[ernesttomlinson]

ncidentally, didn't you ever think that the two of them were brothers?

I think of this exchange (remembered as best as I can):

LUKE: I found something interesting when I was cleaning those new droids. One of them says he's the property of Obi-Wan Kenobi.
(BERU looks up in interest.)
LUKE: I thought maybe he meant old Ben. Do you know what's talking about?
OWEN: Hm.
LUKE: I wonder if he's related to Ben.
OWEN (suddenly animated): That wizard's just a crazy old man!

The fact that Owen becomes a bit angry when Luke is speculating about who Ben's related to suggests that maybe Own is related to Ben. It's very think evidence, though.

[CowboyCurtis]

I'm not sure what I ever thought about it. As a kid, I guess, I figured that Owen was Luke's uncle, and that was that.

There isn't even a family resemblence between Kenobi and Owen (other than the clothes they wear), but then again, other than having Beru's hair, there's no resemblence between Luke and them either.

Kenobi's accent alone sets him apart from Owen.

The Star Wars novelisation does say Owen is Kenobi's half-brother...

Geez, I've really been debating this aspect a lot, but NOT making Kenobi Owen's half-brother helps my storyline more than hinders it.

I'll keep thinking about it.

This post has been edited by CowboyCurtis: 22 April 2005 - 12:16 AM

[Just another wretched fan]

a distant relation works. although whether you make owen related to Obi-Wan, Anakin, or unrelated, each has its own problems and advantages

[Just your average movie goer]

Although another way of looking at it is this. Yes, there is no evidence in the films to say that Owen and Obi Wan are brothers. But then again, there's no evidence to the contrary either.

[Mnesymone]

I would have thought, from Beru's conversation with Owen about Luke's father that they would be either related or friends since childhood of Anakin. They only know Ben as the guy who took Anakin away when he offered to train Anakin as a Jedi - hence Owen not liking him.

[Radu094]

Forgive my ignorance, but somehting puzzels me for a while now:

I always thought it was stupidly absurd that Obi-Wan decided to hide Luke from Vader .. on Tatooine of all places. A Galaxy is quite a big place.. and quite a lot of places you can choose to hide.
Now, given that Tatooine is the "farthest most place from the center of the galaxy" (well, a desolated, remote place to say) it makes it a decent enough place to hide the offsprings of a tyrant ruler until they mature to the age where they can confront him (ie. Vader). UNLESS ... this also happens to be the birhtplace of the guy you are trying to hide them from in the first place.

Anyway.. why is everyone so sure that Anakin was born & raised on Tattoine (or that he's even been there for that matter)? I mean.. I know it's in the prequels.. but in the OT?

It would make more sense to me that Anakin and Obi-Wan met someplace else. Durring the Clone War, etc... whatever.. I wouldn't even included Tatooine in the PT... hell ! Hoth isn't there, why should Tatooine be?

[Mnesymone]

Hoth isn't there because no one is on Hoth... its a genuine desolate wasteland.

As for Tatooine, from the conversation between Owen and Beru I gathered that Anakin was from Tatooine - as for hiding Luke there - Darth Vader isn't necessarily looking for him until he ran into him as it were. As for hiding Luke in Anakin's birthplace - the closer you are to danger the further you are from harm. And also - it might not have been place, but the people.

[Just your average movie goer]

It's all there in the original film. Obi Wan said to Luke about his father: "That's what your uncle told you. He didn't hold with your father's ideals. He thought he should have STAYED HERE and not gotten involved."

So whether you like it or not, there's no way around it.

[Despondent]

There isn't even a family resemblence between Kenobi and Owen (other than the clothes they wear)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

He wears the uniform! Uncle Owen was a Jedi Knight!

[JW Wells]

I hadn't thought much about the Clone Wars - they were an SF-ey souning conflict in the dim past, something like World War I seen from the 1960s. Ben had fought in them, and he was an old man now. It was more to establish that the old hermit had once been a dashing knight, "General Kenobi", than anything else.

I think there's a thesis in here: Star Wars is good to the extent that it's vague. Alec Guiness' airy generalizations about The Force go down well, whereas Liam Neeson's stunted talk about midichlorians rankles. Knowing that there's an "Empire" that's bad and a "Rebellion" that's good is better than getting bogged down in "Republican" minutae and Thrilling! Parlimentary! Action!!

It's the nature of the prequels that they have to tie things together, to reinforce the generalizations of the earlier pictures, and that's part of the reason they're so ponderous.

[Lord Aquaman]

I think there's a thesis in here:  Star Wars is good to the extent that it's vague.  Alec Guiness' airy generalizations about The Force go down well, whereas Liam Neeson's stunted talk about midichlorians rankles.  Knowing that there's an "Empire" that's bad and a "Rebellion" that's good is better than getting bogged down in "Republican" minutae and Thrilling!  Parlimentary!  Action!!

It's the nature of the prequels that they have to tie things together, to reinforce the generalizations of the earlier pictures, and that's part of the reason they're so ponderous.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Good point about the vagueness there.

Tying things together is hard... what's disheartening is that the prequels don't even tie these things together well.

[ernesttomlinson]

Your point is an astute one, JW. But do you think it would have been possible at all to make prequel movies that could preserve that same generality (I'll use that kinder word instead of "vagueness") and thus universal appeal? Is it necessarily true that the prequels must get bogged down in detail and become ponderous

I think that maybe it could have been done but I can't see how at the moment.

[Mnesymone]

Star Wars looked at the events through the people.

the prequel trilogy gets bogged down in infinite details of the events, and watches the people through the events.

Also, STAR WARS requires some wars. STAR MINOR PLANETARY BLOCKADE and STAR SKIRMISH IN DESERT don't exactly make the grade.

[Just another wretched fan]

i) do you think it would have been possible at all to make prequel movies that could preserve that same generality

ii) Is it necessarily true that the prequels must get bogged down in detail and become ponderous

iii) I think that maybe it could have been done but I can't see how at the moment.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Answers:

i) yes!!!

ii) absolutely not

iii) Here's how it can be done:

Star Wars looked at the events through the people.

the prequel trilogy gets bogged down in infinite details of the events, and watches the people through the events.

Don't try to explain every plot action as a whole. The universe is just too large. Don't get into senatorial actions. If anything, relay what happened in the 3rd person during a conversation between characters. If you really want to show what a galactic senate would look like, save it for one important scene when Palpatine announces everyone else is a moron or something. Politics can make interesting movies, but not an interesting Star Wars movie.

Example:

If 1999 GL made ANH instead of 1977 GL. He would have changes scenes from the bridge of Vader's Star Destroyer to a boring senate scene, where Palpatine disbands the senate. 1977 GL knew that viewers don't care about politics, so he never would include said scene, and just summed it up in one line of dialogue. (Paraphrasing) "The Galactic Senate will never stand for this" "The Emperor has disbanded the senate, the regional governors now have direct control...."

Think of how much better the PT would have been if all the political scenes were deleted and replaced in this manner.

So for the simple solution to "What are the Clone Wars" the answer is "We don't want to know." We didn't need to know the politics behind the rebellion and the empire to enjoy the OT, so we shouldn't need any knowledge about this Clone war either.

This post has been edited by Just another wretched fan: 23 April 2005 - 06:25 PM

[JW Wells]

Your point is an astute one, JW.  But do you think it would have been possible at all to make prequel movies that could preserve that same generality (I'll use that kinder word instead of "vagueness") and thus universal appeal?  Is it necessarily true that the prequels must get bogged down in detail and become ponderous

I think that maybe it could have been done but I can't see how at the moment.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well, I think it's possible, in the mathematical sense, but doubtful. Deciding to make prequels rather than sequels, or films set in the same "galaxy far, far away" with no other narrative continuity meant that George Lucas was interested in explaining some of his backstory. And that's where the wheels started to come off.

Not only did the choice mean that he had to go into things like "where did Annakin grow up", "how did Luke's parents meet", "what were the clone wars", but he couldn't change the narrative mid-flow. I've always suspected that Lucas originally wrote in Leia as a love interest for Luke, but on seeing how the scenes played out with Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher, said "this works better with Han being Leia's romantic interest" and slipped in the bit about her being Luke's long-lost sister. In other words, he had the option of juggling things around in response to how they worked on-screen. With the prequels he had no such chances - everything was locked into place from the start.