{"id":3961,"date":"2004-04-10T22:58:12","date_gmt":"2004-04-11T03:58:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/starwarz.com\/tbone\/?p=3961"},"modified":"2022-05-10T22:58:47","modified_gmt":"2022-05-11T03:58:47","slug":"bail-organa-intergalactic-man-of-mystery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starwarz.com\/tbone\/bail-organa-intergalactic-man-of-mystery\/","title":{"rendered":"Bail Organa: Intergalactic Man of Mystery"},"content":{"rendered":"

Note: This editorial was written before the release of <\/em>Episode III.<\/em><\/p>\n

The name Bail Organa has been floating around in Star Wars<\/i> lore since the saga’s inception. The name and the character went through many iterations until Episode II<\/i> when Jimmy Smits appeared on screen, ending the mystery of what Bail would look like and what he would do in the prequel era. The character still retained an air of mystery about him, however.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

One of the first mentions of the name Bail can be found in the rough draft of\u00a0Star Wars<\/i>\u00a0from May, 1974<\/a>. In this draft, Bail is actuallynamed Bail Antilles<\/em>, Galactic Trader. Keen-eared Star Wars<\/i> fans will recognize that name from the scene in The Phantom Menace<\/i> when the nominees for Supreme Chancellor are identified after current Chancellor Valorum is deposed. George Lucas still had the name floating around in his head, apparently. In the 1974 rough draft, Bail Antilles didn\u2019t have much to do and his role has nothing to do with the Bail Organa that shows up later. As a fun aside, the name \u201cOgana\u201d sans the \u201cr\u201d was also an early planet name in the old drafts.<\/p>\n

Bail Antilles shows up once again in the second draft of\u00a0Star Wars<\/i>\u00a0from January 1975<\/a>. Once again, he\u2019s just another irrelevant side character in this draft. The story was still in flux. The Force was called The Force of Others<\/em> and instead of a dark and light side, it consisted of the Ashla and Bogan sides. The Jedi were known as the Jedi Bendu and were in hiding, along with a great Jedi known as The Starkiller. Bail Antilles was an agent of The Starkiller.<\/p>\n

The Organa name was invoked in the third draft of Star Wars <\/i>from 1975<\/a>, but this time there was no mention of Bail Antilles or Bail Organa. The name was used as Leia\u2019s surname, but also used in the planet name Organa Major, which would later be changed to Alderaan.<\/p>\n

In the revised fourth draft from 1976<\/a>, Leia\u2019s hologram message actually identifies her father as Bail Antilles:<\/p>\n

\u201cGeneral Obi-Wan Kenobi, I present myself in the name of the royal family of Alderaan, and the Alliance to restore the Republic. I break your solitude at the bidding of my father Bail Antillies, Viceroy and Chairman of the Alderaan system.\u201d<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The first real mention of the name Bail Organa that I can recall was from the novelization of Star Wars<\/i>. Ever since then, the name has been floating around the Star Wars<\/i> universe and was always associated with the man who adopted young Leia and, through royalty, made her the Princess she became. What many others didn\u2019t know at the time, however, was that he also made her something else besides a Princess and a politician: a Rebel freedom fighter.<\/p>\n

Bail Organa\u2019s history aside (and there\u2019s more of it), the topic I\u2019d like to address is how and why Bail Organa was allowed to exist after the events of\u00a0Episode III<\/i> considering all of the facts we know such as his adoption of Leia (though the source of the child was most likely secret), his political standing, his sympathy towards the Jedi, his opposition to the Clone Army, and other things that the Emperor might somehow find threatening to his new Empire. Many of the same questions could apply to people like Mon Mothma and others.<\/p>\n

I firmly believe that Bail Organa, like many other galactic (or otherwise) senators, is on both sides of the intergalactic political fence. He placates whatever figurehead is in charge but secretly has other ideas and agendas known only to those close to him. The basis of my theory is that if Palpatine knew Organa was helping the Jedi (including Obi-Wan), Amidala, or was in any way, shape, or form having dealings with people who oppose him, Palpatine would have Organa eliminated in a heartbeat. I therefore believe that the reason people like Bail Organa or Mon Mothma survive the events of Episode III<\/i>\u00a0is that they play the game very well. They do what they do in the political arena for political reasons, but in the shadows they plot, confer, and prepare for things they think are inevitable.<\/p>\n

Bail Organa will have to be extremely careful with what he says and does or he could end up in serious trouble or even dead, and he probably knows that. By the end of Episode III<\/i>, it will be very clear what\u2019s happened, but as the movie is progressing, I\u2019m betting that senators like Organa, Mothma and the others will sit around scratching their heads wondering what\u2019s going on and what they should do about it. Should they resign from office and go back to their home worlds? Should they organize some sort of clandestine group in case things get out of hand? The writing is definitely on the wall in\u00a0Episode III<\/i>, but just what exactly does it say or mean? It will be hard for them to discern until it\u2019s too late.<\/p>\n

Bail Organa will hopefully have at least one good action sequence in\u00a0Episode III<\/i> where he does something a little daring and perhaps shows his true colors, but will Palpatine be aware of it? Organa will most likely be involved with Amidala\u2019s birthing of the twins somehow. He might even be in the room as the twins are born. In any case, he will adopt Leia as his own knowing full well where she came from. Does Palpatine know about this? Bail Organa opposes Palpatine and all that he stands for, eventually organizing a rebellion against the Empire. Does Palpatine know about that? My guess is that no, Palpatine doesn\u2019t know about any of this, and if by chance he does, he lets these things happen figuring he can use them somehow in the future to his advantage. However, I\u2019m going with the simpler theory that Palpatine, blinded by his power and concerned with creating Darth Vader and molding him to his devices, is blissfully unaware of the goings on with Bail Organa and his extracurricular activities. People like Organa are just not important to him. Palpatine thus begins to show his true weaknesses\u2014as Luke Skywalker would later point out to him\u2014overconfidence and underestimating others.\u00a0It\u2019s interesting to note that Palpatine never really disputes that statement by young Luke in Return of the Jedi<\/em>. He just counters it with a quick, almost child-like, retort. Perhaps Luke hit a nerve. Perhaps Palpatine knows he\u2019s too overconfident and that\u2019s why he\u2019s had so much trouble in the past with losing his apprentices one after the other. Is this why he goes to great lengths to ensure the survival of Anakin Skywalker as Darth Vader?<\/p>\n

We know that Palpatine went to great lengths to eliminate the Jedi and their \u201creligion,\u201d but why did he stop short with just the Jedi? Why not be rid of those pesky senators that he felt posed a threat to him? My guess would be that he didn\u2019t actually think they posed a threat. Perhaps there\u2019s some sort of mass resignation (or even firing\/replacement) of those senators who Palpatine didn\u2019t particularly like and maybe that was good enough for him. If they all just disappeared and went home, why bother with them when there\u2019s other stuff to worry about? Politicians are just a necessary evil to the old regime. Palpatine would eventually \u201cdissolve the council fully\u201d in a while anyhow. Perhaps he didn\u2019t want any more unrest in the public eye than need be. Surely people would think that the disappearance of a bunch of high profile senators would be strange and someone somewhere would ask a few questions. Why draw attention to one\u2019s self when one is trying to hide one\u2019s true nature? (See my editorial\u00a0\u201cThe Secret of the Sith\u201d<\/a>\u00a0for more on that.)<\/p>\n

So perhaps Palpatine will leave well enough alone and let those senators who want to leave do just that. I don\u2019t think that Organa will still be a Senator by the end of\u00a0Episode III<\/i>. I think by the end of the film, Organa will have seen enough and know he\u2019s in too deep with helping out his friends Obi-Wan and Amidala. He can\u2019t then go back to Coruscant with a clear conscience so he\u2019ll most likely just retreat back to Alderaan and serve out his years as Viceroy Bail Organa until (quite conveniently for Palpatine, albeit a bit too late) the planet is tragically destroyed in front of his adopted daughter\u2019s eyes.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve always been intrigued by the character of Bail Organa since the early days. I wanted to know all about him and what he did all that time he was raising Leia. Some of this is explored in the\u00a0Star Wars<\/i> Radio Dramas, but I was never really into listening to them on a regular basis, fun as they are. I was more interested in Lucas\u2019 personal take on this father figure. So naturally, when I heard about the prequels, I immediately thought about the possibility of Bail Organa playing a role somehow. I didn\u2019t think it would be such a small role in the prequel trilogy as a whole, but nonetheless he\u2019s a key figure in\u00a0Episode III<\/i> so that\u2019s fine by me. It\u2019s really the whole handing off of Leia to him that\u2019s important in the big picture.<\/p>\n

We know from\u00a0Episode IV<\/i> that Organa knows exactly where Obi-Wan Kenobi is hiding. He sends Leia to find him and bring him to Alderaan in order to find a way to destroy the Death Star. This plan gets slightly botched, but as we all know, it works out for the better in more ways than one. The fact that Organa knows where Kenobi is, however, implies that there has to be at least one scene in\u00a0Episode III\u00a0<\/i>where Kenobi and Organa have a little pow-wow and inform each other where they’ll be in case something big happens. I can’t imagine anyone else really knowing about Kenobi but Organa and perhaps Amidala, who unfortunately (if the rumors are correct) won’t be around to tell anyone.<\/p>\n

So it appears to me that in the years between\u00a0Episode III<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0Episode IV<\/i>, Bail Organa remains very much involved in the current events of the galaxy. Does he do this simply as a viceroy of Alderaan or does he remain a Senator on Coruscant, using his political double talk as a vessel for organizing a rebellion against Palpatine’s new Empire? Hopefully\u00a0Episode III<\/i> will fill in all the blanks about why Organa survives the prequels and crosses over (off-screen) to the original trilogy.<\/p>\n

Until then, here\u2019s to Bail Organa: Intergalactic Man of Mystery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Note: This editorial was written before the release of Episode III. The name Bail Organa has been floating around in Star Wars lore since the saga’s inception. The name and the character went through many iterations until Episode II when Jimmy Smits appeared on screen, ending the mystery of what Bail would look like and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001004,"featured_media":3964,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[113,943,941,319,109,108,942,330,114,345,45,604],"class_list":["post-3961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-adrian-dunbar","tag-alderaan","tag-alliance","tag-antilles","tag-bail-antilles","tag-bail-organa","tag-drafts","tag-george-lucas","tag-jimmy-smits","tag-leia","tag-obi-wan-kenobi","tag-starkiller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starwarz.com\/tbone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starwarz.com\/tbone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starwarz.com\/tbone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starwarz.com\/tbone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starwarz.com\/tbone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3961"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/starwarz.com\/tbone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3971,"href":"https:\/\/starwarz.com\/tbone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3961\/revisions\/3971"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starwarz.com\/tbone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starwarz.com\/tbone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starwarz.com\/tbone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starwarz.com\/tbone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}