PT Which draft/drafts of the script for TPM is the Obi-Wan/Qui-Gon name switch in?

https://www.starwars.com/news/iain-mccaig-the-phantom-menace

"It’s interesting how things evolve,” McCaig notes. “For a time, the older Jedi was named Obi-Wan and the younger Jedi was named Qui-Gon. It was very poignant that at the end, as Obi-Wan dies and Qui-Gon defeats Darth Maul and stays with his Master as he passes away, he not only takes on his Master’s quest, but he takes on his name. Qui-Gon becomes Obi-Wan. That’s why when you see Alec Guinness in A New Hope, he puts his hood down and goes, ‘Obi-Wan? Now that’s a name I’ve not heard….’ Because he’s not Obi-Wan, he’s Qui-Gon. And right at the end, George changed it."

I recall what McCaig mentions here being the case in at least one draft of the script, but I don't remember which draft/drafts that is.

 

That dumb and I'm glad it was changed.

 

That was the second draft, I believe. The first draft was Obi-Wan finding Anakin and Qui-Gon is an older Jedi who is sent to help him. Then it was this version. Then the third draft which is the version used.

 

yep that makes no sense whatsoever, in any form.

 

it's not a bad idea but it would've meant 3 characters in the movie having a double identity.

 

In context, the first draft just has Obi-Wan as a fully Jedi and has no arc of his own. That's why Lucas came up the idea of a young Jedi becoming more like his mentor by the end of the film. But Lucas realized that it was too complicated and streamlined it.

 

I wouldn't say dumb, there's been weirder twists in Star Wars, but I'd say "nifty but pointless"

 

Sounds like a quintessentially "prequel trilogy" idea to me. Same as all the other high concept plot points, twists, revelations or concepts that attracted scorn and confusion upon release, but are now being hailed as bold, revolutionary, and borderline genius.

 

I believe it was only in the rough draft and was removed from the revised rough draft. Thanks to the Episode I Insider's Guide CD-ROM, we know quite a bit about the revised rough draft and even a little about the second draft. And the third draft has leaked. It seems that the twist does not appear in any of them. The twist appearing in the original rough draft would also explain the somewhat odd reversal of Obi-Wan and Quigon in the revised rough draft. Obi-Wan is dispatched alone to Naboo, accompanies the Queen to Tatooine, and discovers Anakin there before Quigon ever appears. Even after he shows up, Quigon doesn't do much and Obi-Wan is more active. I think this could make sense as a transition from the "twist" version to what we got in the final film. The revised rough draft seems to have all the setup for the twist, but without actually committing to it. All the big events are tied to "Obi-Wan," reinforcing to the audience that he's the "real" one before a brand new character gets introduced halfway through and mostly hangs in the background. Except in the revised rough draft, instead of the shocking death of the Jedi we've been with all along, and the little-used Quigon taking over, the newbie Quigon is killed instead. He was not a large presence in the draft so his death does not hit all that hard. The next draft, the second draft (George seems to have considered the rough draft to be the first draft, so the next one was the second), has Qui-Gon there from the beginning, as we see in the final film. There's a contemporaneous interview with him in Taschen's Prequels Archives book where he says he did this to give the lone Jedi at the beginning someone to talk to. This makes sense, but is a little odd for him to only realize for the third draft of the screenplay especially when he spent over a year writing the first one. I think it makes a little more sense that there was a specific reason for having the Jedi alone that he changed his mind on and I think the twist could be that thing.

For the curious, I believe these are all the major revisions of the script:

• Rough Draft - January 13th, 1996 (I believe the 1995 year given by most sources is inaccurate and due to a typo from Lucas)
• Revised Rough Draft - June 13th, 1996
• Second Draft - March 13th, 1997
• Revised Second Draft - May 9th, 1997
• Third Draft - May 13th, 1997
• Revised Third Draft - June 6th, 1997
• Fourth Draft - June 13th, 1997
• Revised Fourth Draft - August 10th, 1998

I wrote an article earlier this year that went way more in-depth about the writing of the film if anyone would like to read more.