When I was a nipper and watched that Star Wars the character I identified with most readily was Luke Skywalker. He had blonde hair like me (at the time) and a strong sense of moral justice. "It's not fair" he'd plead, pleasingly for a hero destined to be The One. As years went by I finally switched onto his brunette mate, who had the lines, the charm, the spaceship, the gun-slinging skills, the bravado, the hairier friend and got the girl in the end - although knowing how that turned out you can forgive young "Wormy" for dodging that particular competition.
Where I did still identify with young Master Luke is in his interest in Tosche Station, where the power converters come from. My eye was always drawn to the background. The sky, the liver-coloured mountains of Tatooine, the strange fluting and Morse Code-like lighting or whatever they were behind Moff Tarkin's meeting on the Death Star, the grimy walls of the trash compactor, the endless stars, and the sky again. That blue, seemingly endless expanse that promised so much but hemmed Luke in. Against that the promise of Anchorhead and Tosche Station did sound exotic and interesting. Whatever could it be like?
Perhaps the scene is too long and in the wrong place, but I love it for its blue sky, new scenery, worldbuilding (we finally meet those friends Uncle Owen griped about!) and a bit more of gauche Luke before the whole Rebellion and later Jedi-dom proves such a buzzkill. And Biggs has a sweet space-cape.
So far, no reinstatement, despite upwards of four revisions of the original by Lucasfilm. Nor any clean-ups or restorations - this scene is D.E.D ded, I guess. Except for fans; so among the considerable number of remounts, remakes and repairs, here's something that blends the missing from the might-have-been to bide us over. Now, about those power converters...
I hear you Peter.
ReplyDeleteHaving grown up in an agricultural ‘back water’ as far from the bright centre of the universe as it felt possible to be, and where the hills were sucked so dry by the sun that they looked like Tatooine’s desert bluffs in summer, this part of the story resonated with me as well. All the more so because the sphere books novelisation I got for Christmas ’77 was my only Star Wars until I could see the actual film many long months later, so Luke’s sun hat and Biggs ‘Tache’ station were as real to me as any of the over familiar events to follow. Did my best friend and I quote: “We’re a couple of shooting stars, and we’ll never be stopped…” at each other? Maybe…