Alderaan

Alderaan is a fictional planet featured in the Star Wars space opera franchise. It is blue-green in appearance and is depicted as a terrestrial planet with humanoid inhabitants. It is the home of Princess Leia, one of the lead characters in the film series. In the original 1977 film, Star Wars, Alderaan is blown up by the Death Star, a giant space station capable of destroying entire planets.^[2]

Depiction

Early drafts of the Star Wars story include references to at least two planets which later evolved into the concept of Alderaan. Star Wars author George Lucas included a planet called Alderaan in early treatments; in The Star Wars (1973), Alderaan is a city-planet and the capital planet of the galaxy (prefiguring the planet Coruscant which later featured in the films). The draft script opens with a scene in which an "eerie blue-green" planet called Aquilae is threatened by an armed space fortress.^[3]

In Lucas's 1975 draft, Adventures of the Starkiller as taken from the Journal of the Whills, Saga I: The Star Wars, the capital planet of Alderaan is described as a floating city in the clouds, "suspended in a sea of cirrus methane". A planet described in Lucas's draft script as being "under siege by the Imperial Legions of Alderaan" and which is later destroyed is named as Ogana Major.^[4][5] Early sketches commissioned by Lucas from conceptual illustrator Ralph McQuarrie show a design which very closely resembles Cloud City, as featured in the later sequel, The Empire Strikes Back.^[6] In Lucas's third draft, the Imperial City of Alderaan has become the home world of the Sith Lords, and Darth Vader holds Princess Leia captive here. Lucas continued to hone his script, aided by screenwriters Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz; names of planets and characters were revised and the narrative was improved, and by the fourth draft, scenes on the Imperial capital planet had been moved to a space station called the Death Star and the peaceful world destroyed by the Empire had taken the name Alderaan.^[7]

Film

Mountain scenery in Grindelwald, Switzerland, used to depict Alderaan

Composite image based on a shot of Lake Thun in Grindelwald, depicting Alderaan

Characters from Alderaan

Carrie Fisher, who played Alderaan's best-known inhabitant, Princess Leia Organa

Jimmy Smits, who played Alderaan royal and father of Leia, Bail Organa

Alderaan was originally featured in the first film, Star Wars (later retitled Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope), released in 1977. The opening scene depicts the capture of a small spaceship from Alderaan, the Tantive IV, by the Galactic Empire, and introduces the character of Princess Leia Organa, a princess of the Royal House of Alderaan who is played by Carrie Fisher.

Alderaan appears in a later scene in the film, but is only shown on-screen in a distant view from space as the Empire's gigantic space station, the Death Star, moves into orbit around the planet. The battle station's commander, the Grand Moff Tarkin (Peter Cushing) orders the Death Star's superweapon to be fired at the planet. Alderaan explodes instantly in a ball of fire. It is later shown that the shattered planet has been reduced to a cloud of asteroids as the Millennium Falcon spaceship attempts to visit the planet.^[2] Alderaan is the only planet that was entirely destroyed by a Death Star in the whole film series.

The destruction of Alderaan meant that it was not depicted in subsequent Star Wars films until the series of prequel films was produced. The planet made its first on-screen appearance since 1977 in Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005), when it featured briefly at the end of the film. The father of Princess Leia, Bail Organa (Jimmy Smits) is seen piloting a starship to the planet's surface, which is shown as a mountainous, alpine region covered in snow. Landing his ship in a citadel among the mountains, he brings the newborn Princess Leia into his royal palace. The backdrop for these scenes was created by compositing landscape footage of Grindelwald in Switzerland with CGI images of the city.^[8]

The planet is not featured in the 2016 film Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, but the character Bail Organa makes an appearance, stating that he will return to Alderaan to wait for his daughter, Leia, to bring the Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi. This makes reference to events that immediately precede the narrative of the 1977 film, A New Hope.^[9]

Television

In an episode of the animated television series Star Wars: The Clone Wars entitled "Assassin", Ahsoka Tano has premonitions of Padme's death on Alderaan.^[2]

Comics

The comic series Star Wars: Princess Leia (2015) deals with Princess Leia and Evan (a female rebel pilot also native from Alderaan), rescuing survivors from Alderaan's destruction. It also features a brief flashback to Leia's childhood on the planet and her relationship with her adoptive father Senator Bail Organa.^[10]

Star Wars Legends

Alderaan is mentioned frequently and also serves as a location in several works in the Star Wars expanded universe, the collection of books, comics and other material considered outside official Star Wars canon and now branded Star Wars Legends. In various stories, Alderaan is presented as the home of the characters Tycho Celchu, and of Ulic Qel Droma who fought in the Great Sith War in 4000 BBY (Before the Battle of Yavin). During the fall of the Empire, New Alderaan was named after Alderaan for the 60,000 survivors to start rebuilding the beauty of the original Planet.

Novels

In Michael A. Stackpole's 1998 novel, I, Jedi, Alderaan features as the sanctuary of the Caamasi when their home world of Caamas is devastated by the Galactic Empire.

Alderaan is featured in a 1991 role-playing game, Graveyard of Alderaan (part of Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game). It describes how, after the Clone Wars, Alderaan's massive war machine was dismantled and the weapons were placed aboard an armory warship called Another Chance. The ship was programmed to continually jump through hyperspace until called home by the Alderanian Council.

Radio drama

The 1981 NPR/BBC radio drama adaptation of Star Wars features scenes set on Alderaan, in which Princess Leia discusses her mission to acquire the Death Star plans from agents of the Rebel Alliance with her father, Bail Organa (Prestor Organa). In a later scene, she is confronted by the Imperial commander Lord Tion and accused of treason.^[11][12]

Description

Alderaan (Core Worlds) illustrated on a map of the fictional Star Wars galaxy

Considered a "Shining Star" of the Core Worlds. Wild grasslands and old mountain ranges dominated the planet's surface. Ice-rimmed polar seas were the only large bodies of water, though thousands of freshwater and saltwater lakes provided habitats for a large variety of flora and fauna. Alderaan was also the home-world of some of the galaxy's most famous animals, such as the nerf and the Thranta. Cities on Alderaan were often built with great care taken to protect nature. One city was built on the walls of a canyon, nearly invisible from above. Other cities were built on stilts along the shoreline or under the polar ice. The capital town of Aldera, known for its university, was built on a small island in the center of a caldera.^[13]

The Alderaanian people highly valued education, arts, architecture, poetry, the performing arts, and diplomacy. They placed high value in their participation in the Galactic (later Imperial) Senate. It was a largely democratic society, and took the form of a hereditary constitutional monarchy that was ruled by a monarch from the historic Royal House of Antilles and later, due to marriage, the House of Organa.^[13] It had a minister presiding over the High Court and legislative High Council of Alderaan, and in various descriptions of this figure, styled First Chairman and Viceroy, he appeared to function as a generally benevolent leader. Its monarchs have variously borne the title of King or Queen of Alderaan. The ruler of Alderaan from the end of Revenge of the Sith to A New Hope was Queen Breha Antilles-Organa. Queen Breha was married to Bail Organa, who served a term as Senator during the events depicted in Revenge of the Sith, later serving as both prince consort and first chairman of Alderaan. Traditionally, the heir of the Alderaanian throne also served as a lawmaker, first locally in the High Council, then on Coruscant as an interplanetary Senator for Alderaan. Queen Breha and Bail's heir and (secretly adopted) daughter was Princess Leia, who was serving as Senator for Alderaan in the Imperial Senate during the events depicted in A New Hope.

See also

• List of Star Wars planets and moons

References

• Rinzler, J. W. (2008). The Making of Star Wars: The Definitive Story Behind the Original Film. Ebury Press. ISBN 9780091924997. Retrieved 20 April 2017. 
• Hearn, Marcus (2005). The Cinema of George Lucas. New York: Harry N. Abrams. ISBN 9780810949683. Retrieved 21 April 2017. 
• Bouzereau, Laurent (1998). Star Wars: the Annotated Screenplays (1st UK ed.). London: Titan Books. ISBN 9781852869236. Retrieved 21 April 2017. 
• Windham, Ryder (2015). Ultimate Star Wars. DK. ISBN 9781465436016. Retrieved 21 April 2017. 
• Wallace, Daniel; Kolins, Scott; McKinney, Brandon (1998). Star Wars : the Essential Guide to Planets and Moons (1st ed. ed.). New York: Ballantine Pub. Group. ISBN 9780345420688. CS1 maint: Extra text (link)

Further reading

• A Guide to the Star Wars Universe 3rd Edition, by Bill Slavicsek, Del Rey Books
• The Essential guide to Planets and Moons (Star Wars), 1st edition, by Daniel Wallace, Scott Kolins. 1998. ISBN 0-345-42068-3
• Star Wars: Rebel Dawn (Book 3 of "The Han Solo Trilogy"), by A. C. Crispin. 1998. ISBN 0-553-57417-5
• Star Wars, X-Wing: The Bacta War, (Book 4 of The X-Wing series), 1sp paperback printing, 1997. Michael A. Stackpole, ISBN 0-553-56804-3
• Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays, softcover, 1997. George Lucas, Leigh Brackett, Lawrence Kasdan, Laurent Bouzereau, ISBN 0-345-40981-7
• Star Wars: Roleplaying Game- Coruscant and the Core Worlds, hardcover 2003, by Craig R. Carey, Chris Doyle, Jason Fry, Paul Sudlow, John Terra, Daniel Wallace, ISBN 0-7869-2879-4

External links

• Alderaan in the StarWars.com Databank
• Alderaan on Wookieepedia, a Star Wars wiki