, often they’d give you one without checking if you’d finished your old one.  Other good tricks were removing the middle pages until the book was half its original size, and managing to start a new book right before the end of summer term – you got to take your books home at the end of the year. So I built up a little stash. Thanks, Liverpool Education Authority! In most of them I wrote a table of contents at the front, which is would be useful, but sometimes the pages are missing. There’s an interesting note next to a couple of them which says that my sister had been allowed to read them. That’s really unusual, so I must have been really proud of those!

So, what was I writing about? Lots and lots of disparate scenarios, with no regard to any kind of continuity. In some of them Leia was with Han, in some she was with Luke. I was still playing with the alternate ending of The Final Hope, where Luke and Leia ended up together. I wrote stories where Han died, stories where Han slapped Leia, several stories where he abandoned her for another woman. I guess I still really didn’t trust Han Solo!

I worked really hard on all my romantic scenes, but they’re all absolutely horrible. Here’s a couple of examples from The Final Hope. The first one displays Luke’s early dark side leanings, and my conviction that Leia should only think of Luke like a brother, even though she doesn’t behave like that!

“Oh, Luke,” she murmured, and took him in her arms. “I’ll miss you a lot. You know you’re just like a brother to me. And more.”

She kissed him gently, on the lips, and then smiled, leaning her head on his shoulder. They remained like that for a long while, each drawing strength and comfort from the other, then Luke, realising their moment together must end soon, spoke.

“But, Leia, this means I won’t be able to go to Tatooine as I planned. You’ll have to meet Lando and Chewie instead.”

Luke felt the moment move into the past and become just a memory, and it saddened him a little as she lifted her head from his shoulder, a new and different light shining in her eyes. Her love for Han stared him in the face, and Luke found he had to look away from her, studying his fingernails instead.

“Oh, I’ll be happy to go in your place,” she was saying. Yes, Luke thought, a little bitterly, I bet you will.

I have to say, though, I really love that phrase: “felt the moment move into the past and become just a memory” – it’s lovely. I hope I didn’t steal it!

And here’s a snippet (seriously, I couldn’t bear to type any more of it) from Han and Leia’s reunion:

She fell into his arms. “Thank the force,” she whispered. “Oh, thank the force!” Her tears began to roll down her cheeks as he held her close to him, all her hopes and fears of the last months overflowing in one moment. She found herself sobbing and laughing all at once; happy, at last. Reunited, at last. A love so long denied finally restored to its rightful place.

And here, from August 1983, is what would have been “The End” of The Final Hope, in its original form:

Luke, sensing Leia’s need for him, moved closer to her and slid his arm gently around her shoulders. As one tear rolled down her cheek, he caught it with his finger and gently drew her to him. Their eyes met, but this time Leia did not shy away. She gazed up at Luke, her uncertainty written in her eyes, and as he kissed her he felt her lips tremble under his.

She stood still, her arms around him, trying to repel the memories of the other who had held her, who had seemed to care for her; and had left her. Left her with nothing but an empty heart, and empty, useless memories. But he was gone now, gone somewhere unknown, and had taken her bitter feelings with him.

But Luke was different. Luke was gentle, kind; Luke would never leave her. Perhaps … perhaps that was why she could never feel for Luke as she had for the other one.

Luke drew his lips from hers and held her face in his hands. “You’re thinking about Han, aren’t you?”

He looked hurt, and sad, and as Leia whispered, “Yes. I’m sorry,” she meant the apology more than she had ever meant anything. “Please forgive me, Luke,” she continued, her face earnest, her eyes pleading; “But I can’t help it. I loved him so much … I can’t get him out of my mind. It’s like … like he’s coming back to haunt me!

“I know you love me, Luke. I only wish I could return that love. You deserve that, at least.”

He held her tight, and she burrowed her head into his shoulder, kissing his hands which she held, as he whispered into her hair, “Leia, I’ve always loved you, and I always will, and I’m willing to wait for your love.”

Urgh. They’re pretty horrible stories, all of them. In the Luke/Leia ones, usually Leia’s done something bad, and Luke forgives her, because of course Luke is lovely and perfect. Meanwhile, with Han and Leia, all the power lies with Han. In the story where Han slaps Leia, it’s because he’s upset about the Falcon being destroyed. He immediately regrets doing it, and has to win Leia round. She’s far too quick to forgive him. And there’s a few stories like that, with Han acting cold to her when she approaches him, her going away upset, and then instantly forgiving him as soon as he’s nice to her again. Not a very nice dynamic at all! I’m glad I got over that one …

All this angst and nasty Han reached its height in a story called Reunion, dated September 1983 – June 1984. It’s a little over 17 A4 pages, hand-written, so around 6,000 words. The basic story is this: Luke lives on Tatooine, in Ben Kenobi’s old house, Leia lives on a planet called Megara, and Han lives with his wife Shanda somewhere else. So this sort of follows on from the ideas of the original Final Hope, but takes on ROTJ continuity – i.e., Luke and Leia are siblings. Han had dumped Leia after they’d been together three years and gone off with Shanda. They had a baby, and called her Leia. (That’s seriously gross! I mean, what man would call his baby after his ex-girlfriend, and what woman would allow it!? But I thought it was ironic, and bittersweet. Urgh.)

It’s now three years after those events. Luke asks Leia to visit him, and she comes, but she’s horribly bitter. Eventually, she breaks down when Luke hugs her, and cries a lot (oh yes, that’s another thing about these early stories: Leia cries all the time. Annoying!). The next day, Luke announces he’s off to Mos Eisley to pick up Han. What?! Yes, it turns out Luke thought it would be a good idea to have a little “family” get-together with his two favourite people … oh dear.

Han of course is awkward, refers to Leia as an “old friend”, and she takes serious offence – “I’d rather you hated me! I’d sooner be dead!” – and storms off to the bedroom. Luke and Han have a talk, and Han admits he still loves Leia. (Uh oh …) Luke, knowing Leia also still loves Han, sends him to her!

They … well, I think they have sex, but it’s thankfully offscreen! Han is ready to leave Shanda, but Leia, for some reason, doesn’t want him to. She tells him to go back to Shanda for a year, and then let her know what he decides. He agrees, bizarrely.

Leia stays on Tatooine with Luke, and over the year she heals, losing her bitterness and missing Han desperately. On the day Han’s due to come back, Luke goes out to leave them alone. But it turns out Han only came back to say goodbye. He and Shanda have had another baby, a boy called Luke (this is not quite as squicky as calling the girl Leia, but it’s close!) who is now two months old. And he’s managed to make his marriage work. After he leaves again, Leia realises she’s been an idiot, and that there’s “only one course of action left open to her.”

She leaves Luke a note saying she’s going back to Megara, and by the most tortured segue in history, Luke wishes he could speak to Ben Kenobi, who obligingly appears:

“Why didn’t I feel this?” he moaned. “Why couldn’t I have stopped her going back?”

Then an echo came to him out of the past, Leia’s voice, from a long time ago.

“A man must follow his own path, Luke. No-one can choose it for him.”

He remembered his own reply. “I only wish,” he whispered, “Ben were here.”

“But Luke, I am always here.”

Every time I read that, I still do a double-take. It’s that bad. The quotes are from ANH, before the Death Star attack, when Luke’s upset that Han’s leaving instead of joining the fight. But Luke’s mention of Ben was a non sequitur in the original, there’s no reason for Leia’s quote (which is at least sort of relevant) to make him think of the old Jedi now, unless you have the script of ANH burnt into your head from repeated watchings of my taped-from-ITV copy! Anyway, Ben goes into agony aunt mode and explains how Leia must have been feeling … it’s just completely bizarre. Luke then rushes off to Mos Eisley to stop Leia. He begs her to stay, and then convinces her to have one more try at Han (who is in the spaceport in a different lounge – everyone flies on commercial ships in this story; Shanda had made Han sell the Falcon!).

So Leia goes to see Han, and tells him she loves him. He kisses her, and she begs him not to leave her. Han asks, basically, why in the hell she sent him away then – a fair question! She says, “it seemed to be your duty; but … but I never imagined you wouldn’t come back to stay with me after the year was up.” We also find out that Han only married Shanda because she was pregnant, “and I thought I could forget you. I was wrong.” It also turns out that the only reason he gave it another go with Shanda was because Leia had asked him to, and he thought that was what she really wanted! D’oh. Written by a confused Catholic teenager much? I think so.

Next time: far less squick, I promise, as I return to “THE SCRIPT”, and try to make it into an actual story!

More horrors from the fanfiction vault #2

“The Final Hope”

Last time we saw how I started tentatively attempting to write the third Star Wars movie, and invented the intergalactic gas station and Dark!Luke. I obviously thought I was on to something, because I continued working on this story, even when it was overtaken by the real Return of the Jedi.

In the same notebook as the previous synopsis, I find: “The Plot, In More Detail”, which elaborates on the previous synopsis, scene by scene, and attempts to explain some of the more coincidental elements – Luke stops at the gas station because his X-wing has a fuel leak, for example. This time, the gang leave Tatooine on two different ships as before, with Han, Leia, Chewie and Lando on the Falcon. But when they’re captured, they send Lando and Chewie off in a lifepod, while Leia and Han stay on the ship. The other ship then has to refuel, because escaping from the tractor beam drained the fuel, and they meet up with Artoo. They then return to the rebel base, and then set off to rescue the others, finding Lando and Chewie’s lifepod on the way. Meanwhile, Han and Leia are taken to prison on Tholos.

I left it there, unfinished. The story had its third revision in August 1983 (some of my stuff is dated, some not. I may have caught that habit from reading the Art of Star Wars books, where all the designs, storyboards and script revisions are dated. Pretentious of me, maybe, but now I’m really glad I did it, and just wish I’d done it more!).

In the third revision, I dropped the gas station altogether, and had Luke get to Dagobah and continue training with Yoda. There’s a new section after the Falcon is captured by the Star Destroyer, where Han and Leia aren’t discovered in the smuggling compartments, and are trying to sabotage the tractor beam when they are found by stormtroopers and recaptured. Also new is Vader’s plan – he tortures Han to get Leia to tell him where Luke is, and when she tells, he sends Boba Fett to Dagobah to get Luke. I really don’t know why I had him send Fett rather than go himself. Maybe I just felt the need to involve Fett somehow. Then, as before, Leia is put in a cell with another woman, now called Shanda, and they escape and rescue Han, but then find out that Luke has killed the Emperor and joined Vader on the dark side! They return to the Rebel base, and Leia is visited by Ben Kenobi, who tells her she has to contact Luke and save him. The contact was to be done telepathically – there were no lightsaber fights in this story at all, sadly. I dropped the idea of Han leaving Leia – before, that was going to be part of the reason why Leia was able to contact Luke through the Force, because her thoughts were no longer clouded by Han, but I guess the ROTJ sibling revelation had put me off that idea. I didn’t drop it entirely, though, as we’ll see in the next instalment.

So then I started writing up the final version. It has an exercise book all to itself, with a Return of the Jedi-style logo drawn on the front. It’s entitled STAR WARS: THE FINAL HOPE, and it’s dated 1980-83.

It runs to 33 pages – that’s probably around 5,000 words. Of course it’s unfinished, ending abruptly just after Vader sends Fett to get Luke, and tells Admiral Piett to destroy the Millennium Falcon.

But you know what? It’s actually not that bad. Here’s the opening scene:

It was night on Tholos. And no night is blacker than one spent in an Imperial prison cell. Yet all the prisoners slept. Some dreamt of worlds left far behind, of people they once knew, of times that now seem like no more than dreams from years ago, and long forgotten. Many did not dream at all, remembering no life before this, and no prospect of any other life in the future.

Above the Empire’s secret prison planet a Star Destroyer floated in close orbit, ready to foil any ill-fated escape plan.

But the ship that approached the Star Destroyer was not a getaway vehicle, nor was it from Tholos. It came, via hyperspace, from Tatooine. It was Slave-1, the ship of the bounty hunter, Boba Fett.

Slave-1 docked with the Destroyer “Imperial”, like a small fish being swallowed by a larger predator. Moments later, Fett faced Darth Vader on the “Imperial”’s bridge.

Obviously, being the final version, this would have been written, or at least edited, when I was 16. To compare, I found an earlier version of that scene, probably from 1981:

The massive Imperial Star Destroyer appeared from behind the B2 type sun of the planet Tholos, now a minor base of the Empire the Empire’s secret prison planet. A smaller, elephant’s head shaped craft appeared to dock with the larger ship. It was recognisable as the Slave-1, the ship of the bounty hunter Boba Fett.

I appear to have come a very long way in two short years. When I first read that opening scene, I was really impressed with myself, and disappointed that I’m not that much better now! But I’m not sure it’s all me. I didn’t copy it from anywhere, and I didn’t have input from anyone else, but I think I was reading a lot more at this time, and channeling influences from what I’d read. I definitely see a strong Alan Dean Foster influence, so may have recently re-read Splinter of the Mind’s Eye. I do have a vague recollection of doing that deliberately – reading something I liked the style of before writing, so I could “catch” the style. It’s certainly an interesting approach …

Of course, I couldn’t sustain it. I obviously worked really hard on that opening scene, knowing that a strong start was important, but it goes downhill pretty fast after that.

I’m going to skip over the romance subplot for now, for reasons which will become obvious in the next instalment, but it looks like Luke’s main motivation for turning to the dark side was going to be his jealousy over Han and Leia. I was still skipping Han’s rescue, because I still couldn’t think of a credible rescue plot. This story does win on one point, though: it actually features the only space battle I’ve ever written. It’s not terribly exciting or detailed, but we get to see Leia take out two TIE fighters, which is pretty cool!

I was still channeling Alan Dean Foster, as shown by the scene where Leia remembers her previous experience with a mind probe droid:

… although almost four years had passed since that day, the princess of Alderaan still did not dare think about those experiences. The sight of the machine brought it all back, though, as painfully real as a vivid dream, the pure terror produced by its presence, the pure pain of its touch.

I remember being really impressed by a similar incident in Splinter of the Mind’s Eye, so I thought this might be plagiarised. I wasn’t above plagiarism when it suited me, and since at this stage I was writing only for myself, I didn’t see anything wrong with that. But it’s actually not copied from that scene at all. It’s all me.

I can’t help wondering if the Leia from the movies would give in to Vader like mine did. I actually don’t think she would. But I was 14/15/16, and I didn’t let canon get in the way of some good angst back then (as we will see much more clearly in the next instalment).

In this version, Vader orders the Millennium Falcon to be destroyed. That’s actually far more shocking to me now than it was then. I can’t imagine Star Wars without the Falcon now! I wrote a few other fragments, including the scene where they find out Luke has joined Vader, but I assume I didn’t add it to the book because I needed to write the scene where Vader converts Luke first. That was obviously far too difficult, as I don’t think I ever wrote any of it!

I really, really wish I’d finished this story, though. I was quite getting into it when I read it again after so long. It could have been a complete alternative ROTJ, and even a pretty decent one. Not to mention conclusive proof that I knew even then that ROTJ would have been better if Luke had turned to the dark side and Leia had to save him. I never understood why Lucas made them brother and sister if he didn’t intend to use the relationship in some interesting way. “Then … perhaps … she … will” is not that interesting, really.

An interesting sidenote: who could use the Force and how was not really settled in canon back then. Splinter of the Mind’s Eye introduced the idea of the Force-sensitive, but there was no definitive explanation of how you got it or why. Also no definitive proof that Force ghosts like Ben could only appear to other Force-sensitive individuals, until the end of ROTJ, when only Luke sees them. Sometimes I forget what was accepted knowledge when. So I guess there was no reason in canon then to assume that Leia would have to be anything special in order to use the Force if she was shown how. And she did hear Luke’s call above Bespin, showing she had a connection to him, at least, if not one directly to the Force.

Next time: it all gets a bit nasty, and horribly embarrassing, as I attempt to explore the relationships of Star Wars …

More horrors from the fanfiction vault

“REVENGE OF THE JEDI”

Or:

A Lesson in Not Finishing Stuff

I don’t know how long it was after we’d finished “STAR WARS: THE SCRIPT” that I decided to start writing the next movie. I know I didn’t share it with Cathy, for various reasons, one of them being that I’d found out she didn’t actually like Princess Leia! How could she? I was outraged, and it probably contributed to our falling out as friends soon after …

I know it can’t have been much later, as the handwriting in this outline is very similar to that in the script. It’s headed simply:

Plot for new Story, and it goes like this:

Luke is trying to go back to Dagobah to finish his training with Yoda. He sets down at a gas station for fuel [An intergalactic gas station? Where did I dream that up from? The only thing I can think of is in the deleted scenes from ANH where Biggs tells Luke the ships above Tatooine are probably refuelling.] but Boba Fett is also there; he captures Luke and takes him to Darth Vader.

Princess Leia and a Rebel – Hollis go try and rescue him. [I like the name Hollis, it appears often in my early stuff. I must use it again sometime, as a tribute to my younger self. I was following Lucas in the “borrowed names” thing: a lot of the planets – Theos, Megos – in the script were found by flipping randomly through the index of an atlas. Hollis was named after John Hollis, who played Lobot. I thought it was a good Star Wars-y name.] They go to Tatooine, where they meet up with Han Solo and Lando and Chewbacca. [Han’s rescue always stays offscreen, I guess I couldn’t figure out how it would be done.]

They are going back to the Rebel base when they bump into [bump into??] a Star Destroyer. They are taken up by a tractor beam but the Rebel ship (with Hollis and Threepio) escapes.

The Rebel ship is going back to the base and it stops to re-fuel. [I can see where this is going …] They meet Artoo and Luke’s X-wing. Artoo says Boba Fett has taken Luke to Darth Vader on Tholos. [another found name, and another Greek one. I guess Greek sounded exotic to me back then …] They think that that must be where the others are being taken.

They hurry back to the base to warn Major Derlin, [what did I have against General Rieekan? It was clear he was in charge on Hoth. Did I have it in my head he was killed there for some reason?] and then go try rescue Han, Leia, Lando, Chewbacca, Luke. [Wait – Threepio, Artoo and one Rebel redshirt are off to rescue all our heroes? This can’t end well …]

[At this point the handwriting changes, and becomes much more scribbled and unsure. Obviously I only had that first part really figured out! This may even have been written much later.]

On the way to Tholos the Rebels retrieve retreive pick up a lifepod containing Lando & Chewbacca. They say that Han & Leia were probably captured by the Imperials.

Meanwhile, back on the Star Destroyer, Leia & Han are put in a detention cell. They are taken to Tholos & put in Prison.

They are put in different cells: Han by himself, Leia with Cassandra (?) a beautiful arch-criminal & 1-time friend of Han Solo. Leia and Cassandra, working together, escape. While finding out what cell Han is in (they discover Luke also in the prison.) [The brackets were obviously added later, and Luke’s name has been crossed out. I think this is because of a later idea I had which changed the story from this point, as further mentions of Luke have not been crossed out.] They get Han and Luke out. They retr(ei)ve [I was generally very good at spelling, but I obviously hadn’t totally internalised “i before e except after c” at this point!] the Falcon & set off back to the Rebel base (Cassandra joins them). On the way back they meet Hollis, C-3PO, R2-D2, Lando & Chewbacca.

Return to base & end happily.

***

[Underneath this is written, again it seems to have been at a later date:]

Meet Luke + Vader. Luke on Dark Side. Leia (other one ) has vision of Ben Kenobi. [Yoda: “There is another”. There was a lot of speculation about who would turn out to be this other between the films. I’d obviously decided at this point it was Leia.] Speaks to Luke telepathically. Luke realises what a fool he’s been. Kills Vader maybe? Return to base etc.

[This last bit is really interesting to me, as it’s actually the very first germ of the story that eventually became my most recent: Reign of the Starkiller. I became totally captivated by the idea that Leia would have to save Luke from the dark side, and in the end was quite disappointed that she didn’t get to do that in ROTJ.]

[On the next page, in what looks like the same handwriting as the bit above:]

Han + Cassandra become “romantically involved”, because Cassandra was not a one time “friend” of Solo, but a one-time “lover”! Leia rushes back to quarters. Bursts into tears. Sees vision of Ben Kenobi. “You must talk to Luke. He will not listen to me. Leia, you are our last hope.” Feels immense power flowing through her etc. Speaks to him telepathically. “Luke, you must listen to me!” etc. Luke comes round maybe.

[Here is evidence that I didn’t trust Han Solo, and I was still to an extent shipping Luke and Leia. I still thought she could end up with either of them at this point. Of course the twins revelation hadn’t been made yet, so it was all still up in the air. There is a theme in my early stuff though of Han abandoning Leia and her turning to Luke, and I think that may have been where I was going with this version, with Luke and Leia ending up together in the end, united in the Force as well as in the material world.]

This story held my interest until 1983, going through many different versions and re-writes. Next time: “The Plot, In More Detail”, and the final version, shockingly abandoned on a cliffhanger.

Star Wars: The Script (1980)

So I recently ran across Star Wars Age 9. And it reminded me of my own very early forays into Star Wars fan fiction, specifically of a script that I wrote with my friend Cathy the summer after The Empire Strikes Back came out. We were 13, and we worked really hard on it all summer. We thought it was awesome. It’s … not.

What you see here is the final draft, though it doesn’t even have a title. I suppose we thought we’d think of one later. When school started again, we even managed to involve a group of friends in acting it out, borrowed the music room to practise in and everything. I think we actually intended to perform it for people at some point! Fortunately, everybody lost interest and it came to nothing.

It’s about Han Solo’s sister, Tania, who comes to the Rebellion asking for help after her home planet is taken over by the Empire. The rest of the plot … well, even I can’t follow it and I wrote most of it.

Update: I’ve now done a transcript, which you can find here, and the full-size pictures are here.

So without further ado, on to the good stuff!

You see here that we were trying to be authentic and adopt the American vernacular – “Go find Han!” I suppose we meant well, but it’s kind of ignoring that Ben Kenobi is played by an English actor and speaks with an English accent!

I’d forgotten that Tania Solo was Force-sensitive. Not sure where that came from. Maybe we were thinking of Yoda’s “the other”? But that doesn’t explain how Ben, a Force ghost, was able to give Tania a lightsaber. I assume it’s Ben’s own lightsaber, or maybe he went home and got another one after visiting Luke on Hoth and Dagobah. Maybe that trunk he had is just full of lightsabers he keeps to give to unsuspecting juveniles he wants to tempt to join him on “damn fool idealistic crusades”?

PL stands for Patrol Leader. This must be set after ESB, as Han and Lando both appear, but there’s no information on how Han was rescued. Remember ROTJ hadn’t happened yet.

Wait: Han’s home planet is Nebulen? What happened to Corellia? And I called myself a Star Wars fan.

Princess Leia is pretty angry, isn’t she? In fact, everyone’s pretty angry, through this whole story. I think we were trying to capture the bantering style of ESB. We didn’t pull it off.

I love how Luke and Leia are gone for all of 30 seconds, but have been fully briefed and are ready to leave on their missions.

Uh oh, Leia’s getting really angry now!

So, we should have taken off five minutes ago? Like, four and a half minutes before we actually got our orders?

There’s also the tricky question of the actual mission. What are they meant to do when they get to their respective planets? Obviously, we had no idea. I guess we were just expecting the audience to not notice such trivial details!

Oh, there we go, Han gets his first slap. I’m baffled by Han’s line suggesting Leia give Luke a kiss. After all, this is post-ESB. Han and Leia love each other, remember? Then again, it kind of foreshadows that whole storyline of Han being jealous over Luke in ROTJ, so maybe we were on to something …

And Han gets his second slap. But, hang on … when did we take off? Leia just this second said her goodbyes and we’re almost at our destination? I know the Millennium Falcon’s a fast ship, but that’s just ridiculous!

Also: [Landing noise]. I love it. And then: we leave Lando and Chewie, who might actually be useful, on the ship, and take the angry girl with us to survey the planet? Yeah, that makes sense. Not.

Okay, that makes even less sense. There’s no intelligent life on the planet, so how the building got there is a fair question. But … there’s a bleeding dead body, right there! Surely that would be your first clue??

And … um … how does running away prove your intelligence? Okay, we were only thirteen, but our characters act more like eight year olds!

Oh, Vader’s here! Cool. Lightsaber fight! Double cool. Oh, wait, I just figured out why Ben gave Tania a lightsaber to give to Luke – because he lost his on Bespin! Wow, something in this plot makes sense.

This, however, doesn’t: Vader is about to kill Luke. His son? Who he was so desperate to have join him on the dark side? But then …

Vader is prevented from killing Luke by Tania knocking his saber out of his hand. I’m not even going to bother thinking about how unlikely that is.

Off-stage torture. Wow.

Ah, Vader has a plan. To put Tania in a ship and send her off on her own. Sith genius!

My favourite exchange in the whole script:

• Lando: They’ve been gone a long time.
• Chewie: (Growl)
• Lando: I’m sorry, but I don’t know what you’re saying.

So, Lord Vader, you send the girl off in a ship on her own and don’t jam her communications? Sith genius(2)!

I like Tania’s “What about me?” That’s almost character development!

But why on earth (or any other planet!) would Lando go off to rescue Luke and Han and leave Chewie on the ship? You’re off to break into an Imperial base, maybe a rip-people’s-arms-out-of-their-sockets Wookiee might come in handy?

Oh, another favourite! No, the guards wouldn’t possibly fall for that obvious plan, whatever it was, but they’re bound to fall for the old “my friend is sick, help!” trick!

More logical plot developments! Vader gives Luke his lightsaber back so they can fight, awesome. But then lets them escape to go with plan B. What’s plan B? Honestly, I’m not sure we even find out.

The galaxy is awfully small, isn’t it? It takes all of 30 seconds to get from one planet to another. Every time. And it’s not like there aren’t plenty of examples in canon of travel through hyperspace actually taking time. But then, how do you show that without special effects?

Hard sci-fi here – you lose your life support, you could die! Who knew?

And I love how, even though Leia explained it to her on the previous page, Tania doesn’t know why they shot at their ship.

“Oh, my goodness, I completely forgot that I totally betrayed the rebellion to Vader. How did that slip my mind?”

I love this argument. It actually kind of works. Shame about how it ends though …

So, let me get this straight … the rebel base on Megos has been attacked by Vader’s forces. Was that plan B then? I guess it must have been. So the rebels who escaped would have gone to Theos or Akrela … Why? Beats me. Theos is more dangerous because Vader is there … so someone has to go and see if the rebels are there, and then rescue them? Hmm … wouldn’t Vader and his pals be more likely to just kill them all as soon as they arrived rather than take them prisoner? After all, they’ve already routed their base …

On the plus side, I like Han’s dialogue in the second half of the page. It’s … almost in character.

Threepio quotes the odds!

How cold is Lando? “Vader’s not going to kill them off straight away. He’ll try to get information from them first.” Oh well, that’s all right then!

Leia gets the last line! And a really cool one about the rebellion carrying on no matter what. That would have been all me, for sure. I was, of course, going to play Leia in the production, and Cathy was going to play Tania. That probably explains why Tania gets such a big part too. Though it doesn’t explain why I let her push Leia offstage so much.

“THE END. Or is it the beginning…?” The ability to be original is insignificant next to the power of the cliche.

How I rediscovered Sapphire and Steel, and fell in love all over again

You know how it is, it’s late at night, and you’re blundering aimlessly around the internet, when you come across a mention of something you remember watching on TV as a kid, so you look it up on YouTube.

And there it was – the complete Sapphire and Steel. Every episode, in full. I began watching the first assignment on that first night, and I didn’t get to bed till nearly 3am, because I was so hooked. I’d been expecting an experience similar to the one I had when I watched The Tomorrow People again, namely: oh wow, this is terrible, but I still love it. But that wasn’t what I got. I started off feeling, wow, this is actually still surprisingly good, and ended up feeling, omg, this is one of the best TV shows I’ve ever seen. Ever. It really is that good, even nearly 30 years later.

The writing, the directing, the acting, they’re all top-notch. I love how choreographed Sapphire and Steel’s movements are, and that visual trope of having a close-up on their two heads, one in profile, one face-on. I love how that started in the first assignment, and carried right the way through. I love, love, love the chemistry between David McCallum and Joanna Lumley – actors now would kill to have onscreen chemistry like that. And it’s so subtle and understated. Beautiful.

All on top of the most awesomely strange opening titles of any show, ever. “All irregularities will be handled by the forces controlling each dimension.” I was a little nerdy sci-fi girl all my life, and with an opening line like this, you’ve got me hooked, no question.

“Transuranic, heavy elements may not be used where there is life.” Lol, wut? Back when I first watched it, I heard “light” instead of “life”. I kind of like that better – it implies there’s another universe/dimension where there’s no light, and things are very, very different. It added a whole extra level of weirdness. I’m still not sure I actually know what transuranic means. Or is it trans-Uranic? I kind of thought then that it had something to do with Uranus, the outer reaches of the solar system. But damn, who cares, it’s weird, I love weird, bring it on!

“Medium atomic weights are available” – this is a bit easier, I was doing chemistry in school by then, I knew about atomic weights and what they meant. And then the list of “elements” and the note that Sapphire and Steel have been assigned. I never knew (still really don’t!) if they are meant to be embodiments of the actual elements, or if they’re elemental beings, aliens, time lord-type creatures or something else, just using those names as code names, or taking on something of the aspects of them. Steel was certainly pretty steely ;-). But it became clear pretty quickly that they are not of our world, and they are around to police time, and keep it on track, and once that’s clear, you don’t really need to know any more – though it is fun to think about.

The strange thing is that I don’t remember it better as a show. I remember watching it, and I remember the opening titles very well, but I haven’t really remembered anything of it while watching on YouTube. I remembered the very last shot, very clearly, and something about looking in a mirror, or at a picture, which actually happened in several episodes. But apart from those few vague images, not really anything else. Which is odd. Especially when I watched The Tomorrow People when I was much younger, but remembered it much more clearly.

So I watched the whole thing on YouTube, and I ordered the DVDs on Amazon so I could watch it again. But I felt bereft. I wanted some more. So off I went looking for the Sapphire and Steel fanfiction. I found some too, though not that much. And it led me to a realisation about fanfiction. But that’s for another post.