Saga "That's what your uncle told you..Thought he should have stayed here and not gotten involved."????

Hey guys - IIRC, I brought this question up years ago on this board, but I can't find the thread (I'm guessing it's been deleted since it's so old). Mods, I hope it's OK to post this again.

Anyway, here it is: In the famous ANH scene when Luke & Obi-wan are having the conversation (in Obi's hut) about Luke's father, etc. Obi-wan does obviously say some things that end up being lies, i.e. Darth Vader killing Anakin, Anakin wanting Luke to have his lightsaber, etc.. When Obi-wan's ghost is confronted with this in ROTJ by Luke, he explains that it was true "from a certain point of view".

However, my question here is this: What's going on with the statements that Obi-wan made regarding Luke's father on Tattoine?!, i.e.:

Luke: "No, my father didn't fight in the wars. He was a navigator on a spice freighter."
Obi-wan: "That's what your uncle told you. He didn't hold with your father's ideals. Thought he should have stayed here and not gotten involved."

And,

Obi-Wan: "I have something here for you. Your father wanted you to have this when you were old enough, but your uncle wouldn't allow it. He feared you might follow old Obi-wan on some damn-fool idealistic crusade like your father did."

Why does Obi-wan say that Uncle Owen didn't want Luke to follow Obi "like his father did?" Granted, it's true that Anakin left Tattoine in TPM to go off & become a Jedi Knight at age 9/10, but Owen never even knew him at that time. IIRC, the only time the two ever even met was very briefly in AOTC, when Anakin saw Owen & Beru on Tattoine after Anakin went back there to look for his mother. And, it's probable that they barely spoke during that time - and, I can't see Owen (who barely knew Anakin) having an opinion (either way), or even caring about whether or not Anakin left Tattoine again to go fight in the Clone Wars, especially since he had already been gone for ten years at that point.

The way Obi-wan tells it, it makes it seem that Anakin & Obi-wan were buddies (or at least contemporaries who knew each other) on Tattoine, and Anakin left to go seeking adventure, while Owen disapproved & stayed on the farm (or moisture farm, as the case may be).

So, is this just a case of Obi-wan twisting the actual truth to make for a good story and/or to convince Luke to help him rescue Leia, or is the explanation more simple: i.e., Lucas didn't know exactly how the prequels were going to play out in 1977, so he wrote this at the time thinking that was the way things went, but then changed it 20 years later?! Or, is the truth somewhere in between?!

Just curious what others think here....Thanks in advance for any feedback on this.

 

The behind-the-scenes explanation is that the backstory changed between movies, of course. At that time, Luke's father had been a young farmer on Tatooine that had followed Obi-Wan on some "damn-fool idealistic crusade".

In-universe, is one of the most contradictory bits of the whole series, but you can think that Owen certainly believed all that after what happened to Anakin. Note that Obi never says that Owen and Anakin actually discussed about staying on Tatooine or not. It's just what Owen thinks Anakin should have done.

 

The originals never mentioned who anakin was. what he did, his personal life, where he came from,.. Therefore, i didn't find it a contradiction that anakin was a slave... Freed by a podrace... Who barely knew owen and beru.

However, if i wrote the prequels, anakin would've been a pilot at a flight academy that Obi wan recruits, a rogue too, like han solo. During the Clone wars they meet.

 

Owen seems like someone that's hardened over the years...maybe he's had other friends and companions leave as well, while he's remained out on the moisture farms, a more solitary existence. He doesn't exactly seem like someone that pushes for change and new experiences.

Could be that just caused some bitterness. He doesn't really know Anakin much, no, but has formed an opinion about people in general.

Plus, as said, if he knows (from Obi-Wan) about what happened to Anakin, even more fuel to his fire. Uh...bad choice of words...?

 

Huh. It doesn't really match, but even putting aside the obvious ways the backstory changed behind the scenes, I've always taken most of Obi-Wan's dialogue regarding Owen to relate to whatever falsehoods Luke had been told over the years, and wouldn't necessarily make a heap of sense when the truth is revealed - not that Obi-Wan was telling Luke the truth in SW/ANH in a Saga context, so any inconsistencies simply relate back to lies anyway.

It is some odd dialogue, though, hinting at a history that was eventually abandoned, but it all went out the window with, "No - I am your father!"

 

ANH has a few things that were rendered obsolete by the retcons (at least in the fans' eyes). "Idealistic crusade", haha.

That said, there was still a chance that backstory could have played out more in the prequels. For example, if Anakin was an adult who left the farm to fight in the Clone Wars and join the Jedi Order. *shrugs*

I just view it the same way as The Hobbit "contradicting" The Lord of the Rings (Tolkien actually had to go back and rewrite the Gollum chapter).

 

Yeah it's one of those things that doesn't sync up much automatically. I "personal continuity" it by saying Owen knew and respected/loved Shmi as his stepmother. He knew how dreadfully she missed Anakin when he was gone and that they never got to meet again before she was killed, and right after that The Clone Wars broke out. Then the Empire was declared, Anakin turned and it would have been much better for everyone if he'd never gone off with the Jedi (damn idealistic crusaders, look where that got them) and faught in wars, been hero of the Republic etc (all the things Luke is dreaming of) once he'd been freed, but got a decent job as a machanic in Mos Espa or something.

I think it works you just have to take out the idea that it was Obi-Wan specifically that Owen had been refering to rather than the Jedi as a whole and that some of Owen's pain was on behalf of Shmi's pain at Anakin's absence rather than his own.

 

I mean there are tons of continuity errors between the OT and PT due to the writing but I do think that Obi-Wan was fudging the truth to make things seem more simplistic. Luke wasn't aware of his identity or his heritage. Obi-Wan knew Luke wasn't ready to be told about his identity or heritage. So he probably told a little white lie mixed with enough truth to make it believable. Just like when he claimed that Vader murdered Luke's father. Something that in the strictest terms a lie but you could make an argument that it isn't from a purely philosophical point of view

 

^^^^ Yeah, what Darth_Nub said.

The attempts to make Obi-Wan's (originally factual) 'little-white-lies' fit with the PT and the saga as a whole are what Lt.Cmdr.Thrawn refers to as 'harmonization' .

Not bad...

 

Oh yes, I freely admit I'm fanwanking/harmonizing etc. This is one conversation that even Luke realises doesn't stand up to what eventually happened in the OT, let alone with the PT. But sprinkle a bit of Obi-Wan trying to get Luke to come with him, what little we know of Owen's personality and that Owen and Beru probably are desperately saddened by what happened to Shmi's son and what might happen to Luke and it works as well as any retcon does for me personally.

 

I'm sure Old Ben and Owen had many conversations during their 18 years together on Tattooine about a great many topics.

 

Yeah. No doubt at first, Obi-wan and Owen were on good speaking terms after the handing over of Luke as a baby, but over the next couple of decades, with Owen and Beru wanting to shield the boy from the same horrible fate as his father they would have been forced to distance themselves from him, eventually referring to him as just a crazy wizard. A lot happens in 18 years, and things are remembered differently depending on our experience of them. The dialogue in question is Obi-Wan speaking retrospectively from a subjective outlook, plus he is lying through his teeth at the same time, whilst trying to 'ease' Luke into the eventual truth.

Just saying "oh no, your father actually turned into a Sith Lord and killed all the Jedi, becoming one of the most evil failures in history, so naturally your uncle wanted to keep you in the dark" might have been a bit mean, to say the least.

 

I personally don't think Ben was lying about anything in this conversation. He may have been being figurative in regards to Darth Vader "killing" Anakin, but that IS one way of interpreting what happened. It's later explained that they didn't feel Luke was ready for the burden of knowing that Darth Vader was his father, so it best to think of them as separate entities for the time being. And everything still jives with the PT, to me anyway. When Ben tells Luke, "That's what your uncle told you....", he's telling the truth. Owen is the one who lied to Luke. He lied to Luke about his father because he was (rightfully) afraid of Luke wanting to run off on some damn-fool idealistic crusade (aka the rebellion). In the blue milk dinner scene it's obvious that Owen thinks Luke is being a bit over ambitious with his future plans, and that he's afraid he has too much of his father in him. I also think it's safe to assume that everything Owen knows of Anakin was information provided by Shmi. I'm sure Shmi explained to everyone that she had a son who went away at an early age to become a Jedi. That was probably the extent of their knowledge until his appearance in AOTC, which was probably brief and uninformative. The next thing they know, they're being handed a baby and are undoubtedly explained the circumstances to some extent: "shmi's son Anakin died in the war right after the birth of this child, can you raise him?" I personally would like to know what Ben told Owen and Beru when he brought them Luke. Did he give him the entire low down, or did he give him the cryptic Jedi-esque vague summation and leave it at that?

 

Its easy enough dialogue to work around:

Luke: "No, my father didn't fight in the wars. He was a navigator on a spice freighter."
Obi-wan: "That's what your uncle told you. He didn't hold with your father's ideals. Thought he should have stayed here and not gotten involved."

With how Anakin turned out whether he knew the truth or Owen was told he was dead and how it must have affected Shmi its realistic Owen would have thought Anakin should never have left. There is no suggestion when Owen expressed these feelings or if he expressed them to Anakin, just that he thought it. He could have had this argument with Obi Wan when he was contacted to take Luke.

Obi-Wan: "I have something here for you. Your father wanted you to have this when you were old enough, but your uncle wouldn't allow it. He feared you might follow old Obi-wan on some damn-fool idealistic crusade like your father did."

Obi-Wan wanted to start Luke's training younger but Owen didn't allow it. He didn't want Luke running off and getting himself killed. As for the 'Your father wanted you to have this' line, Obi Wan is affectionately thinking of the Anakin he knew. Anakin would have wanted Luke to have it because Anakin would have loved Luke. Becoming a jedi is an idealistic crusade, because they are idealistic crusaders for the republic.

 

The Clone wars is the idealistic crusade. Anakin leaving to go with the Jedi. Both, I guess.

2 questions.

Did Owen Lars and Beru Lars known that Anakin Skywalker, Owen's stepbrother, is now Darth Vader, dictator and tyrant of the galaxy?

How did the Clone Wars end? After Darth Vader killed the Separatist council on Mustafar, how did it end? Their leaders died, but weren't the clone wars already almost over before that? Weren't the clone wars coming to an end even before Nute Gunray was killed by Lord Vader? And their deaths just speeded it up?

Did the Separatist troops surrender or give up without leaders, who died? When exactly were the wars over?

 

My favorite scene in the prequels. When Darth Vader enters the room.... Without the suit, all evil, proud, confident, standing in that upright arrogant position, like he did in the OT, but younger and more machine than man, without the suit, no cyborg, just normal looking handsome evil man. Then he killed the CIS council.

Who agrees with me? All you prequel haters, change your hearts!!!!

 

No, the Clone Wars was still ongoing before the Seperatists were slain. The Clones and droid armies were still fighting, it doesn't matter that the Jedi were eliminated. The Clone Wars officially ended when the Seperatists were killed and their droid armies were shut down.

After the massacre and shutdown of their droid armies, the rest of the Seperatists surrendered.

 

Who massacred and shutdown their droid armies? The clone troopers surrenderered? What happened to them? Where are u getting this info from?

 

I suggest you watch this film called Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. I also suggest you read my previous post properly.

 

I suggest you stop being rude to another user....

 

Then I also suggest you stop double/triple posting and stop asking annoying, silly questions, especially ones that can be answered if you watch the films properly.

 

Ok, fine. Why did the Emperor shut down the droid armies only after the CIS leaders died? Why not beforehand?

 

WATCH THE FILM!

This conversation is going off-topic. I'm not going to discuss this anymore here.

 

A few things I want to point out is Owen actually knew Shmi, Shmi might have tainted his view of th Jedi. The fact that anakin was never allowed to visit must have bothered her a bit & she might have shared these feelings on the Lars. What did Owen feel about the clone wars & the fact Anakin may have been killed in them, then Obi Wan dumps the offspring on Beru without even talking to Owen? That would bother me if I was owen. So there is some resentment. Owen knew something happened to Anakin during the clone wars.

 

this is the way I see things. Shmi just dies & Anakin runs off to help some Obi Wan guywho the Lars don't know. Then this Obi Wan returns 3 years later & dumps a child on them birthed from the same Padme & Anakin who were just there.