WheresBlackhawk said:
Greetings.
Just to chime in on the Tatooine thing...
I was never a fan of Tatooine being in the PT. It all depends on what lines in Star Wars you want to give your attention to.
You are focusing on Ben's line about Anakin "should have stayed here," and taking it literally. What if it's figurative or he was actually quoting Owen? "Here" meaning WITH his family not necessarily a defined place. Otherwise, think of Ben's line in ROTJ: "To protect you both from the Emperor, you were hidden from your father when you were born." With your father's name? On his home planet? To paraphrase Comicboook Guy from the Simpsons: WORST HIDING PLACE EVER!
Getting rid of Tatooine gives you two opportunities:
1. To not retread old ground. According to Luke, If there is a bright center to the galaxy, Tatooine is the planet that is the farthest from it, yet it is in FIVE of the six movies.
2. To create more variety of environments. I always like that the OT had such a great variety of settings: ANH- dessert and high-tech station. ESB- snow, jungle and cloud city. ROTJ- dessert and lush forest. What new setting can be introduced in NPT?
Its a great big galaxy. Where else can we tell your story?
But aside from that one line, it was clear that Owen had an emotional attachment to Anakin in that he didn't want him involved in Obi Wan's nonsense and then adopted his kid. Beru suggested Owen has moisture farming in his blood (by way of contrasting with Luke, "he's not a farmer, Owen [unlike you, and by farming I clearly mean moisture farming]." Owen doesn't come across as much of a spacefarer who relocated to another planet with moisture farming. So no matter where "here" was, in order for Anakin to know Owen, Tatooine should have been involved. We could stretch other lines to simply mean Owen knows Obi Wan well enough that he wouldn't trust him with a stray cat. But still, the lines and relationships show a greater connection between Owen and Anakin. Owen anchors us to Tatooine. Maybe we can make up more convoluted reasons to escape Tatooine but to me it's not worth it.
Being on Tatooine isn't a bad hiding spot if almost nobody in the galaxy knows Anakin Skywalker is Vader let alone formerly a great Jedi. And it's not like Vader is going to pop in and say hello. Owen is his former friend but for all intents and purposes Anakin is dead. Unless somebody knows to look there and knows what the name Skywalker means and finds out that Luke is the son of Anakin and not some other Skywalker, etc.
What was supremely stupid was Leia being given the middle name Amidala (according to sw wiki) and being a prominent member of royalty and involved in government business. That should have raised a non-digitally removed eyebrow. Or at least caused crippling anguish to Vader every time he encountered her.
Tatooine can be shown in new and exciting ways. In my mind, Tatooine only need be in one of the PT. And I personally like the idea of Luke and Leia being children of Tatooine and Alderaan (that's where their mother is from in my version).