Saga Why did Owen and Beru accept Luke anyway?

This was retconned to be a different Owen. The idea of them being brothers was, apparently, just different ideas tossed around that wasn't intended to be in the film. It was included in the novelization, comic adaptation and the screenplay. Owen and Obi-wan being brothers was only brought up once in the EU. Otherwise, it's been ignored.

 

Because Ben and Owen were brothers, and Anakin and Ben were stepbrothers. Obi-Wan actually reveals it in ROTS when he believes that he is leaving Anakin for dead on Mustafar.

 

No, he doesn't. Nothing is revealed in the book, nor the film.

 

The phrase "You were my brother" in ROTS isn't meant to be taken literally.

The idea of Obi-Wan & Owen being actual brothers was an old ROTJ-era idea that made it to shooting stage (hence why it's in the novel, screenplay & early EU), but wasn't used in the film, then was officially turfed by the PT - they went back to the original idea that Anakin & Owen were brothers, although given how convoluted Anakin's story had become, it was changed to them being half-brothers by marriage alone.

 

Free "hired-hand" to help with the harvest.

This coming from someone who grew up on a farm himself.

 

Ah, I see what My young Padawan was getting at. To elaborate upon what Nub said, brothers do not strictly mean related by blood. Another type of brother is where you think of someone who is your friend, is like a brother or a sister to you, depending on the gender of the people involved. I had an older brother. He passed away a few years ago, but he was definitely family. I've also have had a friend who was like a brother to me. We were the best of friends and in a sense, we were brothers. Between Obi-wan and Anakin, that's how they came to see each other during the Clone Wars. They had become almost like equals and their relationship had been at its best in the entire time they've been together. For Obi-wan, Anakin was like a brother to him.

 

He's Shmi Skywalker's grandson, why wouldn't they want to look after him?

 

Exactly.

 

I'm pretty sure the original idea may actually have been that Beru was the sister of Luke's mom. After all, Luke and Leia weren't originally meant to be twins. (Half-siblings in the Richard Wagner mold, though, may be another matter....)

In support of this, Uncle Owen in the 1975 third draft is a lot nastier to young Luke--doing things like stealing Luke's own savings--presumably because it's Beru, not Owen, who is the boy's blood relation. (Picture the Dursleys in Harry Potter, pretty much.)

As for why I think Luke's connection to the Lars family is on his mother's side?

The Annikin and Obi-Wan of 1977 are clearly old friends, and they probably grew up together. But, given their close connection to the King of Alderaan--Leia's father--I think it's more likely that Annikin and Obi-Wan were both meant to be Alderaanians by birth. So Luke's mom would have to be the Tatooine native, whom Annikin would have met during a visit there at some point.

(And for the mythologically inclined among you, this would put Bail Organa and Annikin Starkiller in a relationship roughly analogous to that of King Arthur and Lancelot. I'll leave the resulting conclusions as an exercise for the readers.)

 

I disagree (regarding both Annikin/Anakin and Obi-Wan both being Alderaanian) - I think it was always intended that one of them was a Tatooine native, but never both, and Owen was simply the brother who stayed at home.

In the original storyline (fourth draft/final film of SW, not earlier drafts), Annikin Starkiller/Skywalker was from Tatooine, then went and followed Obi-Wan on a "damn fool crusade" and got himself killed. This is why Owen is so bitter and resentful of Obi-Wan, and it's what he's "afraid of" regarding Luke - getting himself involved in matters that aren't his business, and ending up dead as a result, for what Owen considers no good reason.
Obi-Wan Kenobi, with his relatively exotic name, is an exile, perhaps in hiding, hence the alias 'Ben', in order to fit in with the locals, who have names like Owen, Biggs, Fixer, Windy and Luke. He's not a native of Tatooine, he was once a Jedi Knight, who befriended a young Tatooinian pilot, took him along to the Clone Wars in search of adventure, fortune and glory, then settled on Tatooine once the Jedi became outlaws, partly to hide, and partly to watch over the son of his war buddy (which, quite possibly, Annikin asked of him, just as he bequeathed his lightsaber).
Given the harsher portrayal of Owen in the third draft, it's possible that Beru was intended to be Annikin's blood sister, with Owen as the in-law, but regardless, I think there's enough in the first film to establish that Annikin was meant to be from Tatooine - Obi-Wan's line about how Owen thought that he should have "stayed here and not gotten involved", plus Beru's own line about how Luke's not a farmer, "he has too much of his father in him". The intention of such lines are to establish Luke's personality as that of a dreamer, born in dull, humble circumstances, always looking, well, to the horizon, to the future, and never his mind on where he was! Hmm? What he was doing! Just like his father.
And just like his namesake - George Lucas himself. It's not about royal court intrigue, hidden princelings and such matters at that stage, just a boy on the verge of manhood looking for adventure, wishing he was anywhere but where he was brought up. Tatooine or Modesto - same deal. GL never believed he was secretly a Kennedy or a Rockefeller, he just believed he was capable of more than his home town had to offer.

Along comes 'Father Vader', and everything changed. In the script of ROTJ, it's established that Owen was Obi-Wan's brother, not Anakin Skywalker's. Why? My theory is that following the massive change in Luke's parentage, GL simply hadn't thought through the entire new backstory for Anakin/Vader, and was considering all manner of options, most likely a number of which involved Anakin Skywalker as somewhat highborn, and definitely not originally from a backwater like Tatooine.
So how did Luke end up there, and who are 'Uncle' Owen and 'Aunt' Beru? Bingo - Obi-Wan dumps Luke on his brother's family and keeps an eye on him from the shadows (personally, I think this would have worked beautifully in the PT). Owen's contemptuous regard for Old Ben in SW/ANH fit, along with his rather gruff attitude towards Luke.

Of course, when the PT was finally made, GL reverted largely to the original concept, with a few twists involving a step family, but it was still the case that Anakin originated from Tatooine, and Obi-Wan didn't. I believe that it was important to GL that there was always meant to be a connection somehow with this apparently worthless planet, that some of these heroes really did come from such humble beginnings, that anyone could achieve greatness, despite their backgrounds. I don't think that a Tatooinian connection solely on the maternal side would have really struck GL as strong enough, and I don't think he gave too much thought to Luke's mother prior to writing the PT proper in the early 1990s anyway.

 

I very much agree that GL from the get-go intended the Skywalker lineage to start on Tatooine in humble circumstances. I actually suspect, though, that GL may not have intended the Annikin of 1975 to be the first hero in the Skywalker/Starkiller line. After all, in Norse mythology, even Sigurd's father Sigmund had a famous father of his own: King Volsung, descendant of Odin, the hero from whom Sigurd's ancestors drew their name of Volsungs.

And if the "Battle of Condawn" of the 1975 third draft is indeed a reference to the Arthurian Gotterdammerung of Camlann--making Annikin a King Arthur figure of sorts, with Ben Kenobi as his Merlin--then Annikin's own father ought to be an Uther Pendragon analogue, a warrior who rose from nothing to become a great hero. So he'd be the one who started out humbly on Tatooine; whereas his son Annikin, as the child of a great hero, would already be marked for greatness from birth.

All this is highly speculative, of course. But since GL was already envisioning a prequel film as far back as 1975, it's likely that he'd given some thought to Annikin's own character arc. No doubt, too, Annikin's life was meant to parallel Luke's in some fashion--perhaps even to the degree of having a famous dead father.

In this scenario, Annikin would've met Luke's mother on a visit to Tatooine and settled down to live with her--probably abandoning the Jedi Order, like Count Dooku in the prequels. Presumably therefore the "damn fool crusade" referred to by Owen was when Annikin took up his sword once again, to fight with his old friend Ben Kenobi against the rise of the Empire, resulting in his own death.

Also, as far as Tatooine names go, neither Annikin nor Ben (Obi-Wan didn't show up until the revised fourth draft) quite fit in with the humble character of Camie, Fixer, or Biggs. Unlike the rustic names of the moisture farmers, the Jedi heroes both have Biblical names (in Annikin's case, compare the Anakim, legendary giants of the Old Testament). For that matter, so does Luke.

It wouldn't surprise me, frankly, if GL actually decided to simplify the backstory somewhat in the revised fourth draft, since that was the point where he honestly thought he'd never get to make anything but the one SW film. (This was also when he added Obi-Wan's line revealing that Vader killed Annikin.)

 

Long before the Prequels made the family connection obvious, I always thought Owen and Beru had some kind of family connection to the Skywalkers. I did like how Lucas connected Shmi to Owen too.

 

Hey, if you think about it:

Obi-Wan sees Anakin as being his brother. Owen is Anakin's (step)brother. Therefore, by the transitive property, Owen is Obi-Wan's brother....in a way....kind of....from a certain point of view.

(Not really.)

 

Don't give Lucas any ideas. He could come out and say that's true, from a certain point of view.