CT At the time ANH was made who was Owen intended to be

I know that the Prequels kind of changed Luke's adoptive parents identities but during the time they were onscreen in ANH who were they intended to be? Obi Wan's or Anakin's sibling?

 

According to earlier drafts of ROTJ and the first novelization of that movie, he was originally meant to be Obi Wan's brother.

Think that was Lucas original intention, which only changed when he finally began working on the prequels during the early nineties.

 

Owen was supposed to be Anakin's brother during ANH. Then by the time of ROTJ, Owen was supposed to be Obi-Wan's brother. Then by the time of the PT, Lucas decided on Owen being Anakin's step-brother.

 

I don't recall any source about Owen being Anakin's brother but at the very least there must have been some familial relationship.

Possibly Beru was Anakin's sister or maybe Owen and Anakin had the same mother? Which is partially the way it ended up with Shmi as his step-mother.

Either way Owen being Obi-Wan's brother is somewhat difficult because why would he be so aggrieved at Obi-Wan over Anakin?

Then again in that context Owen's ire is for Obi-Wan who was in effect Anakin's spiritual older brother and was the reason for Anakin leaving to become a Jedi, who then ended up being killed by Darth Vader

It's misplaced on Owen's part because they went together like Luke wanted to go to the academy with Biggs. The result of which would have been both of them joining the Rebels while Obi-Wan and Anakin joined the Jedi in the "Crusades" version of the Clone Wars.

As above there was nothing locked down but whatever the details were in Lucas' mind at any point the original gist was that Obi-Wan, Anakin and Owen were all from farming families on Tatooine and Obi-Wan and Anakin were the guys who left that world for the larger galaxy and Owen was the guy who stayed behind. It connects back to Lucas himself and the themes he explored in his first film trilogy of THC 1138, American Graffiti and "Star Wars".

 

@Qui-Riv-Brid Owen being Obi-Wan's brother is from the ROTJ novel.

 

That makes sense. And since at the time of A New Hope Anakin and Darth Vader were still separate individuals it would have made sense that in Lucas's mind at the time he would have felt Anakin and Obi Wan would have been around the same age.

 

Yes but the first point you mentioned was "Owen was supposed to be Anakin's brother during ANH." which I don't think has a particular source that I recall but certainly makes sense.

The basics were like the Biggs and Luke which was a mirror of Obi-Wan and Anakin. By the time of ROTJ it was like Qui-Gon and Anakin in TPM which was due to Qui-Gon literally replacing the still young but veteran Jedi from TPM's first draft.

Essentially if AOTC Obi-Wan was in TPM instead of Qui-Gon.

THX 1138 of course.

THC 1138 was the Cannabis cut of the movie!

 

A copy of which...is still buried underneath what used to be the old American Zoetrope building on Folsom St in San Francisco.

 

Whatever changes were made turned out to be a stroke of genius and Star Wars became a global icon that lives on today , long live Star Wars.

 

Relating Owen to Obi-Wan didn't really add anything, and I think they realized that since it was cut (probably overshadowed by Luke's sister reveal as well). The acting didn't really reflect that in ANH, and Obi-Wan would have no reason to hide that from Luke. In contrast, Phil Brown's acting incidentally works very well in the context of Anakin actually being Vader, and fearing Luke will follow the same path.

I still think Attack of the Clones did the best job of tying up that loose end after The Phantom Menace made Anakin an only child. Plus, knowing that the Force runs strong in families, it makes sense that Owen wouldn't have been related by blood to any of the Jedi.

 

Owen being Anakin's brother was alluded to in an early issue of Marvel's Star Wars comic issue 17 from 1978 . It was a flashback issue that showcased Luke's life on Tatooine a year or so before the original film . There is a scene in it where Owen and Beru are talking and she says to Owen , " You let a brother leave without saying goodbye ."

 

Frankly, it'd make more sense if Beru was Anakin's sister rather than Owen being Anakin's brother. That would explain why they have the last name Lars rather than Skywalker, after all. Maybe the comic writer didn't pick up on that for some reason, or perhaps the idea (from Lucasfilm?) was that Lars was a surname they took to hide from the Empire. (Though that doesn't explain why Luke knows his real surname is "Skywalker", if Owen has been lying to him about who his father was even to the extent of concealing him being a Jedi Knight.)

 

Probably Anakin's brother-in-law, unless he was meant to be a brother who grew up close with and then disapproved of Anakin.
Pretty sure George didn't originally intend for Owen to be Anakin's stepbrother. No disrespect to stepbrothers and stepuncles, but that doesn't seem like what the plan was.

 

@devilinthedetails I always pictured Anakin and Owens father (Deak Skywalker) dying on the farm. This would cause them to lose the farm and have to move into the city. Shmi would go back to her maiden name of Lars. Owen would start going by Lars too because he would see his father's passing as weakness and wouldn't want to be known as "Deak Skywalker's son".

TPM would then include them winning the money to get the farm back, and Anakin deciding to leave with Obi-Wan as opposed to returning to the farm. This would cause Owen to be upset with Obi-Wan for "putting ideas in Anakin's head".

This stems from my own interpretation that Owen probably never really loved Luke and just saw him as a mouth to feed until Luke was old enough to work on the farm. He probably never really loved his father or Anakin either, just used them as excuses to be a hard*ss.

 

He was a guy who owed a lot of people money.
You know, cause his names Owen.

 

This was the novelization line:


"When your father left, he didn't know your mother was pregnant. Your mother and I knew he would find out eventually, but we wanted to keep you both as safe as possible, for as long as possible. So I took you to live with my brother Owen, on Tatooine ... and your mother took Leia to live as the daughter of Senator Organa, on Alderaan."

I tend to agree that it doesn't really gel with the way Owen and Beru talk about Luke's father, or the way Owen talks about Ben as a "crazy old wizard". Especially since they're talking about Anakin in private, when Luke has left the room.

 

It also doesn't work very well because then it's make it difficult for Anakin being from Tatooine at all so neither of them even know Anakin to talk about him. Whatever the exact relationship they do have to know him or at least of him from someone else (which is where Shmi comes in).

 

I agree and I guess you could make it work if Anakin was the younger brother of Beru.
So when she married Owen, Anakin came with her and worked on the farm but did not like it there.
It might explain why Beru seemed to think of Anakin more fondly than Owen and she would know him better.
Why Owen has the name of Lars could be him taking his mothers name as Obi-Wan is now a wanted man.

Bye for now.
Blackboard Monitor

 

Owen Lars was not related to anyone in the first draft of ANH. In the next draft, his relationship to Luke is muddled. It is unclear if they were related or not. By the third draft, they were. Lucas and/or Kasden changed this for ROTJ, but Lucas must have had some reservations.

 

Luke's uncle

 

When I first watched Star Wars I assumed Beru was Anakin's sister OR Luke's real mothers sister that married Owen! She then took the name "Lars". It was the only scenario that worked for me haha... "Beru Skywalker"

 

In the May 1974 rough draft, Owen and Beru aren't related to anyone. They are an archeologist couple living on the Wookiee planet.

Draft two, January 1975, they are exiles on Utapau and are said to be Luke's aunt and uncle but it’s not entirely clear which side of the family. Quite possibly one of them is the sibling of Luke's mother as her grave is at their homestead.

The Larses have a 16 year old daughter named Leia who has the hots for Luke. She rushes up to kiss him before he sets off to rescue his brother and join his dad. Although this Leia isn't said to be a princess, the end has a tease for a sequel wherein The Princess of Ondos is being searched for following the kidnapping of the Larses. In Hidden Fortress Princess Yuki has to disguise herself as a commoner, a concept that is touched upon with Leia in the previous draft and then with Padme in TPM.

Luke's relationship to Owen is different here too. Luke just wants to chill on Utapau and do his archeology while Owen thinks it's about time Luke take up his Jedi heritage.

In draft three that dynamic is flipped. Luke wants to go off and fight in the war and Owen is opposed.

They still remain as Luke’s caretakers in the absence of Luke’s father. That's their basic function. They are there more or less to solve a logic problem of who is raising Luke while daddy is away but also to serve as a foil for him, in one version, pushing him toward his destiny, and in the other trying to keep him from it.

They are expendable beyond that and so it seems like Lucas didn't commit to a specific relationship as it didn't matter all that much. By the time of ROTJ it appears he flirted with the idea of making him Obi-Wan's brother probably for dramatic reasons. Owen is dismissive of Ben and so it seems as though there could have been an interesting family dynamic to explore in the prequels. But aside from that who really knows what the thought process was.

 

In the second draft Luke and Leia seem to have an Importance of Being Earnest-style possible romantic cousin relationship going on. Though perhaps she might also be adopted, since Owen and Beru seem to be fulfilling the role of Sir Ector fostering Arthur in Arthurian legend.