Growing up and watching that first Star Wars movie, it seemed inevitable that Luke and Leia would eventually end up together. Pretty much all fans thought as much, and perhaps even thought so as the Leia x Han relationship blossomed over the course of The Empire Strikes Back. Of course, that never happened, and as it turned out, Luke and Leia were actually twins…so yeah.
George Lucas himself has waffled back and forth as to whether or not this was always the plan, but there were plenty of people who worked on the film who didn’t know for quite a while. In fact, in a recent interview, legendary composer John Williams revealed that he didn’t know for a while.
“No, I didn’t. Well, the first film, George Lucas didn’t give us any indication there would be a second film. And I don’t think he knew himself, ’cause he wrote the script on a yellow pencil pad, as he did with all the subsequent ones, and I know that he didn’t think the film was gonna be that successful, because he told his friend Steven Spielberg, ‘Oh, no. This is not gonna work,’ and so on.
Steven said, ‘No, it’s great. It’ll be playing for months.’ And it played for years after. Surprised everybody.”
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But things actually get a little more awkward. As it turns out, Williams’ perception of how the relationship would turn out between the twins affected the music he composed.
“But the story I tell about Luke and Leia, I saw them as two young people in the first film that I would never see again. And they seemed to be compatible. They had fun together. They did the action scenes together. And I figured, ‘Well, sooner or later, they will be lovers and they’ll have children’ and you know, so I wrote a love theme for Princess Leia, not knowing for, like, two or three years that they were brother and sister. I’m not even sure when George (LAUGHS) told us. That was the second film, or the third [“Return of the Jedi”]. So I had to go back and write different themes for (LAUGHS) the various relationships that came into focus over time.”
Who would’ve known that this seemingly-compatible couple was actually compatible for a slightly more awkward reason? Oh, well.
Hindsight’s 20/20, I guess?
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SOURCE: CBS News