mrbenja0618 said:

When I heard Liam Neeson had been cast, I was excited. But I also believed Lucas was drawing a lot from his 1st draft of star wars.... Anyway, in that draft, Anakin has a father named Kane Starkiller.... I thought maybe we were going to get Kane Skywalker father of Anakin. Oh well... Instead we got a Jedi master that was so important that he should have been mentioned in 4-6.... But alas, he's not.... Anyone remember when Lucas said he wrote the prequels 20 or so years ago... =/

How about renaming Qui Gon as 'Obi Wan'. And renaming Obi Wan as 'Kane Starkiller'? It would then be Obi Wan who discovers Anakin (in keeping with what is suggested in ANH) and Kane could be Obi Wan's 'other' apprentice (the one hinted at in ANH).

This would help retain the surprise of Vader being Luke's father, as the audience would think that Ewan McGregor's character is the one who becomes Vader and kills Anakin.

A simple bit of dialogue replacement is all that would be needed to achieve this. And a re-edit of the ending, so that Liam Neeson (Obi Wan) survives the fight with Maul. And remove any references of McGregor's character becoming Anakin's mentor.

Of course, this would be impossible to carry on into AotC and RotS. But it would help eliminate the unecessary character of Qui Gon, whilst strengthening the Obi Wan character and retaining the surprises of the OT.