stayforthecredits:

“Well, when I took the job, I had never been a reader of science fiction. I read Asimov and Bradbury but I never really read all the other great stuff. So I decided that, instead of suddenly trying to make myself an expert on science fiction, I would do what I believed Star Wars was really all about — they’re fairy tales. They’re not science fiction, they’re fairy tales. So I got a hold of some books — a Freudian interpretation of fairy tales, a Jungian interpretation of fairy tales. I read foreign fairy tales, etc. The reason fairy tales are so effective for children is because they deal with the anxieties that children feel as they grow up: the anxiety of wondering whether their parents are really their parents, are their parents going to abandon them? They’re afraid of being lost, etc. All these fears are manifest with children. That’s what their nightmares are all about. And fairy tales are a sort of waking nightmare.

So I studied fairy tales and that’s why, when I got into the part that Luke Skywalker discovers he’s Darth Vader’s son, I found elements of that theme in fairy tales. But that story point was kept a secret. We didn’t even have that in the script. Nobody knew that, not even the actors. I had a page that I took when I was in California that was a substitute page for the scene when Luke is screaming at Vader and hanging on to that pole. Those words were put away in my book and when it came time to shoot, I explained it to Mark. But when he was saying, “No, no, I don’t believe it!” Darth Vader was saying totally different things than what you hear in the film. He wasn’t saying, “I am your father! We’ll rule the galaxy together!” He was saying, “You’re going to do what I say!” (Laughter)

So he had totally different lines. Then, when we went to put it together, we put the real words in. But Mark knew because I told him ahead of time. I told him he was Vader’s son and he thought it was great. And he acted it magnificently! He was hanging there by a nylon cord over 40 feet of nothing with wind blowing at him. I had fans and smoke aimed right at him. It was really quite dangerous — I worried about it. And I think he was worried about it, too, and that’s what made it so effective.” - Irvin Kershner

Irvin Kershner will be missed.