Gaffer Tape said:

I've honestly never even seen how that line would contradict anything that George pulled out of his ass later. Red Leader says that he knew Luke's father, and that Luke's father was a great pilot. Why even bother cutting that out in the first place? Anakin, even in the prequels, was shown (on rare occasions) to be good at piloting spacecraft, and he did indeed know people.

I thought it was so Lucas didn't have to squeeze another character into the prequels. Of course, that was before I SAW the prequels and Lucas was squeezing in characters left and right (making Yoda and Chewie best friends even)!

Nothing says he couldn't have had a guy show up and say "Hey, I'm Red Leader." Or even (gasp) assumed that the viewer would be smart enough to figure that MAYBE ANAKIN DID THINGS OUTSIDE OF THE FIVE HOURS WE SEE HIM. Or leave it to the EU to do his dirty work.