Wow. I think that was great. Personally, I think that plan could have just as easily worked had Vader been Luke's father, but I think it's overall much better than what we ended up getting. Although maybe instead of just talking about torturing Leia, since she's already a prisoner, it would be better motivation if Vader actually did torture her. Then Luke could take his revenge, beginning to relish in inflicting in Vader the same kind of pain Vader was inflicting to Leia. The only quirk I can see with this plan, though, is that, assuming you haven't changed up much of the first act of the movie, we now have two points in the same movie where Leia is chained up. I wonder if a fetish of yours is slipping through in this post, hmm? ^_~

Oh, and, sky, I don't necessarily agree that Luke could only have the potential to be evil because his father was evil. That's like saying if my father was a murderer, I have a better chance of being a murderer. I know that's basically what Lucas was trying to do with the sequels, making the parallel that there were certain expectations of parallel between father and son, but that's a purely dramatic arc. It might have weakened it slightly without the expectations of destiny and following the same road, but it certainly doesn't preclude the notion of Luke going to the dark side.