5 Insane First Drafts You Can Still See In Famous Movies

When Scream 4 happened, Williamson recycled a lot of the core ideas of his earlier treatment, omitting some of the goofier parts. Scream 4 similarly features a new group of teens who are such fans of the Stab franchise that they host underground screenings.

Also, the killer (SPOILERS) turns out to be Sidney’s young cousin, who’s jealous of her fame and is trying to recreate it for herself. According to Williamson, he took his earlier “quest for fame” motive, and instead of an improbably large group, he “just placed that into one character with Scream 4.” As for the killer fan club idea, through the sausage factory that is Hollywood, that premise ended up in Williamson’s TV show The Following, starring Kevin Bacon and a bunch of people one degree away from him.

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The Explanation For Darth Vader’s Mask, And Other Iconic Star Wars Elements, Came From Scrapped Drafts

It’s no secret that George Lucas’ early stabs at the Star Wars scripts are pure insanity. From Han Solo being a giant green alien to Han Solo having sex with a Wookiee, to … you know what, it’s mostly gross Han Solo stuff. While Lucas eventually whittled his creation down to a sci-fi classic, a lot of the most cherished aspects of Star Wars only exist due to those nutty binned iterations.

Take Darth Vader’s mask. What says Star Wars more than the sleek black helmet of the asthmatic villain? The only reason it exists is that an early draft has Vader jet-packing between ships, presumably because he was too whiny and impatient to wait for a shuttle. Since he needed a mask to breathe in space, concept artist Ralph McQuarrie drew this:

Star Wars“Excuse me, sir, do you know the exit to this space station?”
“Maybe if we point our flashlights in the same direction we’ll see it.”
“Good idea.”

While Vader flying about between ships was eventually deleted, Lucas invented Vader’s backstory, volcano planet and all, purely to accommodate the badass costume McQuarrie designed. And remember the Kyber crystals, those magical gems that power lightsabers? A Kyber necklace was a major plot point in Rogue One.

Disney/LucasfilmLeading to the tragic scene in which Jyn sneezes and decapitates herself.

Those too owe their existence to something that ended up in Lucas’ trash can. His early drafts were much more fantasy-like, and like a 13-year-old Dungeon Master, he was obsessed with magic crystals. The original “Kiber” crystals were used by the Jedi to “intensify either side of the force a hundred fold” — which he essentially stole from the Lensmen series of fantasy novels, in which a special crystal “tunes into the ‘life force'” (with a small “f,” so it’s OK).

Even the trademark opening crawl, which sets the scene while lining John Williams’ bulging, royalty-filled wallet, stemmed from the early premise that the Star Wars saga was taken from something called the “Journal Of The Whills”:

George LucasNote that he originally started with “Saga I.” Proof that he does know how to count.

The opening titles came from the story being narrated by R2-D2 a hundred after the fact. This does explain why R2 is present for nearly every scene, and sometimes gives himself inexplicable flying capabilities.

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For more, check out 6 Baffling First Drafts Of Famous Movies and 6 Ridiculous First Drafts Of Famous Movie Monsters.

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