Three things from the original Star Wars trilogy that were ruined by the prequels...that nobody is talking about!

Like the rest of you (I hope!), I’m not a big fan of the Star Wars prequels: Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith. Most of my issues stem from the casting, acting, writing, dialog, over dependence on digital effects, bad humor, bad characters, poor story choices, bad pacing and editing, some poor design and prop-making, and so on – the usual stuff. Surprisingly, there are aspects of the story – particularly the political storyline – that I think are fantastic and indicate that the potential existed for truly amazing films! Unfortunately, George Lucas refused to surround himself with, and then listen to, the same quality of filmmakers as he had several decades earlier.

Before I go on, let me make an important side note…I define Star Wars ‘cannon’ in a very specific way. I’m a film purist. I only really accept as cannon what I see and hear when I watch the films – or more specifically what I SAW in the films when they were originally released in theaters. For SW, ESB, and ROTJ that means 1977, 1980, and 1983 respectively. No re-mastered, re-edited, re-engineered, re-animated bullshit (even if Empire got some cool new scenes!). It also means no Lucas interviews, no role-playing game, no novelizations, no animated series, no accepted fan-fiction, etc. I want you to know that so you don’t come back at me with “but in the radio play version we hear that obi-wan…” No. Han shot first. Jabba never spoke to Han in docking bay 94 of the Mos Eisley spaceport. Ok now that we got that cleared up…

Chewbacca is an asshole

Throughout the trio of movies that were the original star wars saga, Chewbacca is the lovable, loyal sidekick to Han Solo who provides comic relief, the “this giant has my back” muscle that all daring rogues require, as well as serving to prodding at Han’s conscience with grunts and growls that indicate his questioning of the path Han chooses to follow, from time to time. At various times Chewie appears threatening and volatile, highly intelligent and empathetic, daring – or at least at ease with most of Han’s more daring maneuvers, and of course loyal. At other times he appears silly, cowardly, child-like, and on rare occasions, more like a pet then a person.

Nothing about this range of personality ever bothered me because Chewie was always just some simple, everyday, run of the mill Wookie whose life experience was probably along the lines of a million other simple, everyday, run of the mill henchmen in the galaxy’s underworld. And while he might have the intelligence to operate and repair complex starships and droids, the acquisition of those skills in no way precludes a similar level of wisdom. It was easy to forgive his tag-along approach to Han and the rebellion as an extension of a life-long strategy of latching on to an alpha dog for purpose and direction.

However, Chewbacca’s inclusion in the prequels as one of the leaders of the Wookie Clone War forces, who not only guided his own people, but served as liaison to Yoda, the most powerful Jedi in the galaxy, paints a completely different back story! It would now be reasonable assume that his early life was filled with some formal warrior training and enough education and life experience to imply the wisdom necessary for some diplomacy and at least a small grasp of political strategy.

With that in mind…why the fuck doesn’t he just up and full on join the rebellion himself, if not as soon as he lands on Yavin 4, or at least right after the victory? Because based on the prequels we now have to assume the following life events: he grew up to become a leader of his people, lead them in resisting the Separatists, watched the Empire evolve out his allies (literally right in front of him when Clones turned on Yoda and then, as we can only assume, either joined with the Separatists, or did themselves what the Separatists intended to do by conquering Kashyyk), watched the people he used to be responsible for defending get enslaved, escape himself at some point, survive as a smuggler…and then discover there’s a rebellion with a real chance at over throwing your enemies – BUT DECIDE NOT TO JOIN THEM because some dude you’re friends with is a self-absorbed stuck up nerf-hearder. How the hell can he sit back and let Han take the money and run prior to the Death Star assault!? Why, by the time Empire begins, isn’t he some level of commander, or at least a committed operative!?

While its acceptable to conclude that he hasn’t been rebelling between ROTS and ANH perhaps to due self-loathing and/or general pessimism at the state of the galaxy and his chances of making a difference…once he gets thrown in with a well-organized and reasonably successful rebellion, only an asshole would continue to ignore his responsibility. Unless he had some sort of Jason Bourne-like memory loss he has no excuse for not participating in an active way. Almost every underdog war movie ever made has a character in this position coming to the realization that he HAS to participate. The SW trilogy itself is partially about Han coming to that exact conclusion – it’s almost his entire character arc!

It’s just this type of potential re-writing of a character that is at the heart of my belief that as much as possible, Lucas and others should treat the Galaxy as a huge place with enough people and beings in it to never need to see the same people in every part of the story. To me, Boba Fett doesn’t need to have anything to do with the origin of the Clones/Stormtroopers; Jabba need not be the only gangster on Tatooine; C-3PO need not be created by Anakin; and Chewbacca need to be a former Clone Wars participant. In this case, if Lucas wants Chewie to have a greater role, then he owns responsibility for the impact of that, and if he just wants him to be a movie version of his trusty dog Indiana, then keep him the hell out of the prequels!

Obi-Wan Kenobi is sexist

We should all remember the gripping cliff-hanger near the end of Empire Strikes Back when Yoda and Obi-wan fail to convince Luke to stay and complete his training, and as Luke takes off in his X-wing, Obi-wan comments that Luke was their last hope…only to have Yoda knowingly reply “No, there is another.” As viewers and fans, our minds were instantly blown at that revelation! Who could it be? Han? Leia? Lando? Boba Fett we may even have hoped? Someone we haven’t met yet?

Of course we later find out he means Leia, since she’s Luke’s twin sister and probably has some force ability she hasn’t tapped into yet.

Remember that at the time we have no indication that Obi-Wan should know who Leia really is. There’s no reason why he should have thought of her the way Yoda did. We have no direct evidence, for that matter, that Obi-Wan was intentionally watching out for Luke and waiting to train him – their introduction and subsequent mentoring seems to be a bit coincidental and opportunistic. And while it’s clear Obi-Wan is well aware who Luke’s father is, his conversation with Yoda leads us to conclude that he has no idea who Leia really is and thus we assume that after the movie cuts away from that scene, Yoda tells him her backstory, He’s as blown away as we are, and he then relays the facts to Luke after Yoda’s death.

In the Prequels, however – Revenge of the Sith, specifically – we SEE Obi-Wan at the birth and naming of both Luke and Leia. We see him participate in the decision to separate and hide them from Vader, giving Leia to Bail Organa to raise has his daughter while he watches over Luke under the direct care of his aunt and uncle.

That means that even after he becomes aware of Leia’s involvement in the rebellion and that she battled the Empire to bring him the stolen plans (SW events); even after he knows she is a rebellion leader alongside Luke (In Empire we see he is now watching from the Jedi after life); he still never bothers to consider her as even a possible hope…in his mind its Luke or nothing. Why? ‘Because she’s a girl’ is the only conclusion I come to.

Lucas didn’t have to make Obi-Wan present at the birth, etc. He could have had Yoda there and have Yoda bring him Luke with instructions on where to take him and hide him, giving him no indication that there was a twin sister. That would have been an easy out and changed nothing of importance within the ROTS storyline. That minor change would have preserved Obi-Wans ignorance to Leia and I wouldn’t now have to assume that he was secretly annoyed by all the damn female Jedi he had to serve with in the Clone Wars and their brief monthly conversions to the dark side.

Luke is not related to Leia’s mother

One of the more emotional powerful scenes in the entire original trilogy, for me anyway, is the scene in which Luke tells Leia they are siblings after asking about her mother. I cry. Everytime.*

Luke has spent his entire life, or at least the entire series (and through him, us), searching for the idea of his father. He’s been obsessed with who he was, what he did, what he became, can/should he follow in his footsteps, etc. He wants to join the academy and become a pilot because his father was a spice freighter navigator; he wants to learn the ways of the force and become a Jedi like his father; he wants to turn the evil version of his father back to the good side. But the power of that particular scene comes from the fact that all of a sudden, after learning about Leia, he realizes he had more than just a father – he had a whole family! That conversation, to me, represents Luke’s attempt to connect with his mother for the first time, through Leia. If he has been defined by their father, then she is the extension of their mother and together they become complete, as a family. It was a huge part of the emotional story arc.

In addition, Leia describes her mother, though she died when Leia was still young, as always sort of sad. Of course she was! We would assume she had experienced her husband’s transition to the dark side, his betrayal of the Jedi, and then the loss of her son as she and her daughter went into hiding from Vader! This was a perfectly justified description and one we would have concluded ourselves had we thought about it – it fit perfectly.

And we had no reason to question that she had survived in hiding for some time…the galaxy is huge and there were no Star Trek-like planetary scanners that could detect individuals from long distances; the Empire needed probe droids, Vader could only sense Obi-Wan or Luke from a limited range, Yoda and Obi-wan had been hiding for decades, Leia’s prominence as a senator wouldn’t have exposed her mother if she died when Leia was still young, and so on.

Once again, the prequels screwed up something good! By having Padme die during childbirth and showing Leia raised by the ‘real’ Mrs. Organa, Lucas kills the power of the ROTJ conversation! Why was her mother sad? Because of the Empire? Who in the galaxy wasn’t sad about the empire!? Because she has an adopted daughter? That’d be kind of wicked step-mother-ish! Sure, Luke is still grasping for the same connection, but the fact that Leia is describing someone who has nothing to do with Luke or Anakin just sucks the energy right out of the scene. It mean’s Luke and Leia’s reunion as family is still incomplete – he may represent their father, but their mother is still lost to them both, and while that may be acceptable in a J.R.R Martin chaotic reality sort of way, it doesn’t fit the Lucas mythical fairy-tale genre at all.

For the last time, it didn’t have to be this way. The story of ROTS could easily have had Anakin believing he killed Padme on the landing platform with Palpatine willing to accept that story because it serves his own ends in isolating Anakin. It could have had Padme being convinced in her weak state to separate the children as the only way to protect them both and agreeing to live with Bail as cover – whether or not they actually marry or not is a minor side point that doesn’t even need to be addressed (they could eventually fall in love, or simply marry as part of their cover and to offer Leia more opportunities). We could still see Obi-wan unaware that he was taking one of two children and that Padme was raising the other. We could have seen any number of small changes that ultimately result in Padme surviving several years before dying (of her broken heart?), Leia and Obi-Wan unaware of each other, and Vader unaware of Luke and Leia’s existence or of Padme’s survival.

In the end, if Lucas wanted to make more action movies in the Star Wars universe, or even just in the style of the Star Wars films, he was free to do so. But when he decided to work with pre-established characters and stories that are clearly defined and documented by his own work, would it have been so hard to think through what he was doing to/with them?

*I cry at a lot of parts of a lot of movies...some justified, some not!