hydrospanner said:
Before the prequels we didn’t know why Ben or Yoda were either
I don’t understand this statement. The backstory was inferred before the prequels, and those films are not necessary to understand Star Wars. Often they contradict the OT which was then retconned. I personally believe the OT is the only thing that matters when deciphering events of the Star Wars universe, but you can see things however you want.
As far as I’m concerned (all from the OT)…
Yoda taught Obi-Wan. When and where he taught Obi-Wan is never established and it’s irrelevant anyway. Coruscant, midi-chlorians, none of that bullshit exists in the OT. What is known is that Obi-Wan taught Anakin, and they became friends. Anakin was then seduced by the dark side and became Darth Vader, the Emperor’s new apprentice.
From there, Vader betrayed his fellow Jedi and helped the new Galactic Empire kill nearly all of them. Only Obi-Wan, Yoda, baby Luke and Leia remained. How the others were all killed, indeed how many were killed is never stated and also irrelevant to the Star Wars story. The only information that matters is that Obi-Wan took Luke and his aunt and uncle and went into hiding on Tatooine, Leia was taken to Alderaan, and Yoda lived on Dagobah. There is no hint that Yoda went into exile; rather, it always seemed to me that Dagobah was his home planet, and the reason he was never discovered was because Vader and the Emperor didn’t even know who he existed. In all of Vader’s dialogue in the OT, he mentions Obi-Wan’s name many times, but never says the name of Yoda even once. The only inference that can be made is that he (and therefore the Emperor) did not know who Yoda was.
The only explanation for why Luke Skywalker was able to live and grow up with Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru is that they too were in exile. Obi-Wan must have taken both of them with Luke into exile on Tatooine, and ordered them to raise the boy. It’s not possible in the OT for the Skywalkers to have come from Tatooine originally, otherwise Kenobi and Luke and his aunt/uncle would have all been found and destroyed.
Thus, as far as I’m concerned, the idiotic retconning that Anakin’s home planet was Tatooine, that he somehow made C3PO, that Yoda taught all Jedi and was known by Vader and the Emperor, that he knew Chewie, and that we almost got baby Han in the prequels, is all bullshit to someone like me.
As far as I’m concerned, the prequels are bullshit and have no influence on the story of the OT and might as well not even exist. I suggest other people take the same approach, but YMMV.