CT Obi-Wan Kenobi: Last of the Jedi

So this is something that just came to me. Let's say that by the time of A New Hope Yoda isn't alive anymore (maybe he didn't survive his duel with Palpatine). Obi-Wan Kenobi is now the last of the Jedi. Flash to the moment when the Millennium Falcon is captured by the Death Star. Obi-Wan senses that Darth Vader is on the space station. Luke hasn't had any real training and if Obi-Wan dies there's no one left to finish his training. What do you think Obi-Wan's next steps are? Especially if he meets Vader (like he did in the film) and they duel. Do you think he still sacrifices himself to allow Luke, Han, and Leia to escape?

 

Everything would be the same. Yoda's Force Ghost/Spirit/sparkly glowy thingy would train Luke.

 

Yeah, Ghosties.

Plus Obi-Wan never died in the original scripts-iirc he distracted Vader or something, escaped, and pretty much filled Dodonna's role.

 

I'm not sure that he needed to sacrifice himself at all. Had Luke not started throwing a hissy fit and drawing attention to themselves, they would have been ramps up and blasting out before any of the storm troopers knew what was happening. Ben was already not able to be rescued, being surrounded by a squad of storm troopers and all. Luke had already screwed up the plan by thinking with his (is it acceptable to say "penis" around here rather than using stars?) when he put the entire station on alert going after Organa. When you really analyse the situation, Ben didn't sacrifice himself so much as he simply accepted the fate Luke's horniness had dealt him.

 

Obi-Wan stops and looks at Luke, and then smiles and lowers his defenses. He knew at that moment.

 

I never saw the point..Sacrificing himself was just stupid.

 

I guess I could be down with the force ghost ideas. That sounds about right. I did always think that Obi-Wan (as a ghost) had a hand in Luke's training on Dagobah anyway.

 

I suppose he thought that the manner of his death (Vader seems frightened when he finds no body), and the enormity of finally killing his old master after all those years, would distract Vader long enough for the rest to escape. Or perhaps he felt some need to atone for failing to make sure Vader was dead on Mustafar, or for not saving him from being burned.

 

The only point, really, was that Lucas didn't really have anything for Obi-Wan to do for the rest of the movie. Had he known that he would have the money for sequels then I think things would have been different. But as for in movie....yeah it might have been a bit daft of the old fossil to sacrifice himself leaving Luke untrained and without anybody to train him...except for his Force Ghost, of course. It's odd, thinking about this, that Vader should say to Luke "Obi-Wan has taught you well." - how did he know Obi-Wan was capable of training him after he was dead? Unless he assumed Obi-Wan had taught Luke before their visit to the Death Star.

 

I'm guessing when Obi Wan said to him "if you strike me down, I'll become more powerful than you can possibly imagine" plus the whole no body thing, Vader might have come to the conclusion that Obi Wan could somehow have been involved with Luke's training. Because if he didn't know where Yoda was or if he was alive, then the logical assumption would be that Obi Wan somehow found a way to train Luke between ANH and ESB.

Agree with you on Obi not having anything else to do in the movie. If you imagine that Obi Wan had survived, then there really wouldn't have been a real low point of the movie apart from the Lars' deaths. It's almost like his death was a plot device to give Luke some inspiration.

I do think, however, that ANH has some serious pitfalls in the way that the big moments happen. The destruction of Alderaan and the death of Obi Wan were poorly handled IMO. Didn't make the audience feel enough of the scale of what just happened. I think that ROTS did a much better job in emphasizing the important events of the movie. And I also believe that the way Obi Wan died was pretty poor, he definitely could have escaped, or at least gone down in a fighting spirit. Rather than simply giving up and leaving Luke vulnerable to a host of Stormtroopers - luckily they were all poor shots.

 

Perhaps if Obi-Wan didn't have Yoda to fall back on he wouldn't have sacrificed himself like that.

Clearly he felt that he had nothing left to accomplish in the physical realm, and felt he could best mentor Luke through the Force. Obi-Wan taught Anakin everything he knew, Luke would have been at a disadvantage going up against a Vader who knew every move he could pull out, Maybe being trained by Yoda gave him that bit of unpredictability that he needed.

 

You just ruined an important moment in Star Wars for me. From now on when that scene comes up I'll always think, "Luke's horniness killed Ben."

 

Exactly. I think he assumed Obi-Wan had trained Luke since childhood, and there was a tinge of jealousy because Obi-Wan had taught young Anakin...

 

This is what I've always though all along.

 

Oh I agree with this 100%, it's the whole Obi-wan let Vader kill him so Luke could escape argument that I find stupid. The only reason Vader noticed Luke was because Luke yelled..