thecolorsblend said:
A few things.
Much of what you describe are not goals of Anakin's, they were from a dream he had when he was a kid. And I don't mean that in the sense of highest aspirations he's placed on a pedestal and hopes to one day achieve. I mean they were literal dreams. He had too much jawa juice before bed one night and he dreamed he freed the slaves. The one real fantasy that he'd "always dreamed of" was becoming a Jedi which, as you say, he did accomplish.
But if we're talking about characters and goals... well, Luke never did make it to Toshi Station to pick up those power converters, he didn't take droids to Anchorhead for a memory wipe, he didn't have the droids in the field by mid-day, there wasn't hell to pay, Han never did get around to paying Jabba back (even though he had the money by the time credits rolled in ANH), etc etc etc.
I realize which forum I'm on and so this is probably barking up the wrong tree but let's be fair here...
Luke and Han's preliminary goals in ANH are there because they are torn between the world that they know and the world of adventure. The first step of Luke's journey is to reject the goals imposed by his uncle and achieve his destiny, whereas Han's journey is in doing something that isn't for money. He decides not to return to Jabba, and instead joins the Rebellion. When the goals imposed by Owen become irrelevant, Luke makes a firm decision to become a Jedi. When Han decides to return and help the rebellion, we don't hear a firm decision. Naturally he will have second thoughts in ESB.
I'm not trying to be hard on the prequels because I think that the Original Trilogy is perfect in every way. Han probably could have paid back Jabba and still helped the rebellion, just as Anakin could have probably freed his mother and still trained to be a Jedi.
Anakin became a Jedi Knight based on a lie. The council wouldn't have done it if they knew he was married. The marriage ceremony and clone army scenes at the end of episode 2 send a single message: failure. It isn't like the scene at the end of ESB where our heroes know that they've made mistakes, and must work to right them. It is that Anakin and the entire senate and Jedi order are already defeated, and even they know it. You might as well end the trilogy there, as it is obvious what will happen.