Channel72

G&G-Fan said:

I love how the opening emphasizes Han and Luke’s friendship so well. Han is willing to die for a chance to save his friend, and they have such a good dynamic he’s not mad at Luke for Leia kissing him. It’s a great way to make the audience fear they may never reunite and show Han’s growth. From the veneer of callousness to a real friendship.

Yeah. When I rewatched ESB a little while ago, I was surprised how effective this was. Especially that scene in Echo Base where Luke says goodbye to Han, while Han is perched atop the Falcon doing repairs. I was equally surprised just how little screen-time Han and Luke have together, yet the short time they’re together is used so effectively.

We often fondly remember the “big 3” main characters in the OT, and their great chemistry. It’s actually kind of surprising when you remember that the “big 3” only appear together on-screen for half of A New Hope, the beginning of Empire Strikes Back (where they’re together on-screen really for only one scene in the medical bay), and maybe about less than one-half of Return of the Jedi. They’re separated for over half the entire Original Trilogy, yet their chemistry is so good and the scripts are so tightly written that it successfully creates the impression of a strong bond and deep friendship between the three of them.

Vladius said:

However I think with The Clone Wars it’s just worse overall. The story is all divided up into arcs and it’s a sort of anthology show that jumps around in the timeline and doesn’t focus on any particular narrative thread. If you have a bad arc then it’s a string of 3-4 episodes that all go down. If you have a good arc it can get ruined by a boring episode in the middle. You don’t just skip episodes, you skip whole characters like Jar Jar and Padme. There are a bunch of episodes that focus on side characters who aren’t particularly interesting, and you’re just waiting for Obi Wan and Anakin to come back.

I didn’t see all of TCW, but what I did see was basically an above-average Saturday morning cartoon. I can’t understand how people say things like “it fixes the Prequels” when the show is not even targeting the same demographics necessarily. And the Anakin character is basically a completely different character.

I have mostly negative things to say about TCW. I never really appreciated the animation style. The show’s quality is frustratingly inconsistent. However, one major positive thing I can say is that in the final season (released under Disney ironically) there is a 4 episode arc at the end that is just really high quality writing, in my opinion. We see Order 66 from Ahsoka’s isolated POV on a malfunctioning Star Destroyer. It was really well done, even if it does go off the rails a little bit at the end. I was actually surprised at how good it was, and this made we wish that Order 66 was depicted more like this in Revenge of the Sith, focusing on the isolated POV of a single Jedi (probably Obi Wan) as the clones around him suddenly turn on him, and later he makes the horrifying realization that it’s a Galaxy-wide phenomenon happening off-screen.

^ Yeah, Andor is uniquely awesome. Was it worth all the other crap that came out of Disney acquiring LucasFilm? I don’t know, maybe. I think the Sequel Trilogy was the most damaging byproduct of the Disney acquisition. The Disney+ garbage is ignored easily enough, but the Sequel Trilogy actually mattered because it was the last time the OT cast would be available. And in my opinion, the Sequels turned out to be a complete mess and a major wasted opportunity (not that George Lucas necessarily would have done any better).

Mocata said:

RIP to a screen legend. Hope nothing ghoulish is done with his recordings as Vader after this…

I think they already stopped using his voice after Rogue One. In Rogue One, James Earl Jones definitely sounded different than the OT, which is what happens after almost 40 years. In later Disney+ shows with Vader, I think they used a synthetic voice using AI software.

Anyway, the man was a legend and he lived a long, extraordinary life.

Superweapon VII said:

“Me sucky sucky.”

That’s cheating, you can’t use 2 Live Crew lyrics as a movie quote. Wait… I just realized it’s from Full Metal Jacket actually. Is it too late to delete this post? Asking for a friend

I think the original “Journal of the Whills”, i.e. the one from 1973, is just an outline that is a few pages or so in length. It’s mostly noteworthy for the mention of “Mace Windy” and other later reused character names. My understanding is that it’s never been publicly released, but J.W. Rinzler’s book included a photograph of the first page of Lucas’ original hand-written version.

From lost media wiki:

It’s really hard to compare the two. They’re so radically different, created in different eras, different formats, different motivations (well except for money, that’s a timeless motivation). As an experience, the Prequels are better. The Kenobi show is just kind of depressing. Disney got really cheap on us with the production value, and seeing fan-fiction where sad Ewan McGregor fights Halloween-costume Darth Vader at a construction site off Interstate 95 or something is just, well, sad.

As a general rule, both the Prequels and Disney+ Star Wars suck pretty hard, but the Prequels usually suck in more bafflingly “fun” ways, whereas Disney Star Wars just sucks in boring, depressing ways. Like, an example of the Prequels sucking is like “George Lucas actually wrote an entire Star Wars movie that didn’t even feature adult Anakin!” or “Obi Wan Kenobi rides a cartoon lizard while using a glowstick to poke a cyborg on a unicycle”. Whereas, with Disney, you get “lightsabers behave like baseball bats, everything is poorly lit, the cinematography is vomit, the music is boring and unmemorable, there’s like 3 new main characters that nobody cares about, all character development is replaced with Dave Filoni Rebels cameos, etc.”

Everything in the Prequels is like a bare-bones, skeleton of a story. All the details - all the “connective tissue” - was all filled in later by people who are not George Lucas.

What was Palpatine’s plan in the Phantom Menace? Who knows! He was doing some shady shit with some Trade company to get elected President, that’s all that mattered. Why did the Separatists want to leave the Republic? Who cares! Taxes maybe! Or something! Maybe they were sick of Palpatine’s tacky office furnishings. What about Anakin’s great friendship with Obi-Wan? You know, basically the entire dramatic basis for making these movies? Who cares! It happens mostly off screen. We’ll fill it later with some EU “multi-media” projects or whatever. What really matters is General Grievous has enough screen-time to justify all those ILM man-hours and electricity cost of 3D rendering, and to meet projected sales figures for Grievous toys.

G&G-Fan said:

Channel72 said:

My guess is they changed it because Tarkin dies when the Death Star explodes, but Vader survives. Thus, there is more “poetic justice” if Tarkin was the one who ordered the destruction of Alderaan.

Tarkin still orders the destruction, Vader is just the one who tells them to release the primary ignition.

He’s the link to the script: https://imsdb.com/scripts/Star-Wars-A-New-Hope.html

Interesting. Yeah, would be interesting to find out what motivated that change. I think Lucas always had plans for Vader to be somewhat sympathetic, but not necessarily Luke’s father initially. I forget the exact details, but originally Vader was an amalgamation of characters from earlier drafts, including a “Sith Knight” character who was shown to have some redeeming qualities, caring about honor, etc. Darth Vader in A New Hope is also shown to still care about some notion of a code of honor, as he chooses to face Obi Wan alone. Also, Vader is kind of unsupportive of the Death Star in general. Maybe Lucas’ intuition told him that Vader should be distanced from the destruction of Alderaan as much as possible.

It’s similar to how, in the novelization or radio drama of A New Hope, the scene where Leia is tortured is described in more horrifying detail than the movie, but the author also strangely tries to make Vader slightly sympathetic by having him order the guards to provide some comfort to Leia after the torture session fails.

To really fix Star Wars, all they need to do is make it better. It’s like, so obvious.

Seriously though, from my perspective, Star Wars went off the rails in 1999, so the Disney-era doesn’t seem so catastrophic to me - just piling more shit on top of existing shit.

At this point, all I can say is that Andor was an outlier of awesomeness. Point at it and tell Disney “yeah that’s pretty good, just keep doing that”.

G&G-Fan said:

In the shooting script, Darth Vader is the one who orders the Death Star technicians to “Release primary ignitions”, thus making him more directly responsible for Alderaan. I wonder why this was changed.

Yet another serendipitous thing that presciently paved the way for Vader to become Anakin Skywalker.

My guess is they changed it because Tarkin dies when the Death Star explodes, but Vader survives. Thus, there is more “poetic justice” if Tarkin was the one who ordered the destruction of Alderaan.

^ I guess the problem everyone noticed is that Prequel Anakin is just so different. Hayden Christensen’s physique and lightsaber swordplay is really not suggestive of Vader in any way. Hence, the emergence of this idea that the cybernetics fundamentally limited Vader’s movement - an idea that seems kind of absurd given the existence of things like General Grievous. Or forget Grievous - we have an 80 year old Count Dooku doing backflips. Even Yoda in ESB had very limited physical mobility, but was implied to be extraordinarily powerful.

But I guess Force powers in Star Wars constantly waver between the mental and physical, causing a lot of thematic dissonance. Yoda can lift small starships with his mind, but Jedi training also includes learning space fencing and space kung fu. You’d think being able to lift a multi-ton metal X-wing with your mind would imply mastery over physical forces that would enable you to kill anyone instantly, thus making martial arts or lightsabers mostly useless. Star Wars tries to justify the sword fighting with this implied rule that two Force users can’t necessarily just kill each other with the Force. But Vader as a villain/monster was designed for an environment where no other Force users exist, so he works better as a hulking monster than a master swordsman who does backflips.

You know, I don’t think Darth Vader really should be depicted as agile in the cybernetic suit. Vader in the OT - particularly during the ESB duel - was more like this methodical, slow-moving, unstoppable force that just keeps slowly advancing forward. I know people won’t like the comparison, but I think Vader was somewhat designed to invoke similar fears that someone might experience watching horror movie icons like Jason Vorhees or Michael Meyers just silently walking forward like an unstoppable hulking mass. Rogue One certainly capitalized on this aspect of Vader’s aesthetic. I mean, Vader basically lives in a dark tower on a Mordor planet - an idea going back to the 1970s, pre-dating Rogue One by decades. He was never meant to be agile like Darth Maul. He’s meant to be a slow, imposing, unstoppable hulk. These physical mechanics are inextricably tied to the design of his suit.

Regarding Vader and the negative portrayal of prosthetics/cybernetics, I think this is more like a visual metaphor for losing one’s humanity. In a separate conversation I was having in the OT section with ZkinandBonez, we were talking about how Star Wars is to some extent written as a timeless piece of mythology. If it weren’t set in some psuedo-futuristic space civilization, but instead set in like, a Lord of the Rings type high-fantasy environment, Vader would be something like a “Ring Wraith” or Gollum or some kind of decrepid yet powerful being, whose loss of humanity and descent into evil is symbolized by some kind of physical deterioration or dependency on dark magic. Vader’s cybernetic suit and iron lung serve a similar function, as a visual representation of a formerly good person who became evil. The cybernetics was simply a handy visual metaphor suggested by the sci-fi setting.

There’s also buried underneath all of this a very Christian theme of a “deal with the Devil” type thing, where achieving great powers of darkness comes with a very severe price of physical deterioration. Lucas implemented this idea very literally with having Vader fall into lava after embracing the Dark Side. The Emperor also appears physically deformed, presumably because he’s been screwing around with Dark Side powers for so long.

However, I don’t completely agree with this interpretation. I think it’s partially true, but Vader’s cybernetic suit also serves as a manifestation of a very modern fear about technology consuming our humanity (whatever that means in practice). This is a running theme in Star Wars, where reliance (or over-reliance) on technology is considered a bad thing, which is why Luke has to switch off his X-Wing targeting computer before pulling off the impossible shot, and a primitive Ewok tribe is able to defeat the technologically advanced Imperial troops.

Regardless, the idea that the cybernetics somehow makes Vader less powerful is really an entirely off-screen idea that isn’t really apparent in any of the films themselves. If I recall correctly, the first time I even heard this idea was in the context of trying to reconcile the highly kinetic, acrobatic, fast-paced lightsaber duels in the Prequels, with Vader’s slow, sometimes almost clumsy fighting style in the OT. In other words, the idea that cybernetics makes Vader less powerful probably emerged from out-of-Universe inconsistencies in choreography and special effects between the two Trilogies.

Anakin Starkiller said:

They’re a large corporation literally named the Trade Federation. It feels implicit to me they’re against taxation.

How do you know they’re a large corporation? They have Senate representation and an army. Maybe they’re more like some international agency like the World Trade Organization. The word “Federation” usually suggests something more like a governmental or intergovernmental agency, coalition or guild.

Of course, I’m playing Devil’s advocate. I have access to Wookiepedia. I know that canonically the Trade Federation is a large corporation. But the movie doesn’t even make that basic detail particularly clear, other than to call them “greedy” in the opening crawl. The fact is, the entity in Star Wars called the “Trade Federation” does not have any exact parallel in real life. They’re not like Weyland Yutani of the Alien franchise or OmniCorp of Robocop, which are both very explicitly an example of the “dystopian mega-corporation” sci-fi trope. The closest parallel is probably something like the British East India Company, which hasn’t existed for centuries. The point is, it was not clear to a lot of people in 1999 what the Trade Federation even is.

To provide some more insight into this, here’s an essay written by some Star Wars nerd in 1999. It’s written from a Prequel fan perspective, it’s not critical of Phantom Menace. But it tries to earnestly figure out what the Trade Federation actually is using clues from the movie. It begins by saying “Very little is known about the Trade Federation. Is it a corporation? Is it a species? Is it the government of a planet? What are the motives of its leaders, and what is their grievance with Naboo or the Republic? We know only a handful of things”. It does ultimately conclude the Trade Federation is a corporation, but notes that it is quite different from real life corporations in many ways.

Servii said:

Channel72 said:

I recall back in the day the most controversial claims from Plinkett were related to how a lot of the whole Naboo invasion plot doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny. I agree with RLM on this one, but that point always received lots of backlash by Prequel fans eager to explain Palpatine’s amazingly nebulous and malleable master-plan that could really be whatever you want it to be.

There’s this Youtuber, Sheev Talks, who in his TPM video did a response to a lot of Plinkett’s points. He accused Plinkett of not paying attention, and claimed that the opening crawl made the conflict perfectly clear.

I don’t agree. The crawl does not explain the situation well. It was never clear to me whether the Trade Federation was for or against the trade route taxes, and the movie never specifies. It tells us the taxation is in dispute. That’s all.

And the guy then goes on to explain the specifics of Palpatine’s plans and contingencies, a lot of which feels more like conjecture than anything else, then acts like it’s all perfectly obvious.

Yeah, that is exactly how most Prequel fans defend this. Or they say “it doesn’t matter, it’s just background details”. Except, it’s not background details. It’s actually like… the entire plot. Plinkett emphasizes this at one point, saying something like (paraphrasing) “the Trade Federation invading Naboo is the entire plot of the movie so it’s important to understand what everyone’s motivation is and why they’re doing it.” I recall countless debates about this on online forums in the “Dark Age” pre-social media era of the Internet.

The Phantom Menace portrays the Trade Federation as the bad guys, and shows us Trade Federation armies marching through Naboo and bossing people around. We know they’re the bad guys, and the entire movie revolves around defeating them and freeing Naboo. But it’s hilarious how nobody can provide a straight answer to the question “WHY are they even invading Naboo at all?” Possible Prequel-defense answers include:

• “Because taxes!”
• “Because Palpatine told them to! Also taxes!”
• “OMFG can’t you read?? it’s all in the opening crawl!”
• “Here’s my fan-fiction 10,000 word essay explaining Palpatine’s plan OMG it’s so obvious”
• “It’s so obvious this is all explained in 5 EU novels you’ll never read”
• “LMFAO OMG you’re so stupid this movie is for kids I understood it when I was 10”, etc.

I recall back in the day the most controversial claims from Plinkett were related to how a lot of the whole Naboo invasion plot doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny. I agree with RLM on this one, but that point always received lots of backlash by Prequel fans eager to explain Palpatine’s amazingly nebulous and malleable master-plan that could really be whatever you want it to be.

Mocata said:

I’m thinking of the bounty hunters line up.

At least IG-88 slightly turned his head.

BedeHistory731 said:

Vladius said:

My original point with the RLM tangent was that the criticisms of the prequels were mostly correct. No one has really disagreed with that, just disliked the presentation.

I mean, I dislike the presentation, but the critiques are exceptionally valid. The whole bit with “the urban market” is something I’ve brought up when talking about tokenism/Hollywood racism.

But it does raise a point—if the reviews hadn’t been presented like they were, would they have been noticed to the same level?

Probably not. But then, any 90 minute review would have been novel at the time, because back then these long-form reviews were quite rare. In some interview I read ages ago, Mike Stoklasa said he initially started doing his first review (which was a Star Trek review) using his normal voice, but he decided it sounded too boring, so he invented this Plinkett character (who was based on the earlier Rich Evans version to some extent).

RLM’s review was also simply the most insightful. You have to remember what was available back then - you basically had low-effort, superficial stuff like Nostalgia Critic and some guy named “Confused Matthew”. The average Phantom Menace review was basically just somebody ranting about how Jar Jar sucks for 10 minutes.

rocknroll41 said:

I know we’ve gotten on a huge tangent here, but regarding RLM; I really think they’re old and out of touch these days.

Get off my lawn.

Spartacus01 said:

Channel72 said:

The dinosaurs were likely wiped out by the asteroid that hit the Yucatan peninsula. I mean, while not all paleontologists agree, there’s something of a consensus about this, and the Chicxulub crater is large enough and dates to the correct time period to explain the extinction of all (non-avian) dinosaurs. Speculating about some alien laser battle in the skies seems ridiculous.

Why are you being so antagonistic? I never tried to present my hypothesis about the accidental hit of an alien weapon in the context of an orbital war between two different alien species as an historical fact. It’s just a fascinating hypothesis that I think is realistic and that I like to speculate on. And I personally think that it is not ridiculous at all. None of the proponents of the asteroid impact theory were in Chicxulub 65 million years ago, nor was I. All we know is that something hit the Earth, caused a huge crater, and led to the extinction of the dinosaurs. Why are so many people against speculation, even when it is openly presented as speculation and not as objective fact?

I didn’t mean to come off as antagonistic. Just saying the asteroid theory is the scientific consensus at the moment. True, no paleontologist was alive 65 million years ago, but all paleontology requires using the scientific method to extrapolate from archaeological evidence and arrive at the most likely conclusion. Currently, the consensus among paleontologists (who study this for a living) is that an asteroid killed the dinosaurs. Of course this consensus could be wrong, but at the moment it’s the best explanation given the available evidence.

The reason I say the alien war thing is ridiculous is because we already have a perfectly reasonable explanation backed up by geological evidence and radio-carbon dating. There’s a huge crater in Mexico that dates to the correct time. Plus, any extraordinary claim should require extraordinary evidence. Asteroid impacts are not really extraordinary. They happen quite often over geological time scales, so there’s nothing particularly weird or extraordinary about it, unlike an alien space war. So the Chicxulub impact is simply the best explanation. Again, obviously it’s possible that something else happened and paleontologists are wrong, but currently there’s just no compelling reason to believe so.

By the way, I’m also pretty optimistic about the discovery of alien life. The last few decades have revealed that Earth-like exoplanets are pretty common. I believe life exists on many planets in our own Galaxy and elsewhere, but it’s probably mostly microbial life or organisms with sub-human level intelligence. Intelligent life capable of building space ships is probably much more rare. Statistically it almost certainly exists somewhere, but I’m very skeptical about any claims that aliens have visited Earth.

Also, while aliens probably exist somewhere, evidence of alien visitations to Earth from ancient sources is likely all 100% bullshit. The ancients had all kinds of interesting ideas and mythologies surrounding gods, demi-gods, angels and other supernatural beings, and ancient artists and writers depicting weird shit happening in the sky were probably inspired by that kind of stuff rather than actual alien visitations. Consider the bat-shit crazy description of a divine or angelic being in the Biblical book of Ezekiel. The description includes things like spinning crystal wheels, wings, fire, lightning, a crystal dome and multiple “eyes”. It’s easy to read something like a spaceship or whatever into that description, but in reality Ezekiel was probably just high on opium one day, and drew from various imagery inspired by things he was familiar with, like chariot wheels and other ancient equipment.

If you had read what I wrote in my previous post, where I extensively expressed all my opinions regarding the UFO phenomenon and related topics, you would know that I spoke unfavorably about the Ancient Astronaut Theory. I consider this theory to be heavily flawed, and based on scant or entirely non-existent evidence. However, I think it is important to make a distinction between the Ancient Astronaut Theory and Clipeology, because they are not the same thing.

The Ancient Astronaut Theory attempts to reinterpret sacred texts from various cultures, suggesting that the gods worshipped by these ancient civilizations were actually extraterrestrial beings who descended from the sky. According to this theory, these aliens supposedly taught ancient civilizations about astronomy, medicine and agriculture, built the megalithic structures we still see today, and performed other acts that the ancient civilizations attributed to divine intervention. Clipeology, on the other hand, is simply the study of unidentified flying objects in ancient history. Typically, clipeologists don’t rely on sacred texts or myths to identify UFO sightings from the distant past. Instead, they focus on historical texts, such as the works of historians like Josephus Flavius and others, as well as the writings and diaries of emperors, kings, soldiers and sailors. They look for references to strange flying objects in the sky within these sources. In this sense, Clipeology doesn’t take mythology as fact, and has no direct connection to the Ancient Astronaut Theory. Clipeology is more about examining historical records for possible evidence of UFO sightings in ancient times, rather than reinterpreting religious or mythological texts. In this sense, Clipeology doesn’t take mythology as fact, and has no direct connection to the Ancient Astronaut Theory. Clipeology is more about examining historical records for possible evidence of UFO sightings in ancient times, rather than reinterpreting religious or mythological texts. Therefore, what you said about the Ezekiel account from the Bible is applicable to the ancient astronaut theorists, but not to clipeologists. Clipeologists are perfectly aware of the difference between mythological accounts and historical records, and they look for evidence only in historical records.

Okay, fair enough. I’d just add that there was often a very blurry line between mythological accounts and historical records in antiquity. I mean, ancient historians like Herodotus or Josephus often reported obviously mythological things as if they were straightforward facts. Anyway, what do you think is the most convincing evidence that somebody observed an alien spacecraft back then?

^ Well, I mean, if I were Obi Wan or Yoda at the end of Revenge of the Sith thinking about what to do going forward, I would have A LOT of problems with hiding Luke on Tatooine. Kenobi’s plan is actually even worse than simply hiding Luke on Tatooine. He’s not only hiding Luke on Tatooine, but hiding him with a person that has a direct family connection to Anakin. Kenobi didn’t just throw Luke at some random orphanage in Mos Espa. He placed him with Anakin’s step-brother Owen. I mean… talk about a witness protection disaster. There are so many risks involved here. It’s possible somebody from Owen’s or Anakin’s past might one day blab about this boy appearing out of nowhere, or any number of things or past associates of Anakin or Owen could accidentally leak information that could ultimately alert Vader to investigate. Even if there’s only like a 0.001% chance of it happening, why take the risk? Tatooine is one of the few places in the Galaxy with people who used to know Anakin.

I mean ultimately all of this is a big writing kludge, because A New Hope was never written with the idea that Luke is supposed to be hiding. It makes no sense his last name is still Skywalker. People try to justify this with various excuses, like “maybe Skywalker is a common name!” or whatever. Again, I don’t care, because why risk it? If your last name is Smith and you go into witness protection, they will still change your name. They certainly changed Leia’s last name.

As things stand, the explanations you provide are probably the best we can do given the material we must work with, but it’s still kind of a kludge and an unfortunate side effect of the retcon that Vader is Luke’s father. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love the idea that Vader is Luke’s father. It’s one of the best retcons in movie history. But it does come with certain unfortunate side effects like making Luke’s living situation and the fact his name is still “Skywalker” seem absurd in retrospect.

My memory of the Acolyte is already fading fast. But I still remember pretty much the entire plot of Andor, despite only watching it fully during the initial release. I am looking forward to Andor Season 2 and so far Disney has given me no reason to care about any other “products” they release or cancel.

Spartacus01 said:

First off, Obi-Wan’s dialogue with Luke in A New Hope is already filled with half-truths, but not everything he says is a lie. He’s protecting Luke from the harsh reality of his father’s fall, but there’s still truth in his words. If we change where Anakin was born, it could make Obi-Wan seem even more deceptive, which I think would undermine his role as a mentor.

Eh… I think the dialogue in A New Hope is just barely vague enough that we could weasel our way out of making this dialogue require Anakin to be from Tatooine. The relevant line in the script is “That’s what your uncle told you. He didn’t hold with your father’s ideals. Thought he should have stayed here and not gotten involved.”

So that’s it… that’s the only line that implies Anakin is from Tatooine. It’s implied indirectly, because Obi Wan says “stayed here”, and the current “here” in that scene is the planet Tatooine. But this is inexact enough that we could interpret it as a slight grammatical blunder on Obi Wan’s part. He could have used “here” somewhat incorrectly to mean whatever location Kenobi/Anakin departed from before fighting in the Clone Wars. (Or you could always just do a fan edit that removes the words “stayed here and” so the sentence reads “Thought he should have not gotten involved.” Mostly kidding.)

Anyway, I know that’s really clumsy, but the thing is, as things stand now with the Prequels, Obi Wan’s line here is already like 95% a lie. Anakin and Owen barely had any relationship - they met for a few hours in Episode 2 - and certainly Owen never expressed any opinions about Anakin’s “ideals” or thought he should have stayed “here” at any point. Owen didn’t even know Anakin until after Anakin already left Tatooine and became a Jedi. So the line is already hopelessly broken.

Regardless, I do agree that the original line of dialogue does, as you say, imply that Anakin is from Tatooine. But due to various later retcons, Anakin being from Tatooine was no longer tenable, in my opinion, and keeping Tatooine as his home planet resulted in a worse outcome than simply ignoring the implications of that one word “here” in Obi Wan’s line in A New Hope.

Now, hiding Luke on Tatooine might seem risky at first — after all, it’s the same planet where Anakin was born — but that’s what makes it so clever. Anakin had such a rough time on Tatooine — being a slave, leaving his mother behind, and eventually losing her — that he’d have no desire to go back. The trauma he experienced there creates a psychological barrier, which makes Tatooine the last place he’d want to revisit. In that sense, it’s actually the perfect place to hide Luke because it plays on Anakin’s deepest pain and memories, keeping him away. So, even though the decision of hiding Luke on Tatooine might seem nonsensical at first, it works perfectly if you introduce a trauma that caused Anakin to not want to return to the planet, which is exactly what Attack of the Clones does. Also, you don’t have to forget that, sometimes, the best place to hide something is in plain sight.

I mean, I’ve heard this before. Vader wouldn’t want to go back to Tatooine because childhood trauma or whatever. I mean… that’s really just pure speculation. You don’t know that. You could guess this would be the case, but it’s also possible Vader doesn’t give a shit. He didn’t seem to care when the Tantive IV showed up on Tatooine at any rate.

Regardless, even if this is true, why would anyone risk it? There’s probably at least a million other remote locations similar to Tatooine. Granted, Kenobi knew some people on Tatooine, so that factored in I guess. But relying on Vader’s continuing trauma to keep him away from Tatooine is a huge risk. I sure hope Vader doesn’t have a therapist.

If you haven’t already, you should probably read this fan-made plot synopsis/script outline that was circulating around fan communities in the 1980s or early 1990s, telling the story of Episode 3 before the official Prequels existed. Obi-Wan is the main character. Other characters include Anakin (obviously), “Lady Arcadia Skywalker” (Anakin’s wife), Bail Organa, and Captain Antilles. The story centers around Obi-Wan and the Alderaanian forces as Palpatine takes control of the Republic.

This fan-made take on Episode 3 isn’t necessarily that great, but it definitely captures the spirit, both aesthetically and plot-wise, of common fan expectations about the Prequels in the 1980s and 1990s. At least, I can say that this synopsis is a lot closer to my own personal expectations about what the Prequels would be like before the official Prequels were released in 1999. Note the heavy focus on Alderaan, the lack of a “secret forbidden romance” (Anakin’s wife publicly uses the name Skywalker), Kaiburr Crystals, the inclusion of a Coruscant-like city planet called “Jhantor”, Boba Fett as a Mandalorian warrior who is recruited by the Empire to hunt Jedi, and the increased prominence of some OT characters like Bail Organa, Mon Mothma and Captain Antilles. C3PO and R2-D2 make appearances, as does Yoda who lives on Dagobah like in the OT and is Obi-Wan’s sole master. There’s also scenes depicting “Dark Side training” with Vader, paralleling Luke’s training with Yoda in Empire Strikes Back. Also, Vader’s transformation into a cyborg happens at the beginning of Episode 3 rather than the end, and Anakin’s wife doesn’t die, but ends up living as a servant on Alderaan at the end. The third act culminates with a grand space battle above Coruscant/Jhantor which ends after Kenobi flies a starship through a nebula/supernova, perhaps leading Vader to suspect that Kenobi was killed.

The only things this fan-fiction story has in common with the real version of Episode 3 are (1) Kenobi and Anakin fight beside a volcano on a lava planet, and of course Anakin falls into lava, and (2) the movie ends with Kenobi on Tatooine handing over the infant Luke to Owen Lars, who is Obi Wan’s brother in this version.

There’s also some interesting fragments reminiscent of ideas eventually incorporated into the actual Prequels. For example, there is mention of Palpatine’s plan to “blockade the commercial shipping lanes”, and there is a character named “Prince Valarium” who is portrayed as a weak-minded politician and lackey to Palpatine. These components are probably traceable to the ANH novelization, which contains fragments of backstory about Palpatine’s rise to power that George Lucas eventually incorporated into the canonical Prequel movies.

There’s also a sequence somewhat reminiscent of “Order 66”, where we get a montage of Vader and a team of assassins murdering various Jedi across different worlds. Boba Fett works for Vader as one of these assassins, and of course uses “disintegration” to kill Jedi Knights.

Anyway, this synopsis can serve as a helpful time capsule that preserves many common pre-Prequel fan expectations about what the Prequels would be like.