How the “Obi-Wan failed Anakin” subplot was retconned by George Lucas.
So an argument I see a lot in some “Obi-Wan failed Anakin” posts is saying “Ben failed Luke’s father, he said it himself in ROTJ”.
Now, while I could simply quote LucasFilm creative executive Pablo Hidalgo, who tweeted in 2017…
“If a fictional character thinks something, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re right.”
… and leave it at that, I think it’s interesting to see just how far the “Obi-Wan failed Anakin” subplot went with Lucas, before he retconned it into something else entirely.
In a story conference for Episode VI that was first transcribed in 1981 and later collected in The Making of Return of the Jedi (2013), Lucas discussed this with Lawrence Kasdan and Richard Marquand:
“Ben [takes] the blame for Vader. “I should have given him more training. I should have sent him to Yoda, but I thought I could do it myself. It was my own pride in thinking that I could be as good a teacher as Yoda. I wish that I could stop the pestilence that I’ve unleashed on the galaxy.” His burden is that he feels responsible for everything that Vader has done.”
And in an interview done with in 1996, collected in the book The Star Wars Archives: 1999-2005 (which I highly recommend getting, so insightful) Lucas discussed how he planned on portraying Obi-Wan in one of the earliest screenplay drafts for The Phantom Menace:
“The story has Obi-Wan as a young Jedi in his mid-twenties. He’s ambitious and takes on the mentorship of this kid who starts out about eight or nine years old. […] Even though he’s too old to start the training of a Jedi, Obi-Wan feels the Force is so strong with him that he has to train him as a Jedi. […] Obi-Wan begins as this strong Jedi character but when you see all six movies, you’ll see that what Ben is doing with Luke is very close to the same mistake he made with Anakin.”
So Obi-Wan was the only Jedi we saw for the first half of the script.
And, by the way… he wasn’t always in his mid-twenties. As concept artist Ian McCaig puts it:
“Obi-Wan’s age changed all over the place — at one point he was substantially older, like a youngish 50. For a long time we had a character who was samurai-like, with a ponytail and long sideburns.”
So hey, bottom line (and as illustrated below by artist Doug Chiang):
Obi-Wan, alone, comes to negotiate with the Trade Federation. Just like he and Qui-Gon did in the final cut, he fights his way off the ship, he rescues the Queen…
He is impressed by his skills with the Force. He decides to bring him to the Jedi and he insists that Anakin should be trained.
So far, this is consistent with what is mentioned in Return of the Jedi, and it’s clear that, at this point in time, the narrative Lucas was originally going for was the notion that: “In his ambition and arrogance, Obi-Wan trained Anakin but overestimated his own abilities as a teacher, which ultimately resulted in the creation of Darth Vader.”
But months later, when tackling a newer draft of the script, Lucas decided to split Obi-Wan’s impact on the story into two… and that’s when he made the decision to give a bigger role to another Jedi who originally appeared much later in the film.
Thus was created a Jedi mentor for Obi-Wan called Qui-Gon Jinn.
“I wasn’t able to develop Obi-Wan’s character fast enough. When I got through the rough draft I realized that I had a second Jedi that comes in about halfway through the script who is an interesting character and the more I thought about it the more I thought of things I could do with these two Jedi together because one alone didn’t have much to react to.”
And when I looked further into it… this isn’t actually new information!
This was also mentioned in the old Databank on earlier versions of StarWars.com, and in The Art of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, in which they also explain that they briefly considered making Qui-Gon be Obi-Wan’s Padwan, and having Ewan McGregor playing “Padawan Qui-Gon”, before they finally settled on having Obi-Wan be the apprentice instead.
Other fun fact: there’s a scanned copy of the 1997 shooting script online (you can download it here)… and in it, you’ll notice that in the scene where they have dinner at Shmi’s house, some of the character description still reads “OBI-WAN” instead of “QUI-GON”, because they forgot to replace some of them :D
But as a result of bringing in Qui-Gon and shifting around the character dynamics, the decision of ambitiously taking Anakin in no longer falls on Obi-Wan… but on Qui-Gon.
How the addition of Qui-Gon changed the subplot:
If we look at things objectively, Qui-Gon saw a boy with an enormous M-count and massive potential in the Force, and figured “this kid must be the Chosen One”. And part of Qui-Gon’s character is that he feels, instead of thinking… he uses his instincts. And his instincts are never wrong (or so he thinks).
But while Qui-Gon’s instincts are correct (Anakin is indeed the Chosen One, no question there), he’s going about it the wrong way.
“So here we’re having Qui-Gon wanting to skip the early training and jump right to taking him on as his Padawan learner, which is controversial, and ultimately, the source of much of the problems that develop later on.”
- The Phantom Menace, Director’s Commentary, 1999
“I think it is obvious that [Qui-Gon] was wrong in Episode I and made a dangerous decision, but ultimately this decision may be correct.”
- Cut Magazine, 1999
He’s insisting this kid become a Padawan at once, without having him spend some time with the younglings to adjust… and everyone else is saying that that’s crazy. Cuz it is. But he is unable to consider the fact that he’s mistaken.
His instincts are never wrong, right? So he just keeps pushing for it.
Then he gets killed and with his dying breath, he forces the task of training Anakin onto Obi-Wan, who hasn’t even gone through the Trials, yet.
So right here, the original subplot has been retconned:
Obi-Wan no longer takes Anakin on because he’s an ambitious big-shot Jedi who arrogantly goes ‘pfft, if Yoda can do it, I can too’.
Instead, at the start, he takes Anakin on reluctantly… not because Anakin’s a problem, but because Obi-Wan feels that he, as a Master, won’t be up to the task.
Still, he steps up and takes on the responsibility. And while the task itself is ambitious, Obi-Wan doesn’t do it for the “glory of training the Chosen One”. He’s just keeping a promise, by being there for a 9-year-old kid who was taken away from his mother and whose paternal figure just died.
He decides to train the boy, honoring Qui-Gon’s memory.
Now, while Obi-Wan’s fear that he may be inexperienced may be accurate in some areas… it isn’t in others. Namely, Obi-Wan’s ability to deal with a personality like Anakin’s.
Anakin had many character traits in common with Qui-Gon, including the following flaws:
They’re both headstrong, unruly mavericks.
Neither is very forthcoming about their own emotions.
Some people are outgoing, and need someone who will listen. Others are not, and need someone who will ask them and get them to talk. Anakin and Qui-Gon are examples of the latter. They get lost in their own thoughts and don’t open up unless they are pressed.
But this means that Obi-Wan already had experience dealing with this sort of personality before taking on Anakin. So he knows exactly what to do.
Whether Anakin is stressed…
… or is just bottling up his feelings…
… most of the time, Obi-Wan will get Anakin to open up.
(credit to @ashleyeckstein for that last GIF)
“One of the primary issues between this relationship between Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon is that this is establishing Obi-Wan as the kind of straight arrow, the center of the movie, and Qui-Gon as the rebel, as the one who’s constantly sort of pushing the envelope. Which will switch itself in the next movie when, rather than having his master be the rebel, he has his Padawan learner become the rebel. I’m using Obi-Wan as sort of this centering device through all these movies, even as we get in with Luke and everybody else later on.”
- The Phantom Menace, Director’s Commentary, 1999
Obi-Wan is a centering device.
He’s not so dogmatic that he will do anything the Jedi Council says, though he will try to stay within the lines. That said, you can change his mind, if your point is valid, unlike Qui-Gon who will hunker down on his own stance.
Obi-Wan is the middle ground (despite what the memes say 😃).
He’s the stable Yin to chaotic Yangs like Qui-Gon or Anakin.
So it turns out that pairing Anakin with a master like Obi-Wan… is actually a great fit! They complement each other, there’s a symbiosis.
And so he trains and practically raises Anakin as a paternal/fraternal figure, they become friends. Then, when Anakin is knighted, they become equals.
Anakin becomes an almost-perfect Jedi Knight, despite the terrible odds he faced. He is brave, kind, generous, powerful, loyal, he’s the best fighter pilot in the galaxy. He is more street-smart than your average Jedi, he has political connections like Bail or Padmé. He’s training a Padawan mere months after being knighted. By the end of the Clone War, this guy’s in the Top 3 fighters of the Jedi Order.
Anakin becomes a goddamn superstar, in the Jedi Order. And Obi-Wan is very proud of the man he’s grown up to be, despite the odds he was facing.
So eventually, Obi-Wan leaves for a mission which could turn out to be just a wild Bantha chase… he imparts one last lesson, says his goodbyes to Anakin…
… and comes back to this.
He is understandably devastated… and, of course, in true Jedi fashion, he blames himself:
Forget that Obi-Wan is the ultimate selfless Jedi. Let’s put that aside.
Any parent would blame themselves for how their kid turned out. And sometimes? They’d be right to do so.
This isn’t one of those times.
Obi-Wan did his best; and Anakin’s choices - influenced though they may have been - were his own.
And that’s the new moral of Obi-Wan’s story, in the Prequels, according to Lucas.
“When you’re in this position as a mentor, whether you’re an actual father or not, this person is your charge, but you have no control over how they’re going to use that knowledge. […] You hope they’ll turn out okay, you hope they do the right things, you hope you raised them right, and all that stuff. But there’s no guarantee or anything. You never know what’s going to happen. That’s the challenge.”
Obi-Wan will never stop thinking he shares some blame in his boy’s downfall. We see that he eventually is able to see things more objectively in From A Certain Point Of View, though, clearly, in Return of the Jedi part of him still feels he is somewhat at fault.
But we, the audience, know: he did his best.
And if his teachings hadn’t been regularly sabotaged by Palpatine for 13 years, if the Devil himself hadn’t manipulated Anakin and turned his own fears against him… Obi-Wan’s best would’ve been enough.
