PT Why does Obi-Wan not try to redeem Anakin?

I've always wondered why Obi-Wan does not try to redeem Anakin in ROTS? It's seems pretty inconsistent with the OT. In ROTJ Luke believes there's still good in his father. Obi-Wan is skeptical, but in a conversation with his father we learn that this was not always the case, when Vader says "Obi-Wan once tought as you do" in response to Luke's attempt to turn his father to the good side. However, in ROTS Yoda and Obi-Wan don't even consider Anakin's redemption. Obi-Wan assumes he must kill Anakin. Even though he doesn't really want to, ultimately Obi-Wan is sent to kill Anakin. When Anakin and Obi-Wan confront each other, in another move that seems pretty inconsitent with the OT, after they exchange some accusations, Obi-Wan ignites his lightsaber first. Obi-Wan is bent on destroying Anakin. As he says, he will do what he must. This kind of thing bugs me, as it is made very clear in the OT, that a Jedi only uses the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack. Yet, here's Obi-Wan ready to waste Anakin.

 

It's not really that different from Obi-Wan's viewpoint in ROTJ. In that film, Obi-Wan and Yoda are dead set on killing Vader and the Emperor, largely dismissing Luke's attempts to convert Vader. Obi-Wan feels great regret at having to confront Anakin in ROTS, he is like a brother to him. Once Obi-Wan actually sees Vader, and his abuse of Padme, Obi-Wan realises what Anakin has truly become, and tries to take him. There's some ambiguity over whether Obi-Wan leaving Anakin to burn and not just kill him off iss some small shred of compassion, or whether it's that he wants Anakin to suffer.

It's only when Luke tries compassion with Vader, and gives up fighting, that he actually convinces Vader to turn back.

 

He's not ready to waste Anakin. Right off, he tells Yoda that he wants to fight Palpatine instead of Anakin. And when he does confront him, he doesn't immediately go for the kill. He talks to him.

ANAKIN: "You turned her against me."

OBI-WAN: "You have done that yourself."

ANAKIN: "You will not take her from me."

OBI-WAN: "Your anger and your lust for power have already done that. You have allowed this Dark Lord to twist your mind until now . . . until now you have become the very thing you swore to destroy."

ANAKIN: "Don’t lecture me, Obi-Wan. I see through the lies of the Jedi. I do not fear the dark side as you do. I have brought peace, justice, freedom, and security to my new Empire."

OBI-WAN: "Your new Empire?"

ANAKIN: "Don’t make me kill you."

OBI-WAN: "Anakin, my allegiance is to the Republic … to democracy."

ANAKIN: "If you’re not with me, you’re my enemy."

OBI-WAN: "Only a Sith Lord deals in absolutes. I will do what I must."


He doesn't say the same things that Luke does, but he does try to reach him by pointing out his actions are not right. This carries on to the end of the duel.


OBI-WAN: "I have failed you, Anakin. I have failed you."

ANAKIN: "I should have known the Jedi were plotting to take over . . . "

OBI-WAN: "Anakin, Chancellor Palpatine is evil."

ANAKIN: "From my point of view, the Jedi are evil."

OBI-WAN: "Well, then you are lost!"

And if he wanted to kill him, he wouldn't have begged off at first. He wouldn't warn him to not try what he was about to do and he would have finished him off on the lava bank.

 

However, this does not adress the inconsistency. According to the OT Obi-Wan once believed Vader could be brought back to the good side. He obviously failed, and as a consequence believes Vader is irredeemable. So, Yoda and Obi-Wan's attitude is logical. However, in the PT Obi-Wan doesn't even consider Vader's redemption. He asks Yoda to send him to kill the Emperor, because he doesn't want to kill Anakin. So, the premise is that Anakin needs to die, well before Obi-Wan and Vader confront each other for the first time. Those couple of accusations Obi-Wan throws at Anakin can hardly be called an attempt to pull Anakin back to the good side, and like I said, it's Obi-Wan who first ignites his light saber, which is an aggresive stance, ready for the kill so to speak.

 

The line "Obi-"Wan once though as you do", is a bit ambiguous though. It could just mean that Obi-Wan was once compassionate and acted more selflessly like Luke is doing. Alternatively, it could just be Vader's assumption, and considering in this very scene how he applies Luke's training to Obi-Wan, completely missing Yoda's teachings, shows that Vader's knowledge isn't absolute.

Plus it's only a single line.

 

Because the Sith need to die. That's the point and has been the point since TESB.

YODA: "Stopped they must be. On this all depends. Only a fully trained Jedi Knight with the Force as his ally will conquer Vader and his Emperor."

So Obi-wan and Yoda setting out to destroy the Sith is fitting with that. But when Obi-wan gets there, he tries talking to him first rather than going for his saber and igniting it. That's why I said that the language isn't the same, but there appears to be a similar train of thought with their conversation. There's also a bit of the duel that was cut out.

OBI-WAN: "The flaw of power is arrogance."

ANAKIN: "You hesitate...the flaw of compassion."

 

The fact that Vader assumes Luke has trained with Obi-Wan seems unrelated to me. Vader's line is a direct response to Luke's attempt to convince his father to come with him. So, it's hardly ambiguous in the context of ROTJ.

 

I don't think so. In TESB Yoda says that Vader and the Emperor must be stopped. Only a fully trained Jedi will conquer them. It's only in ROTJ that killing Vader is introduced, and even then it's in the context of Obi-Wan failing to redeem Anakin. In the ROTJ novelization, which was canon at the time, it states:

Ben shook his head remorsefully. “I also thought he could be turned back to the good side. It couldn’t be done. He is more machine, now, than man—twisted, and evil.”

So, Vader's line in ROTJ is clearly a callback to Obi-Wan's failed attempt to redeem Vader, and Obi-Wan's belief that Vader must be killed follows from this failure, not from some ideology that Sith need to die.

 

Conquer and killing are pretty much interconnected way before ROTJ came around.

But the line was never in the film and the films have always come first. It may have been intended, but it never got there. So Obi-wan never said that he tried and failed. That leaves what Vader says, which then takes us back to my argument.

 

No connection between conquer and killing is made before ROTJ. Conquer means defeat, but not necessarily kill or destroy. TESB makes a big point of the fact that Jedi only use the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack. Premeditated killing is an act of aggression, something a Jedi would never do. In fact Yoda only speaks of confronting Vader in ROTJ. It's only during the discussion with Obi-Wan that killing Vader is first mentioned.

The fact remains, that Vader's line was kept, and is very clearly in the context of what's in the novelization, even if we disregard the novelization altogether. Obi-Wan once thought Anakin could be saved, like Luke does. Ergo, the inconsistency remains.

 

Yeah I think that bit about how "Obi-Wan once thought as you do" was changed to Padme believing that instead. Her line "You're a good person, don't do this" even mirrors Luke's line of "Search your feelings Father, you can't do this".

Maybe in a few years we'll get a new special edition of the OT that replaces Obi-Wan's ghost with Padme's. I can already imagine it after the Endor celebration when all the ghosts are standing around.
Yoda turns to Padme
YODA: By the way Senator....know this you should....*Yoda is blushing*.....that seeing you again.........brings warm feelings to my heart.
PADME: Please don't look at me like that. It makes me feel uncomfortable.
YODA: Hehehe, so glad am I that Master Kenobi isn't here. *Yoda inches closer*
PADME: I'm warning you. Don't make me get Anakin over here. I hear he now rivals you as a swordsman.
YODA: Only in his mind, my lady.
End Credits.

Releasing in 2017, on the 40th anniversary of Star Wars!

 

I heard that there more scenes during their duel on Mustafar of Obi Want urging Anakin to return to the light. But many of them were removed. I think some of the them showed in the video game.


I mean dialogue scenes.

 

Here are some quotes from the novelization of the script of Revenge of the Sith, by Matthew Stover, during the duel between Anakin and Obi-Wan:

 

It's possible that his "Obi-Wan once felt as you do" was just from his point of view. That what Vader got from that conversation was that Obi-Wan wanted him to go back to the light but it was too late.

 

There are things like this in the saga that are poorly developed and probably just the result of Lucas doing the trilogies so far a part and not going through every line of dialogue with a fine tooth comb.

For instance, Luke didn't remember his mother, Leia does. They both were with her for approximately the same amount of time. It can be explained that Leia is just stronger in the Force than she realizes, enough to remember the first moments of her birth. But I would guess that's not what Lucas had in mind at the time he wrote ROTJ.

In ESB, it's said no ship as small as the Falcon has a closing device. In TCW, Lucas introduced a ship with a cloaking device and when the inconsistency was pointed out, they had Anakin point out that for such a ship to have one was highly unusual.

Obi-Wan tells Luke his father wanted him to have his lightsaber when he was old enough, when Anakin had already fallen before Obi-Wan even knew he was going to have kids. On top of this, Luke was the result of a forbidden relationship. I'm not sure that's what Lucas originally had in mind, considering Vader was not originally Anakin.

Luke recognizes Dagobah despite never having been there. Could probably be explained that he could sense Yoda through the Force.

As I mentioned in a thread in the TCW forums, there's also inconsistency with the Sith using their Darth names. Vader held to it like he changed his name upon entering a cult, while the other Sith like Dooku and Palpatine have no qualms about using their birth names. But given that the OT came first and Lucas changed his mind and made Vader Luke's dad, but then went back to the PT and gave all Sith "Darth something" names and the story required that Sith like Dooku and Palpatine not use their Sith names publicly like Vader did. So Vader becomes the awkward one.

Etc. Etc. Etc.

I think this is another such thing. It's not hard to really come up with your own explanation to make it work, but I think the issue probably stems from Lucas establishing dialogue in the OT with a rough notion of what happened in the PT, then a decade later when he makes the PT, it probably was never going to line up perfectly. There was probably an acceptable amount if inconsistency for the sake of the PTs story.

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I also believe Count Dooku from ATOC which commonly showed up in TCW also had a cloaking device as well. Which explains how he managed to get into Coruscant without anyone noticing. The point is that small ships typically do no have cloaking devices unless they are super rare high class ships.

 

Attack means using it aggressively. It doesn't mean that a Jedi couldn't kill. In fact, Obi-wan kills Dr. Evanzian in the cantina. And Luke is never admonished by Yoda for killing a bunch of Imperials in ANH. So the idea of a Jedi not killing was never a case when TESB was made. And while it doesn't necessary mean kill, it is also very logical given that no Imperial is ever killed.

There was no reason to remove the line. As I mentioned, there was a similar sentiment without it being the exact wording.

Right.

The line does have Leia say that that they were images and feelings. And Lucas had originally written them to be two, when they were separated. Lucas never really pinned down when she died and how.

"The part that I had never really developed is the death of Luke and Leia's mother. I had a back story for her in earlier drafts, but it basically didn't survive. When I got to JEDI, I wanted one of the kids to have some kind of memory of her because she will be a key figure in the new episodes I'm writing. But I really debated on whether or not Leia should remember her."

--George Lucas, Star Wars-The Return Of The Jedi: Annotated Screenplay, 1997

So it wasn't just on the fly writing.

Which is fine. And not everyone is expected to know about a cloaked ship.

No, but we can just take it as a lie. Or Anakin did say to him that if he did have a son, he would pass on his saber to him.

He says, "It's like something out of a dream". Perhaps he saw it in a vision as a dream.

I wouldn't consider that an inconsistency. By the time of ROTJ, we know that he's struggling with being good and evil and that he considers his name to be something that no longer matters to him. Obviously due to guilt and this was before we find out what all he did. So when Lucas introduced the idea of Sith names, it never seemed to be an inconsistency.

 

I took it to mean that Vader was saying Obi-Wan once thought he, Vader/Anakin, would be on the light side of the force.

 

Personally I have a problem with these kind of arguments. It's like fixing a broken table with scotch tape. Sure it kind of sticks, but there's no denying it's poorly constructed. It is a bandaid for what is essentially sloppy writing. Although ROTJ was already stretching credibility with it's Luke is Leia's sister reveal, with the PT GL just didn't seem to care anymore. Another example is that in the OT it is established that Force users can sense each other from the other side of the galaxy, but this is conveniently cast aside in the PT, where the Jedi suddenly can't sense that Palpatine is a Force user. In fact they're so thick, that they probably wouldn't have taken the hint, if Palpatine had worn a big sign saying "I'm an evil Sith Lord". This kind of lazy writing ultimately weakens the mythology.

 

You might be in the wrong franchise then. Literally every Star Wars movie retconned the one before it.

Luke had a father who was killed by Vader. Oh wait! Oh and all of a sudden this amazing old Jedi is a lying liar.

Luke is in love with Leia and she kisses him. Oops, they're brother and sister! And he kinda knew all along but not really.

Leia remembers Padme. Well, maybe here's how you hand wave it.

I mean, it's Star Wars. Saying you hate retconning is like saying you hate sound in space.

 

I don't have a problem with a few retcons, especially if it's done in a clever way. However, at some point it just becomes symptomatic of lazy writing. Like I said, the Luke is Leia's sister reveal is easily the greatest cop out in the OT. It's no surprise that ROTJ is regarded by many as the weakest entry of the OT.

 

But saying GL didn't care anymore is like... The man dedicated millions of dollars and years of his life to a trilogy. Yes, it had a retcon. It doesn't mean he was lazy or didn't care.

He did it all the time! Expecting him not to do it is like expecting the scorpion to not sting the toad. I'll actually be disappointed if the ST doesn't have some sort of hand wavy retcon. It's as Star Wars as brooding into a sunset is.

And some people like it and some people don't. Frankly, I groan at Obi-Wan's "a certain kind of view" speech more than anything else. He seemed so dodgy, but some people really liked it. Meanwhile I never cared about the siblings thing very much.

It's like I always say: Star Wars has something for everyone.

 

I don't look at it that way. To me it is apparent that by the time the PT was under development, GL was more interested in the technology than connecting all the dots. For example in TPM, GL introduces the Jedi's super speed, but when Qui-Gon Jinn's life hangs in the balance, Obi-Wan conveniently forgets he has this power. So, this clearly reveals that by then the technology superseded the story, and the number of inconsistencies and retcons began to grow exponentially.

 

I think he connected the dots beautifully, and enriched the story more than I could ever imagine. And ROTJ is my favorite SW film out of the 7 lol (well, maybe a tie between RoTS and RoTJ).

 

I don't know if it's so much laziness as it is that GL's vision for the saga keeps evolving. Back when he was making Star Wars, the vision was one thing. Then it expanded when he was working out the story for Empire. Then, a general backstory was created during ROTJ's production. By the time he was working on the prequels, his vision for the saga became "The Tragedy of Darth Vader".

Additionally, I think Lucas gets so excited with his new ideas that he often prioritizes that over trying to connect every single dot back to his older ideas. Like for example, he probably thought Padme dying during childbirth just as Anakin symbolically "died" made for a better story than having Padme die off screen in between movies. That latter would have flowed better with what was established in ROTJ but the former arguably makes for a more dramatic ending.

Could he have implemented his new ideas and maintained better continuity with the originals with some more planning/thought? Possibly. But it is the way it is. And it's one of the reasons why I'm a big proponent of the release order for watching the saga; it preserves the OT twists and allows us to see how GL's ideas/vision evolved over time.