Saga Before the prequels were made, how old were Anakin and Obi-Wan supposed to be?

TPM = Anakin 9, Obi-Wan = 19
AOTC = Anakin 19, Obi-Wan = 29
ROTS = Anakin 25, Obi-wan = 35

 

George continuously changed timelines, so the question is a bit hard to answer. Even in the early drafts of TPM Obi-Wan was supposed to be Qui-Gon.

 

The casting of Sebastian Shaw definitely shows that Anakin wasn't supposed to be in his early 20s when he fell to the Dark Side (before the PT, of course).

 

Only in terms of characterization, Qui-Gon was still his own character that was simply going to appear later in the movie. Obi-Wan in the rough draft was still a relatively young individual, he was around 30. In the final film he's 25.

 

I think the point EJC was making is that if Lucas started with "Obi-Wan wasn't Qui-Gon, he was just going to have the near-exact story role and personality", it isn't unreasonable to think that even by that time, he might have also considered The Phantom Menace (or "The Beginning") to be further back than 32 BBY

A lot of details he imagined adjusted or completely changed over time. We're talking about the same guy who refilmed half of Revenge of the Sith because he wanted to change Anakin's motivation, so I can definitely see him starting work on the prequels with the idea that Episode I is 40-50 BBY

 

Obviously nobody knows what crossed his mind throughout the years, but the fact remains that when he actually decided to start writing the story (even as rough drafts), the timeframe was set and didn't change, same with the age of the characters.

That didn't happen to begin with. Anakin's motivation (assuming you're referring to why he falls) was always one and the same. It was already established in TPM and AOTC.

 

No, we can't say we know everything he thought of, but we can say we know what's documented

Then why did you say they did lmao

As for:

It's well documented that the nature of Anakin's fall is the result of reshoots. The whole "I'm doing it to save Padme from my visions of her death" bit was not originally the focus of his turn to the dark side

 

Anakin’s attachment to padme was always the catalyst. That’s not what he introduced when he reshot the sequence where Anakin fell

 

Come on, that's still around 30. Padmé was 13-14, Anakin was 9-10. We are not talking about a decade of difference. A couple of years of wiggle room is insignificant.

No, it's not. Anakin's fall is and always has been the result of the fear of loss (first of his mother and then of Padmé). The idea of premonitions fueling his fear of loss was established in AOTC, along with the desire for power to prevent losing his loved ones. Lucas was laying the groundwork for what was going to happen in ROTS (even in TPM where his attachment and fear of losing his mother was established).

"This is obviously a very pivotal scene for Anakin because this is reuniting him with his mother and his youth and, at the same time, dealing with his inability to let go of his emotions and allow himself to accept the inevitable. The fact that everything must change and that things come and go through his life and that he can’t hold on to things, which is a basic Jedi philosophy that he’s unwilling to accept emotionally. And the reason that is, is because he was raised by his mother rather than by the Jedi.
If he’d have been taken in his first year and started to study to be a Jedi, he wouldn’t have this particular connection as strong as it is and he’d have been trained to love people but not to become attached to them. But he has become attached to his mother and he will become attached to Padmé, and these things are, for a Jedi, who needs to have a clear mind and not be influenced by threats to their attachments, a dangerous situation. And it feeds into fear of losing things, which feeds into greed, wanting to keep things and wanting to keep his possessions and things that he should be letting go of." — George Lucas (2002)

On what makes Anakin become Darth Vader:

"Yeah, I know what that is. And it's — it's — it's sprinkled throughout this episode [Episode I]. I mean, it's — it's all of the — the groundwork's been laid in this episode." — George Lucas (1999)

None of the reshoots changed the story, even the most significant ones only helped streamline the story, bring the focus to what matters and accentuate the drama. The story remained the same.

 

Either I've arrived in a parallel universe where Anakin's turn being more political/motivated by power at first is the only difference from my birth universe. I dunno, maybe I have been implanted with fake memories, but could've sworn that was in the documentaries

Eh, at any rate, I suppose we can continue that in another thread in PT, cause the topic is thoroughly thrashed aside lol

Soooo, that pre-90s time gap, huh?

At any rate, we can always continue that

 

Anakin’s turn is motivated by both political power and fear of loss. I know the quote you’re are referring to, George did indeed change things to focus more on the Padme angle, but it was always present and foreshadowed by the previous movies

 

what we must always remember Seagoat:

- Lucas had this all planned when the universe was still just a speck of dust

- do not question da Lucas

I think that covers this thread

 

I don’t think Lucas planned it all out from the beginning. But I think almost every time there’s a question about “how were the prequels going to be originally” examination reveals that the prequels went with the most logical timeline based on what we knew

 

I wasn't talking about you or this thread in particular @Watcherwithin

It's a consistent thing across the boards when there is a slight inconsistency mentioned it is met with an almost vitriolic denial or aggressive explanation that leads others to go on the defensive. It is a never ending cycle. I've seen it too many times.

 

What Lucas changed was the focus. In 2003, Anakin was leaning more towards it being political over personal. This is where Anakin comes across that way and Lucas realizes that he lost focus. A year later, he changes it to being more clear that it's Padme first and politics second.

 

I do think Lucas probably thought vaguely that the fear of losing Padmé should be part of Anakin's downfall somehow even in 1999. If only because her regnal name is Amidala, like the amygdala - the organ of the brain responsible for generating fear, which Yoda identifies as the start of the road to the dark side in TPM.

(And if you've ever seen Wagner's Ring Cycle, the hero Siegfried literally does not know what fear is until he sets eyes on his future wife - and the architect of his death - Brünnhilde. No wonder the EU decided that Anakin should get the nickname "Hero With No Fear".)

I think Anakin's downfall being mostly or entirely political was probably an older idea from back around ROTJ, when Anakin was also envisioned as being an older man, but that Lucas toyed with it again a bit particularly around AOTC. But then in the reshoots of ROTS he got squarely back to the fear of losing Padmé being at the heart of it.

As for Qui-Gon's role in early drafts of Episode 1, in the rough draft Obi-Wan takes over most of Qui-Gon's role on Naboo and Tatooine, since Qui-Gon doesn't even show up until he joins the heroes' party when they reach Coruscant. This allowed Obi-Wan to have a greater role in championing Anakin, which would be consistent with ROTJ, but Lucas evidently felt it didn't work filmically for TPM.

So in the second draft, the older Jedi knight was named Obi-Wan and the younger Jedi was named Qui-Gon. But Obi-Wan was killed by Darth Maul in the final duel, which meant that young Qui-Gon honored his master by literally taking his name and becoming the Obi-Wan we know from the OT! (If you've ever read SW comic writer Kieron Gillen's Warhammer comics, you might notice him shamelessly borrowing this idea for the backstory of a legendary space marine named Marneus Calgar.)

 

Anakin's fall was never political. His political views (the little that he happens to share in the movies) were simply meant to illustrate the influence Palpatine had over Anakin, since that's a background aspect that doesn't get much screen time (originally there wasn't even a scene of the two together in AOTC. The one scene that ended up in the movie was done in pickups, because Lucas wanted to make that explicit to the viewer). His fall was always personal, driven by his fear and possessiveness, which Palpatine helped fuel in contrast to Anakin's Jedi training.

 

Anakin believing Palpatine being able to stop death without so much as a sliver of proof makes him come off as stupid. Scam artists go through elaborate lies and cons to appear legit. Spoofed phone numbers, fake websites, phony checks are just some of the things con artists use. Seeing this, victims fall prey and lose money, cars, homes, etc... Simply believing Palpatine's words makes it hard to sympathize with Anakin. Lucas could have brought back Maul as proof and given Anakin an excuse to believe Palpatine was able to hold off death. Instead we get nothing.

 

Except two things.

1. Anakin's been wanting this power for three years now and is desperate to know more. He believes it because of his desperation.

2. He's seen Maul and thus wants to know if it is connected.

 

Then there is the fact he is convinced Padme's about to die, and at this point in his life she's the one person he can't live without.

 

It gets even worse when Palpatine admits he does not actually have the power he talked about earlier but only offers some vague assurances that they will find it together. That should have made Anakin react but he does not.

Anakin in the PT sees no problem with a dictatorship, that people should be made to obey, that a single leader is better than a senate that just talks and argues. This comes up more than once.
So him seeing Palpatine as that leader could play a part. Later he sees himself as that leader.

This fits with Vader in the OT who wants order and stability and wants to rule.

In the version of RotS that was made during principal photography, Anakin sided with Palpatine earlier.
He did not tell Mace that Palpatine was a Sith, they found out through other means. He was in Palpatine's office when Mace and crew arrived. He did not fight them nor did he help Mace and the others.
There were several reasons why he sided with Palpatine. 1. Distrust of the Jedi. 2. He wants order and and end of the war and he sees Palaptine as the way to do that. 3. Saving Padme was part of it yes but one of several reasons. Then in pickups, Padme was changed to the singular reason why Anakin turned.

Bye.
Blackboard Monitor

 

I'm not sure we know what Lucas thought of Sebastian Shaw's casting in 1983 for Jedi. We do know that director Richard Marquand originally wanted a renown British stage actor like Laurence Olivier or John Gielgud for the role. But Lucas thought the audience wouldn't take Vader's unmasking seriously if the actor who played him was so recognizable. So it's possible that Shaw's casting was purely Marquand's choice and was acceptable to Lucas without necessarily being someone he would've cast himself.

But that choice did influence Lucasfilm's other projects after the movies. Timothy Zahn has gone on record saying that he was told in the early nineties that the events of the prequel movies would be set 15 years prior to when they actually ended up being set in the movies. That means that many of the events referenced in his books have them set about 35 years prior to the original trilogy rather than just 20. If that same idea was influential in other products, I'd imagine most people pictured Anakin Skywalker as being in his mid-thirties during the events of the Clone Wars and his subsequent fall to the dark side.

 

holy revisionist history Batman!

in 2005 Anakin saw no such thing

 

I'm pretty sure it's been Lucas's idea that Vader fell into lava since very near the beginning so I'm not sure why people but so much stock in Shaw's age, the makeup alone should make obvious that Anakin was *not* meant to look in peak physical condition for his age whatever it may be. The man's basically been a walking corpse in a led coffin for 25 years, is it any wonder he looks as he does?

 

As I recall, Alec Guinness was the one who suggested Sebastian Shaw, since Shaw was having some money problems at the time and could use the paycheck.