RogueLeader said:
Ooo, I’d like to hear more about this over on the script writing threads.
At one point I had an entire trilogy plotted out for a series that featured Owen and Beru as major characters, which I was toying with in this old thread:
https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/STARS-OF-WAR/id/15325
Of course, that one still has them on Tatooine. My ideas eventually diverged into two separate concepts for trilogies, the first being set within the existing prequel canon and the second being constructed as a replacement. Here’s a very rough idea of the three films:
In the first, Anakin is a twenty-something farmer on a fertile world who gets swept up into a galactic war because of his piloting abilities. After his first tour of duty he returns home a hero but Obi-wan realizes that his abilities could be used to revive the order of Jedi Knights to which he owes secret allegiance. He is hiding his true nature since the Republic refuses to allow the Jedi to serve as soldiers, but Obi-wan believes that the Republic is worthy of the Jedi’s protection.
In the second film, Obi-wan recruits Anakin over the objections of his brother Owen and the two go on to start a ‘damn fool idealistic crusade’ to bring the Jedi back into relevance by winning an increasingly desperate war against viscous robots. Anakin sees that he isn’t the first student Obi-wan has recruited. A tall young man from the core worlds flies for General Obi-wan’s command. He pilots an Invader class fighter and Anakin trains alongside him on a Defender class ship. The two become friends under Obi-wan’s leadership, and after winning some decisive victories and saving the planet Alderaan and its Princess from destruction, the Jedi Order is forced to admit that they can be defenders of the peace and warriors of the Republic. However, call-sign Vader perished in the final defense of Alderaan after Anakin prioritized the princesses’s life over Vader’s.
In the final film and after several more years of war, Owen and Beru come to realize that the Republic is being changed by the Jedi and the wars, which are increasingly looking like identical copies intended to serve as a threat to justify ever more Republic control. Their planet’s government is no longer autonomous, and they are forced off their land by robots built by the Republic’s new factories. Owen and Beru are now adrift in an unfriendly galaxy and must work at these droid factories to survive. Because of their jobs, they learn that the enemy is using the same parts as the Republic, fielding massive armies of these murderous robots, while the Republic gets only non-aggressive astromechs and load lifters to retain a flesh and blood Republic army and to disenfranchise workers. Of course, there’s the main plot with Anakin and Obi-wan but the Owen and Beru story ends with them trying to start a new life for themselves away from the Republic turned Empire.
But that’s a story for the screenwriting thread.