In Memoriam Alan Ladd Jr & Tom Veitch

 With Star Wars being a 45 year old franchise, over time many of the people who worked and acted on the movies have passed away. But the 2 most recent ones to pass away had a huge impact on Star Wars. Alan Ladd, Jr and writer Tom Veitch. While Mr Ladd's passing was well known, Mr Veitch's passing was around the same time as Mr Ladd's.

Alan Ladd, Jr has more to do with Star Wars because he was the ONLY person who supported George Lucas in his vision of a space saga. If he hadn't green lighted the project, both George Lucas and 20th Century Fox wouldn't have made a boat load of money. But this would also cost Ladd his job at 20th Century Fox. Because Star Wars became a huge success, Fox missed out on merchandising cash and input on the direction of the sequels. He was also the executive who supported Mel Brooks when he wanted to make Young Frankenstein in black and white. He had a long record of supporting the vision of film makers. He made Star Wars as much as George Lucas did. Lucas had the vision, Alan Ladd Jr gave him what he needed to tell the story. Without him, Lucas is only known for directing American Graffiti, which is also an excellent movie. RIP.

Tom Veitch is known for being a long time writer. He was tabbed by Dark Horse Comics to write Dark Empire. Say what you want to about it, but a lot of Veitch's story ideas made it to films. Anakin landing the battleship in Revenge of the Sith references Luke Skywalker landing a Star Destroyer as it was described in the Dark Empire opening crawl. He was the 1st to resurrect Palpatine, as we would see in Episode 9. But Mr Veitch would get to be another first time author: he would write the 1st Star Wars story to not have a Skywalker in it. Tales of the Jedi told the story of Jedi 4,000 years before A New Hope. It became successful, and spawned a new era open to story telling. Love the Old Republic games? Without Tom Veitch, that doesn't happen. RIP.