Based on events from RotS: Luke retains the Skywalker name

well yes. thats right. buts thats the point really.... carry on..


oh, (columbo style), theres just one thing...

If you Yoda is so keen to get the twins on board, how come he comes up with every rhyme and reason to NOT train luke many years later? I kind of get the feeling from ROTS that maybe Yod's thinks all IS lost..

If you Yoda is so keen to get the twins on board, how come he comes up with every rhyme and reason to NOT train luke many years later?

Senility could be a reason. Actually Yoda didnt want to train Anakin either. For all we know, he may have the same response to every jedi applicant, so maybe its habit. Maybe hes lazy or hates new kids.

Here it is simply. Leia was officially adopted, hence her name change. Plus, she was still close to the Republic and the Organa's did not any added attention from Palps. There was no reason to keep the name Skywalker.
Tattoine is so far from the Empire and Anakin is believed to be dead at this point. When Obi Wan does find out he's still alive, what is he going to do? Go back to the Lars place and try to reason with them that Luke's last name has to be changed because the Sith will be coming to get him. By ANH, Owen is already calling him a crazy old man, so he would've truly been irate at hearing this "crazy" story and probably would have been ready to give Luke back. The Jedi & the Sith were things that people like the Lars didn't understand, them being "regular folk". Obi Wan's way is to just ride the wave and if anything does surface, then he will take action. Until then, he knew to just sit tight and let things unfold naturally. He wanted Luke to has some sense of self and him keeping his true name helped that, regardless if he didn't know the true history of his father. The Lars were practical and changed the truth only when absolutely neccesary.The Lars just tried to give Luke as much of a normal life as possible without making too much of a brew-haha and Obi wan knew this was the way to keep it...until ANH.

The whole situation has to make you wonder
Owen isnt really the brother of Anakin so why not just have Luke call them mom and dad like Leia calls the Oraganas'
Its clear that the reason why Leia's named is changed is because she is to close to the madness of the empire for no one to discover a skywalker baby. Luke is too far away for anyone to care, except Anakin.
Now here's a thing that always struck me as funny
Luke retains his fathers name, on his fathers home planet, with his fathers relatives, with his fathers old friend and mentor living down the block, and he looks similar to his father! Those jedi were damn lucky Anakin was still drinking his stupid juice and didnt figure that one out.

Maybe it was to give Luke a sense of connection with Anakin to help him turn him back later.

The official line is that the Lars chose not to adopt him formally. They just agreed to raise Luke, since he's the grandson of Shmi. Obi-wan is told by Qui-gon that Vader will never come to Tatooine, for fear of resurrecting Anakin. Tatooine is out of Imperial space and thus no one will even bother going there, until absolutely necessary. Jabba's not aware of Luke, nor does he see any siginifigance in knowing. Just cause it's eu doesn't mean ****. It's official. In this case, nothing is contradicted. Vader has no reason to go to Tatooine. Owen has no reason to deny Luke that his birthright is Skywalker, but he does deny him the Jedi path. Vader thinks that his child has died with Padme. Obi-wan and Yoda are not hoping that Anakin will turn back from the Dark Side.

The films are done. Barring changes, that's it. All six films are out there. Aside from a few guidelines, Lucas doesn't care what they say about between trilogies. "Dark Lord" has the official stamp of Lucas. Liking or disliking the eu won't change that fact that until Lucas answers it, this is the official answer. Besides, Lucas' stance on the eu changes often. Considering how much he's put into the films. All he was ever concerned about was telling his story. He wasn't going to sit down and make his version of the Clone Wars match up to Tim Zhan's. He wasn't going to talk about Exar Kun and Naga Sadow. No mention of the Jedi/Sith Holocrons. But Quinlan Vos, Aayla Securea, the double bladed Lightsaber, Kashyyyk and Courscant all made the cut. Now that he's done, the eu is free to go it's own way.

This was all original filmed in as a standalone movie with Lucas not really knowing if Darth Vader would be Lukes daddy, let alone Leia being the sister, that is why her name is Organa. When you make a movie one way, without a clear plan like Star Wars, and just have rough notes on possibly where the saga will go if you can make sequels, if the original succeeds, then start making sequels to fill in all these issues that were not an issue in 1977, you have everyone of us with a theory on why, including myself.

I keep hearing Owen thought Obiwan was a crazy old wizard, in ROTJ book he is his brother, now he isn't related, so that is a totally different mindset if Lucas was going to have those two related, it would make more sense if Owen didn't agree with the force, cause his brother, rather than his stepbrother was involved. Guys we are trying to overanalyze something that wasn't an issue in 1977, cause no one was related yet, that is why every theory seems to make sense, but can be rebutted to make their theory sound more plausible.

>>>>You're putting way too much thought into this. The answer is quite obvious. Darth Vader wasn't Luke's father when ANH was made. Any other reason is just you trying to make the events of the PT fit the OT.

Certain of this are you, Fat Bird?


-JR

Kayfabed Explanation:

Anakin knew Padme was pregnant, although the baby and her could've been killed before the birth there was every chance the baby could've been saved. So there HAD to be a Skywalker 'available' if the Emperor/Vader decided to look. That is why Obi Wan is there to watch over the boy.

Leia had her name changed and Anakin didn't know about it being twins so there was no reason for them to have anyone watch over her. As for Yoda, his presence in the force is too strong to be anywhere that isn't shrouded (as the darkside cave did to his presence) so he could not be around to train Luke at an early age (Dagoba doesn't strike me as a place for children) and Obi Wan chose to wait for yoda to be ready to train him rather than rush into teaching the boy and potentially messing up another highly force sensitive child.

Anyway... that's my take on it

I think it's simple why Luke kept the Skywalker name and Leia did not:

Luke was living on a moisture farm on a backwater Outer Rim world. He was an average person on a average farm.

Leia, on the other hand, grew up in the Core, as the daughter of a public official and a princess. I think it'd be a bit more obvious if she kept it rather than Luke.

My theory - far fetched, but here goes....

Yoda and Kenobi knowing that Luke could be the last hope of the galaxy needed to give him an edge. The only real edge he would have would be that he was the son of Darth Vader. Otherwise the Emperor would probably just hunt him down and kill him like any other rogue Jedi of the time.

This way it makes Luke an enticing morsel for the Emperor. Luke is not "more machine than man" and appears to be very powerful and has the potential to be what Vader should have been. This would be too good the for Emperor to just dismiss. This gave Luke the "in" and allowed him to sway Vader back to the light side and become Anakin again and fulfill the prophecy.

Far fetched, but just as good as nyone else's crackpot theory.

In 1976, Owen Lars was Anakin's brother. Lucas or Kasdan came up with the idea that Owen was Obi-wan's brother, but it was cut from the film. And Lucas chose to go back to his older idea, but modified to fit the current status quo.

I'm so sick of condescending remarks like this lately. No kidding? Cuz that's how Lucas wrote it? Wow. You amaze us all with your profound knowledge of these films. We're discussing the internal logic and events of the films. Don't be rude.

Besides that, I think you're talking out of your bum. See, we all know Lucas didn't have that all worked out, or at most, it was a vague idea forming in his head so I don't even think you're completely correct anyway. I can't watch the funny glances Beru and Owen are flashing each other during the dinner scene or the shifty glancing around Obi-Wan does when lying to Luke about Anakin and not think Lucas wasn't at least toying with the possibility of having Vader be Luke's father. I'm sure he didn't tell the actors, but he clearly directed them to look and act uncomfortable with the subject. Hmm... wonder why.

And FWIW, I think we're all looking at a little too hard at all this. We assume because Leia has a different last name, then Luke was somehow left exposed, but Leia only received that name because it was different that her birth name. Obi-Wan and Yoda didn't see any harm in letting Luke retain his given name. Why would they worry about that? At that point, the Emperor (and Vader) doesn't know about the babies and would have no reason to think otherwise. Even if he did and dipatched a squad of stormtroopers to track the babies down, why would they go to Tattooine and why would they suspect anything about the real identity of young Luke? He's just the Lars's child as far as they would know.

It just seems very unlikely and with Obi-Wan there to watch over him just in case, there would be no call for changing his name.

Also, isn't there an issue with Obi-Wan dropping Luke off and saying to the Lars, "Now, I can't tell you why, but we need to give him a different last name."

Well... Consider Anakin's opinion of Tatooine. He thinks the whole planet sucks. Even as Vader he probably won't go anywhere near it, not even close enough to pick up a Force signature with his injury-limited range. That and Obi-Wan's probably blocking Luke's. Vader's the only one the Skywalker thing matters to, and how would he find out about it if he's not freakin' there to see what the crud is going on? Obi-Wan's one smart dude. He knew to hide Luke in the absolute LAST place Anakin/Vader would EVER want to go.

Why hello pot, nice to meet you. Talk about rude and condescending.

Oh and by the way, I'm hardly talking out of my bum. What I said is 100% the truth. Star Wars was a stand alone film (until it became a hit). Vader wasn't Luke's father. Leia wasn't Luke's sister. Obi-Wan didn't tell things from a "certain point of view". Anakin was killed by Vader. These things changed later.

To sit here and try to find reasons for why Luke had the last name of Skywalker is putting more thought into it all than GL did. There is no REAL reason beyond the fact that Vader wasn't Anakin Skywalker at the time. I just don't understand why some fans try to go back to the OT and come up with reasons to justify things that don't make sense now in light of the PT (like it makes sense that not only would Luke have Vader's real last name but also live on his home planet). Accept the FACT that they don't make sense because GL didn't follow his own mythology or plot points from the OT when he made the PT. Hell, he didn't even do it in the OT. Leia always knew Luke was her brother? Really? Was that before or after she planted a big kiss on him in TESB? Face it, fans put a heck of lot more thought into the saga than GL did. If only he had cared as much. Perhaps we would have gotten a better PT.

And that's not me being rude and condescending at all. It's not a slam on anyone here. It's more of a slam on GL and his lack of continuity and consistency throughout the saga. He never seemed to get the concept that you shouldn't change the plot whenever you decided you liked another angle better. I mean come on, Luke was massively crushing on Leia in the first two movies. They even kissed. And THEN GL decided to make them siblings? Who here doesn't cringe some when you see ANH and TESB knowing they are siblings later? What kind of GOOD story teller would do that? Perhaps GL should have put more thought in the story and less in the special effects.

It always made perfect sense to me... Even more with the PT! Maybe I'm just making more of a leap of faith than you. Maybe I'm trying to rationalize things.

I think we're talking plot-based ways to explain what you see as big fat gaping errors but are to me part of what makes Star Wars great. They don't just give you everything up front. They leave that to you. You can spin it however you see it. Everyone sees it differently. It's all about interpretation. We all bring our memories and experiences with us when we watch it and those affect how we see it. Maybe I don't see it the same way as you. Does that make me wrong? It doesn't make you wrong either, but the least you could do is humor people.

Sometimes I miss the old days, when fans viewed Star Wars as a simple fantasy story and just accepted it at face value.

It was okay that things were fuzzy around the edges because we knew it was not intended to be a historical documentary.

Back then, I don't remember anyone insisting on knowing things like characters' exact ages, or the dates of specific events, or how there was gravity inside the belly of the space slug. I think most of us just accepted what we were seeing without needing to have it all explained in real terms.

IMO, there's a very good reason it all started with the phrase "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away..."

It's another way of saying "Once upon a time..."

Does anyone insist on knowing the lung capacity of the Big Bad Wolf when he blew down the little pig's house, or the precise distance Red Riding Hood had to travel to get to Grandma's house?

The SW story is a legend.

As a legend, it isn't bound by the 'real world' complications people keep trying to apply to it.

That's how Luke can bear his real surname. That is how Obi Wan can keep the name Kenobi. That is how the droids can escape in a pod without being shot down. It's a "Once upon a time..." kind of a story...

...at least it was, before people complicated things by demanding more and more in terms of filling in every little blank space with detailed background information.

Why hello pot, nice to meet you. Talk about rude and condescending.

Oh and by the way, I'm hardly talking out of my bum. What I said is 100% the truth. Star Wars was a stand alone film (until it became a hit). Vader wasn't Luke's father. Leia wasn't Luke's sister. Obi-Wan didn't tell things from a "certain point of view". Anakin was killed by Vader. These things changed later.

To sit here and try to find reasons for why Luke had the last name of Skywalker is putting more thought into it all than GL did. There is no REAL reason beyond the fact that Vader wasn't Anakin Skywalker at the time. I just don't understand why some fans try to go back to the OT and come up with reasons to justify things that don't make sense now in light of the PT (like it makes sense that not only would Luke have Vader's real last name but also live on his home planet). Accept the FACT that they don't make sense because GL didn't follow his own mythology or plot points from the OT when he made the PT. Hell, he didn't even do it in the OT. Leia always knew Luke was her brother? Really? Was that before or after she planted a big kiss on him in TESB? Face it, fans put a heck of lot more thought into the saga than GL did. If only he had cared as much. Perhaps we would have gotten a better PT.

And that's not me being rude and condescending at all. It's not a slam on anyone here. It's more of a slam on GL and his lack of continuity and consistency throughout the saga. He never seemed to get the concept that you shouldn't change the plot whenever you decided you liked another angle better. I mean come on, Luke was massively crushing on Leia in the first two movies. They even kissed. And THEN GL decided to make them siblings? Who here doesn't cringe some when you see ANH and TESB knowing they are siblings later? What kind of GOOD story teller would do that? Perhaps GL should have put more thought in the story and less in the special effects.[/quote]

100% correct in everything you say.

I love the OT, but what they did in the story of ROTJ, that was a whole movie of plot holes waiting to happen. (See everyone, I am an older fan taking shots at the holy trilogy!).

But the greatness of the OT was everything was vague, so Lucas could get away with Luke & Leia being sisters, because we never met their mom, or really knew what happened at birth. Lucas could change Darth Vader to be Lukes father after the first movie, because Kenobi never gets specific about his father, other than being murdered by Darth Vader.

We don't know why Uncle Owen hates Kenobi, we just know he thinks he is some crazy old wizard. We don't know how Anakin turned or why, because he was 'seduced' by the darkside. We don't know why Yoda was hesistant to train Luke on Dagobah, because we never knew what exactly happened to hide the twins from their father.

That is why Lucas was able to get away with these plot points and were not considered plot holes in the OT, everything was vague, EVERYTHING was left up to the viewer.

But when you make a backstory, you have to make sure everything fits, cause now you have to explain it, or it really doesn't make sense. And the fact they we are debating points in the PT that relates to what we feel contradicts the OT tells me it is bad storytelling. The PT shouldn't have left anything to the imagination, the OT was for that, the PT had three movies to answer our questions, but now it has posed more. The PT was plain & simple a backstory, its job is to explain the events that lead up to Episode IV concerning the major players.

As I said, after Jedi there were alot of things that didn't totally fit, but luckily Lucas kept it vague, and other than Leia kissing Luke in ESB, and then saying in ROTJ about being siblings, "Somehow I always knew." That never made sense.

As to the point of the topic, I always thought Lucas dropped the ball making Darth Vaders last name Anakin Skywalker. Remember in ANH we never knew Vaders real name, not even Anakin. If Lucas were a good storyteller, he would have had Vader

I know! He did it so geeks like us would have something to talk (argue) about!

As I said, after Jedi there were alot of things that didn't totally fit, but luckily Lucas kept it vague, and other than Leia kissing Luke in ESB, and then saying in ROTJ about being siblings, "Somehow I always knew." That never made sense.

Makes perfect sense to most people in Arkansas.


The films are done. Barring changes, that's it. All six films are out there. Aside from a few guidelines, Lucas doesn't care what they say about between trilogies.

But that will change with the TV series.

Skywalker is just a much more cool name. Would you rather be "Joe Skywalker" or "Joe Organa?" I think this is an easy pick.

First, ink and FB are both condencending. So knock it off, both of you.

Second, ANH was made as a stand alone film, but Lucas was planning to do TESB and ROTJ early on. All three films were and are one film. Same with the PT. Lucas couldn't guarantee for certain that he could make TESB and ROTJ, but he did secure the rights and had plans in place should ANH not be a huge enough success. Lucas had started to decide that Vader was related to Luke during the third draft, but didn't go through with it until Leigh Brackett had finished her draft.

Third, the simple matter is that Vader is lead to think that his child is dead. Vader never goes near Tatooine until ANH and never sets foot on the planet, because he's got to take Leia to Tarkin. Tatooine is established as a planet of no consequence to the Republic or the Empire. It belongs to the Hutts, Jabba in particular. Obi-wan thinks that Vader is dead. Lucas confirmed that. Bail specifically says that he and Breha talked of adopting a child. Since he planned to have Leia follow in his footsteps, she was given the name Organa. Owen and Beru opted not to change Luke's name and were never told that they could be in danger. Owen only lies about what his father did for a living, not who his father was.

It's simple - Luke was fostered, Leia was adopted.