Luke and Anakin’s journeys should have paralleled a lot closer than they do in the PT we got. More than just a few visual references. Their arcs should be more or less the same, up until Luke sees he’s going down the same path as Vader and rejects it in RotJ.
Both Anakin and Luke would start their path becoming Jedi for the wrong reasons: Seeking out adventure, and becoming more powerful to help fight in a cause. They’ll both get their asses kicked by the villain of the story, but Anakin doesn’t get the revelation of the path his father went down. Anakin will start to seek out the dark side, which will leave him better equipped to fight in a war than the Jedi’s pacifist teachings. He’d defeat the enemy in a reversal of the RotJ throne room. Without his “I am a Jedi, like my father before me” moment, he kills the villain and ends up at Palpatine’s side.
I definitely think that the Clone Wars should have played a much larger, more visible role in Anakin’s development. Instead of seeming like a bad apple even before the War began, he should have experienced a loss of innocence as he grew up in a wartime environment. The Jedi who came of age during the War would have been of a more warlike sort, with Anakin never being trained or taught by Yoda like Luke was, leaving him as more of a warrior than a monk. This more martial personality would lead to Anakin becoming popular among the masses during the War, being seen as a champion of the Republic, while also leaving him much more vulnerable to the pursuit of more aggressive forms of power.
I like it.
What about George’s concept that Anakin was the son of Palpatine. He even had a reveal scene like Empire where Palpatine reveals it to Anakin, it was in an earlier script draft of Revenge of the Sith.
There’s a prequel rewrite on youtube where a central plot point is how Anakin is a clone of Palpatine. Anakin turns to the dark side because he’s convinced he has no free will, echoing things he says in RotJ (I must obey my master). In RotJ when he finally overthrows Palpatine, it becomes the ultimate expression of freedom as the triumph of free will. Interesting concept.