LUCAS: I never thought I’d do the Star Wars prequels, because there was no real way I could get Yoda to fight. Projects once thought impossible became possible-and for Lucas, that meant his long-imagined but never-realized Star Wars prequels. CG began to spread everywhere, with movies being green-lit on the strength of a single test shot. “It was like a giant switch was thrown overnight,” Ed Catmull says about Jurassic Park’s effect on Hollywood. Lucas himself confirmed it in an interview about Illustrated Light & Magic special effects studio: a planet so urbanized and technologically changed that the entire planet is a single city, was eventually shown as Coruscant, the Republic mega-city-planet in the 1997 special edition of Return of the Jedi, and eventually the Prequel Trilogy. However, concluding that the realization of such a city was (still) impossible at the time, the creators abandoned the idea. The entire planet was to be a sprawling city. The Empire's homeworld, Had Abaddon, came up in early drafts of Return of the Jedi. Since building such a city would be prohibitively expensive, much of what was to take place on the planet was moved to the Death Star, and Alderaan became the name of Princess Leia's home planet. The planet was called Alderaan, and much of the action in the film transpired on it. The concept of a city planet in the Star Wars universe originated with the initial drafts of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. But Money and Technology just wasn't there at the time. But it feels a bit odd to see mainly third-world planets, when people are mundanely using blasters, shields, advanced robots and so on.įrankly, Lucas wanted giant mega cities and shiny tech everywhere.
I understand that, for the entertainment value, it is more interesting to show planets with varied landscapes (and easier to film, too), that yet another Coruscant-like planet. Something explained by Lucas at some point about the vision he had of the universe or only production considerations? It's not completely illogical, since the characters spend a bit of time hiding or living as hermits, but I wonder if there is any particular reason that has driven this choice (it looks like a deliberate choice to me). The others I can remember are either deserts, swamps or ice planets. In other movies, the only futuristic planet I can remember is Coruscant (and maybe the planet where they build the drones), even Naboo looks nothing particular. Jakku seems to be a garbage dump, the Starkiller base is barren deserted, the last planet where we see Luke is also stuck in the past apparently (well it is a long time ago I suppose). Just watched the Force Awakens, and I noticed that once again, mainly low-tech planets are shown in the movie, which is at odds with the technology described.