Lord__Vader, I'm so with you. George's biggest problem is that he puts this entire HUGE saga in front of him, and keeps changing what he wants to do with it each time he makes a new film. In ESB, George puts in the line about "there is another." Did he really intend for it to be Leia? Maybe, maybe not, but come ROTJ, he's gotta tie this thread up somehow, so he's stuck with a convenient answer. If he intended for them to be siblings from the start, and was committed to that idea, I don't think he'd have had all the smooching and such between them. In ROTJ, Obi-Wan says it was him who found and trained Anakin on his own accord, but come TPM, it's now some new guy named Qui-Gon who finds him, and decides Anakin should become a Jedi. Obi-Wan is opposed to doing this, and only succumbs out of a dying declaration (which could be inferred as a momentary 'mind trick' considering Qui-Gon's hand gesture). Mysteries are brought up in AOTC, and George says it'll be explained in the next film. He gets to the next film, and decides he procrastinated on developing the storyline and character arcs, so, he now has to forget about all those other loose ends. In ANH & ROTJ, Obi-Wan mentions all these little details about who Anakin was as a friend, a person, and a Jedi along with things about Owen Lars, and so forth. Come the prequels, not a word of this is actually true. Obi-Wan wasn't "amazed" at how strongly the Force was with Anakin at first. Instead, he was troubled by it, and viewed the child as a danger. In ROTJ, Leia says she remembers images and feelings about her mother. Now, one could infer that maybe this is a hint at her Force sensitivity since Jedi can see the past and future along with strong emotions, but in ROTS, her mother dies just after she is born. Luke's more atuned to the Force than Leia, and he has no knowledge or memory of Padmé Amidala. So, that perspective doesn't hold up to much scrutiny.
I get that, at first, Lucas didn't know if he'd ever finish his entire saga, but after a point, he should've sat down and mapped everything out. These films should've been carefully orchestrated and plotted out so that all things could've had satisfying conclusions and resolutions. The problem is, George doesn't like writing scripts, he doesn't enjoy working with actors, and at times, isn't that clear minded of a director. He has a general idea of what he wants, but can't really put it all together as a complete package at the forefront. With something this large, it really requires extensive pre-planning in the script development stage.
Altering the OT to match the PT clearly shows that George has just been making it up as he went along, and never really knew what he wanted to do with the entire saga arc. It is quite sad to think about it.
This altered dialogue is just another example of what I'm talking about. They could've had Ian McDiarmid running the exact same dialogue that Clive Revell did before, but instead, Lucas HAS to change things around for no reason. Also, it's been three years since the Battle of Yavin - the Emperor and Vader haven't mentioned the details of who or how the Death Star was destroyed? After three years, I'm sure the name Luke Skywalker would've come up in a discussion or two. It makes no sense that this is the first time the Emperor is having to explain that the "young rebel who destroyed the Death Star is the son of Anakin Skywalker." We already know that Vader knows about Luke, and who he is. This dialogue makes it appear that the Emperor just doesn't know jackshit about what's going on. Took him three years to figure out something that was likely in numerous intelligence reports about the Rebel Alliance? The Emperor is not an idiot, but this scene now makes him seem like it.
-NJM
