PT "Obi-Wan Once Thought As You Do ..."

Exactly. Vader is only saying Obi-wan's name to disguise the fact that he's actually referring to Padme being the one who once thought as Luke did. It was too painful for Vader to say her name knowing it will bring up memories of her death so he goes to the object of his anger: Obi-wan.

 

Anakin: "Obi Wan?"

Padme: "He knows....he wants to help you."

Anakin gives her an amused grin like he thinks she's being ridiculously naive.

Only years later did he allow himself to realize Obi Wan had hope that he could be saved.

Vader saying this line is almost a confession to himself.

 

That doesn't track either, because she asks if he is going to kill him and he says that he has become a threat. She was lying to Anakin when she said that. The time that Obi-wan did want to help Anakin was before he had killed the Younglings.

 

Except that he insisted to Yoda that he couldn't kill Anakin even AFTER watching Anakin kill Jedi.

Obi-Wan's line to Padme seemed to me very vague. It was more, "I don't want to do it, but I will if I have to."

 

Exactly. It's Obi-Wan equivocating to himself as much as he is to Padme. He's not sure what he's going to do, but he knows he has to go to Mustafar to confront Anakin. He doesn't seem to truly resolve himself to his mission until he listens to enough of Anakin's mad ramblings to decide that he "will do what [he] must."

 

Right, but Padme had no clue that he had said that. Nor that he wanted to help him. He is reluctant to fight Anakin, that is true. But he never let on to her that he wanted to help him.

 

Seems to me that Padme would have considered taking Obi-Wan to Anakin if she felt that it was with the intention to help him. And fear that Obi Wan might be compelled to fight Anakin would be the only thing to make her go to him secretly instead.

 

When Obi-Wan hangs back as Padme runs to Anakin he is waiting to see whether Padme can talk him round... So at that point he possibly does have some belief that Anakin can be redeemed by his wife (and child/ren)

It's only after he sees Anakin choke Padme that he knows he is lost.

 

Because he saw Obi-Wan Kenobi on her ship and came to the wrong conclusion. Had he not been on there, Padme might have stood a better chance.

And before anyone says it, "he knows" does not translate to "he is currently onboard my ship, let's go talk to him."

 

Can't see how Anakin could be aware of all that to the extent that his line in RotJ (& this thread title) makes sense.

 

I don't think Vader is being that literal. To me it could mean one of two things:

1. In a general sense, Obi-Wan believed in him when no one else did. When the Council waivered on whether to train him, Obi-Wan fought for it. When Yoda/Mace Windu didn't trust him Obi-Wan did. Obi-Wan was always the one praising Anakin when other would often see his flaws.

2. On Mustafar, it may have been "antagonistic", but that was indeed Obi-Wan final plea to Anakin to turn away from the dark side. In both instances Vader's excuse is "I'm in too deep now, there's no going back." I love the poetry of that line. And I love picturing Vader thinking back about memories from the PT when he pauses and says it.

 

It was a retcon as far as I'm concerned, Lucas at some wanted Vader's turn to the darkside to happen at some earlier in Ep 3 and have Obiwan actively seek him out and try to convince him to return to the lightside. Obviously, that was changed over the years.

 

Depends. He was becoming angry and defensive before he sees him. It's kinda hard to tell if he already saw him before then, or not.

It's hard to say. Lucas didn't specify at what point Anakin would have turned, back during the 81 story conferences. All indications was that it was Episode III, but when exactly in the film it would have taken place, is sketchy. In many respects when you read the transcript on Anakin's fall, it is similar to how ROTS turned out. But what was said when the duel began is unknown. And Vader's saying that Obi-wan once thought like Luke does is open enough that it could have been Obi-wan saying that, or it could have referred to the belief that the Jedi way is the correct path and the Sith way is wrong.

 

Yeah, it’s pretty clear that the original idea was that Obi-Wan Kenobi tried to reach out to Darth Vader and talk him down before the fight commenced, whereas when it came time to finally put that onscreen, George Lucas thought it’d be more dramatically effective for Obi-Wan to react with shock and horror at what his good friend has done, rather than trying to reason with him.

 

Not only that, look at Kenobi's general stance when Anakin sees him- very antagonistic,hands on his hips and a look on his face as if to,say "I have you now." No impression whatsoever that he's there to help him at all.

 

Since Lucas likes mirroring so much I'm surprised he didn't have Obi-Wan echo Luke's dialogue in RotJ & say "Come with me Anakin. There's still good in you. We can fix this situation together, as brothers" or something like that. What he did was give similar dialogue to Padme. So much so that the line in RotJ would now resonate more powerfully if Vader said to Luke "Your mother once thought as you do. You don't know the power of the Dark Side!".

 

Like others have said, it's hard to pin point exactly what ideas of Lucas changed over the decades between the OT and prequels. This single image below of original concept art from the 90's always gave me the impression Anakin was still in his prime when he turned to the darkside, and hide the transformation from his loved ones for quite some time as he secretly hunted down, betrayed and killed the noble jedi knights... even his loving wife began to fear his secrets and what he was becoming.

Yoda figures out it's Anakin helping the Emperor hunting and killing the jedi and helping the rise of the Empire. The few remaining jedi get together to face him but a reluctant Obi Wan convinces them he that he "still see's good in him." Obi Wan is forced to confront his former friend alone believing he can turn him back on their side to defeat the Emperor, before it's too late to save the Republic. Ultimately, he is proven wrong and he's forced to fight him to the death on Mustafar.

 

@darth-sinister dude it's super obvious to see. The screen pans to Obi-Wan when Anakin sees him. He was angry and defensive because Padme wasn't agreeing with him. He became straight-up psychotic when Obi-Wan appeared.

realjim949 He did try to reason with him. He told him that he was on the side of democracy, any reasonable person would respond "I am too" and then a dialogue can begin. Anakin's retort is that he is on the side of tyranny. He told him that the man who started the largest war in galactic history as a RUSE to gain power for himself was evil, any reasonable person would respond "I know" and then a dialogue can happen. Anakin's retort was that "the Jedi are evil."

You are trying to make Obi-Wan speak through an avenue he did not have. Anakin (or at that point Darth Vader) never gave Obi-Wan the opportunity to have a reasonable dialogue. All his responses were that of an unstable, maniacal tyrant who could not be reasoned with.

 

Or even, someone earlier suggested, just change the dialogue to "Some-wan".

 

I just have to point out that that's not really "concept art." It's an illustration for the Topps Galaxy cards series, in which artists were enlisted to use their imaginations to illustrate scenes that weren't in the original movies. This is just one artist's personal interpretation of a hypothetical scene based on what is stated in the movies. Notably, based on what is stated in the script of Return of the Jedi, this image is inaccurate in that it depicts Padme holding baby Luke while Anakin stands behind her, whereas the script makes it clear that Anakin didn't even know his wife was pregnant when she fled from him.

That's not to say the rest of your post is inaccurate, it's just that this particular image doesn't have much bearing on anything. Very cool piece of art, though.

 

There's been debate about whether Obi-wan was already standing there and Anakin saw him, when he says, "Because of Obi-wan?" He looks up and then looks down at her. Me, I don't 100% believe it, but it has been suggested here.

 

Super easy debate to win. When Padme says "Stop, stop now come back, I love you." The camera pans to Anakin's eyes rising to gaze at Obi-Wan and shows Obi-Wan standing on the runway.

His suspicion towards the Obi-Wan/Padme relationship builds in the film, Obi-Wan stopped by earlier in the film off-screen to discuss Anakin, then he does so on-screen informing her about Anakin's actions. Now she is "turning against him" from what Anakin easily perceives as Obi-Wan's influence. He is not calmy speaking with her while he see's Obi-Wan there. His anger for Obi-Wan has been building and as soon as he sees him he goes bonkers. The novelization expands on the Obi-Wan/Padme relationship even further with Palpatine trying to insinuate to Anakin that the two are having an affair.

If we are going to dignify such obvious points as this should we also debate if Threepio got off the ship and was also standing there but was just off-screen?

 

Just because something is super easy to win, doesn't make it so. You should read some of the posts from back when the films were coming out. Even with super obvious things, people insisted on something more than that. The Palpatine is Sidious and Artoo was secretly a spy for Palpatine, were two such threads.

 

I really wish they would've included that scene,as once anakin found out he had been coming there in the novelization, he gets angry that she's "sneaking someone in" when he's not there. If they kep that and the scenes of the Petition of 2000 members and added the scenes of Palpatine and Anakin in his office where he insinuates Padme may be hiding things from him, that we're blind to betrayal by those closest to us (ironic,this coming from Sheev), I think the confrontation between Anakin and Padme, and then Kenobi, would've been so much more powerful. He already didn't trust Obi-Wan, and was losing trust in Padme,but did still love her in a "possession" type of way.But once he saw Kenobi on the ramp, everything came to a head in his mind and emotions - Padme and Kenobi working together - even being together - in secret, as well as her working with the early Rebel leaders, in secret, against Palpatine. At that point, all trust in her was lost, and his anger and feelings of betrayal very real. So much more backstory could've been added. And,honestly,we're talking maybe another 10 or 15 minutes of footage,tops.

 

I dunno, I'm fine with them leaving most of it off screen. Anakin's frustration with Obi-Wan had been growing for 13 years. In TPM Obi-Wan famously said "the boy is dangerous" while Anakin was standing right behind him and basically only took him on because he promised Qui-Gon, in AOTC we see how frustrated Anakin was at Obi-Wan's constant berating of him; their relationship was pretty rocky even at that point; and then with Obi-Wan sending him to spy on Palps + standing between him and Padme I think there was already more than enough motive for him to be completely pissed at Obi-Wan. Throwing in the jealous boyfriend angle on top of all that is a bit corny to me.