Promus said:
The Republic doesn't need a clone army...just recruit like ten guys from each of the 1 million planets in the Republic and whammo, you've instantly got 10 million soldiers. It would be easy to make an even bigger army the same way, almost instantly.
Welcome also.
Something I've been wondering is how many planetary members of the Republic are there? Star Wars wikis aren't real clear, I found one suggesting there are 'over 2,000' members (planets, trade guilds, etc). In real terms, scientists say there are billions of planets in our galaxy (granted most cannot sustain life). To me, it just gets too over the top if there are many thousands of planets in the Republic. For story purposes, I would probably prefer only a few hundred planets. And certainly there are many inhabitable planets that are simply not part of the Republic because they're not civilized or are very remote. Still easy to raise a sizable army, of course. I'm just wondering your thoughts on the nature of the Republic.
Who knows what brought Kenobi to Tatooine, but that's where he would have met Anakin. Maybe Anakin really DID do work as a navigator on a spice freighter originally, but he obviously lived on Tatooine and was a great pilot.
This is a story element I want to make sure is solid. Some hate the idea of being on Tatooine again. But that is clearly where Anakin was from. Owen thought Anakin should have stayed "here." And the link with Owen (who apparently has it in his bones to be a moisture farmer) makes it almost impossible to not have Anakin come from Tatooine.
Maybe Obi-Wan met Anakin at the Mos Eisley cantina - how else would Kenobi know that the cantina is a great place to find talented pilots?
I like this idea...but I also don't want to take away from the fun of seeing the cantina for the first time in ANH. The whole point of panning across the aliens in ANH was to show how exotic it was. If we already know, then the ANH experience can fall flat.
Befriending Anakin, he fills his head with tales of glory, and war, and the wonder of the Force, all of which eclipsed the monotony of his safe, boring little life. Against the wishes of his brother, Owen, Anakin leaves the family farm and all of its mundane responsibilities to fight in the Clone Wars, "on some damn fool idealistic crusade" and hopefully return as a Jedi.
I'm mostly on board with the rest of your ideas, with a few extra twists and turns involved.