CT What Luke's father and Darth Vader would have been like had Lucas kept them seperate?

Hypotetically, what Luke's father and Darth Vader would have been like had Lucas kept them as different characters?
I have in my mind basically this:
Obi Wan would he like Qui Gon

Anakin would be like Ewan's Obi Wan

Darth would be a dark angry young guy like Kylo Ren

Moved from Lit -TtJ

 

Lucas indicated that Anakin Skywalker was supposed to be a more mature version of Luke, and Vader is what we saw in the PT. But Lucas had two ideas in the early drafts. So it's a real crap shoot.

 

Interesting thoughts! I would imagine pretty much the same. Luke’s dad would be a wise Jedi, powerful and respected. Vader would want that at any cost. He’d be a powerful dark lord, full of anger. I would think they’d be the epitome of each side, dark and light.

 

Vader would have built a castle on the lava planet where he killed Anakin Skywalker and got burned alive, rather than just building a castle on the lava planet where he got burned alive.

 

My lazy mind would just borrow from Arthurian legend. Probably throw in a tryst, like Lancelot and Guinevere. Chivalry, betrayal, magic swords...it writes itself.

 

This is a good theoretical question. I read a book about the making of the SW films last year, and those early drafts of ANH were such a mishmash that wasn't good. I'm glad we got what we got. Now per Vader, this book (where all people the critics did was dump on the films even the OT) one critic said Vader shouldn't have been made Luke's father because it required the PT. I personally can't speak for what I think would happen because the structure would be so different.

 

Indeed. Obi-Wan even has a deleted scene in ROTS where he confesses he was just turning a blind eye to Anakin and Padme all along, like Arthur with Lancelot and Guinevere.

 

They shouldn’t have done a twist that simplifies and makes the story more emotional because it then requires making more awesome movies? Silly critics

 

huh..."what if threads" are suddenly allowed in the film forums now?

what if, hypothetically the death star had never been built? what if C-3PO had been green instead of gold? what if Obi-Wan wore roller-skates?

point is I have no idea how to answer this question, since it never happened,

 

Well that critic is someone who hated the PT.

Well, that was a wasted response. You could've just skipped this thread and not waste anyone's time reading this.

 

Even if you hated the PT. It’s extremely cynical to think there’s no potential in making one. Most fans who disliked the PT didn’t dislike the idea of it

 

well there is a reason the rule is there to begin with, and is actually in the rules to which everyone is expected to, you know, read before they post or make a thread but very well:

Luke's father would not be very good in a lightsaber duel against Vader, there how's that?

 

Yeah, but there are fans who feel that more films tarnish the legacy of the original film. They don't care about the other fans.

 

I guess I’m just lucky to have enjoyed all of Lucas output equally and be able to ignore what I don’t like from Disney. For example, I’m 50/50 on the merits of TLJ, but I’ve seen people who dislike that film so much it soured the older films for them. I could never relate to that whatever they released.

 

I happen to like Rey, but it seems a lot of people can't get over the TLJ hump. While it isn't my favorite of the ST, what about moving on to TROS, a movie I enjoyed. As a fan I wouldn't say the movies ruined previous movies, and honestly the shows have added to the movies for me and others.

 

There is that character "Prince Valorum" from "The Star Wars" which is based on Lucas' first draft, that Valorum character I think matches a lot what Young Vader might have been like. Anakin was originally like a 4 different characters, the actual Vader in that draft also looks a bit like Sebastian Shaw

 

If they were separate characters, then I think unmasked Darth Vader in ROTJ could have easily been played by James Earl Jones instead of Sebastian Shaw.

 

Jones was just added because of the intensity of his voice and how it would sound digitized. Regardless of the the direction the story went, Lucas probably wouldn't have had Jones be unmasked Vader.

 

Maybe it was just a happy coincidence but I did always feel like the way Guinness played the scene in ANH describing Luke's father and Vader it came across like he was holding something back.

I'd guess its possible if Lucas had stuck to the idea of a long series of films that we might have seen Anakin and Vader's stories told partly via flashback?

 

It's interesting watch the OT and thinking oh this scene or line set up this future series or whatnot. So it does make you wonder what Lucas had in mind. He's kind of gone back and forth though. Ultimately I like what we got.

 

I'm pretty sure Vader having a secret identity that was somehow related to Luke's heritage and Obi-Wan's past was something Lucas had in mind as a possibility even in the first film, even though he hadn't decided to have that identity be Luke's father yet.

 

Nope. Darth Vader was the intended name until the writing of TESB. It was never an alias until Lucas decided to make Vader be Luke's father. By the time of ROTJ, Lucas intended for Anakin to use the Vader name once he was in the suit. Or at least when he was killing Jedi.

 

Sure, he wasn't Luke's father yet, but "Darth Vader" could still quite easily have been a new name adopted by somebody who had previously been closely related to Anakin and Obi-Wan. Somebody like Luke's older brother or Obi-Wan's son, perhaps.

Lucas told Alan Dean Foster in late 1975 that the second film would be where "we learn who Darth Vader is". Now, that could imply simply that we'd learn that Vader killed Luke's father, since that wasn't stated outright in the 1975 third draft of the film... but it was still already heavily implied, since that draft stated Vader was a Jedi who had betrayed the Order during the same battle where Luke's father died.

But Lucas' next words to Foster afterward - that the third film would be "the saga of the Skywalker family" - suggest that more than simply Luke avenging his father's death might have been in play, and that perhaps there would be another Skywalker or Skywalker-adjacent character turning up. Economy of writing suggests Vader as by far the most likely candidate.

 

What Lucas meant was this.

"Vader is completely consumed by the evil side of the Force. He is an instrument of the Force rather than having his own free will in terms of what he does. He really is driven by the Force. When we kill him off in the next one, we’ll reveal what he really is. He wants to be human—he’s still fighting in his own way the dark side of the Force. He doesn’t want to be a bad man, but he is. He can’t resist it. He’s struggling somehow to get out of what he is, struggling with his humanity."

--George Lucas, TESB story conference transcript, 1977.

Lucas had already intended for Vader to be a Sith Lord who was struggling with the dark side. This goes back to the first draft, where Vallorum is shown regretting his choice to become a Sith and is inspired by Annikin's bravery and resilience into becoming a Jedi again. Lucas decided this was the direction that he wanted to go in the third draft.

 

Also true. But I don't think it rules out the idea of "Vader has a secret identity" being already present as a potential plot thread in the first film by any means - though, as I noted, that identity was very much not Luke's father yet.

If Vader is a Sith struggling with the Dark Side, then him also having a secret identity tied to Luke's father and Obi-Wan makes it more understandable and more personally meaningful if there's a plotline where Luke tries to redeem him. I do suspect Lucas had already realized that much while writing the first film, even if Vader and Anakin were still separate characters.