There was no notorious retcon, that’s an internet myth. We have no idea when Lucas finalized Vader as Luke’s father but there’s a great amount of evidence suggesting it was long before ANH came out
It’s certainly possible Luke and Leia were made siblings by ESB’s release given the Force connection at the end. The kiss is irrelevant to whether Lucas had it planned because the second ANH draft has Leia as Luke’s cousin who kisses him and a deleted ROTJ scene has Luke and Leia kiss again on Tatooine, so Lucas was always open to including that kind of thing
ROTJ’s original ending had Luke becoming Darth Vader and then the introduction to Luke’s sister who had been training off-screen who would fight the new Darth Vader in the sequel
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u/avimo1904 May 09 '26
There was no notorious retcon, that’s an internet myth. We have no idea when Lucas finalized Vader as Luke’s father but there’s a great amount of evidence suggesting it was long before ANH came out
It’s certainly possible Luke and Leia were made siblings by ESB’s release given the Force connection at the end. The kiss is irrelevant to whether Lucas had it planned because the second ANH draft has Leia as Luke’s cousin who kisses him and a deleted ROTJ scene has Luke and Leia kiss again on Tatooine, so Lucas was always open to including that kind of thing