The probable reason? The prequels were a distant galaxy, far, far away in the mind of George Lucas. If we are looking at it realistically, then Owen Lars was portrayed as a man who wanted his adopted son to be as safe as possible. One of the tragedies of the original films is that we never truly got the chance to discover Owen's motivations, and his devotion to Luke. We only see the cranky uncle, who makes Luke feel pressed under the thumb.

The 'retcon' explanation would probably link to the idea that Owen and Beru knew full well of Anakin's treachery, and wanted to keep any association with Luke's ancestry as removed from his life as possible.

@Leigh Abbott said:

The 'retcon' explanation would probably link to the idea that Owen and Beru knew full well of Anakin's treachery, and wanted to keep any association with Luke's ancestry as removed from his life as possible.

Oh, I think they absolutely knew of Anakin's treachery. I think they asked Obi-wan what was up with the child you are dumping on us. And I get what you are saying about Lucas had no idea that he would ever make prequels. However knowing the conversation he wrote in this film, don't you think he coulda done a better job in setting up how Luke gets dropped off? Maybe perhaps have someone else drop Luke off that way it really does look like Owen has no clue who Obi-wan is.

@movie_nazi said:

@Leigh Abbott said:

The 'retcon' explanation would probably link to the idea that Owen and Beru knew full well of Anakin's treachery, and wanted to keep any association with Luke's ancestry as removed from his life as possible.

Oh, I think they absolutely knew of Anakin's treachery. I think they asked Obi-wan what was up with the child you are dumping on us. And I get what you are saying about Lucas had no idea that he would ever make prequels. However knowing the conversation he wrote in this film, don't you think he coulda done a better job in setting up how Luke gets dropped off? Maybe perhaps have someone else drop Luke off that way it really does look like Owen has no clue who Obi-wan is.

Oh I certainly agree that George should have done a better job of transitioning the setup of Episode 3 to 4. Then again, George has made a lot of questionable decisions post-ANH. Lucas seems pretty good at creating a theme, and hiding more depth in movies than the general audience gives him credit for, but as for depth of storytelling, I think that he's probably not fantastic at creating a narrative that isn't full of holes, and questionable writing decisions.

I think that he's probably not fantastic at creating a narrative that isn't full of holes, and questionable writing decisions.

Don't forget his atrocious writing when it comes to dialogue. He is a good writer in like you say themes and world building but when it comes to word play he's terrible. Listening to the lovey dovey back and forth between Anakin and Padme was downright painful to listen to as compared to the witty dialogue between Leia and Han in let's say Empire. It's no comparison. This is where I think Lucas made one of his biggest mistakes and that was to write the entire script himself on the prequels. If he would have brought in another writer then there would have been someone to point out the discrepancies from the original films and add some much needed spice to the dialogue. People poo poo the prequels but I think they are generally pretty good films just not great films. They coulda used a little outside influence to polish it up some.

Most agree, how could they know if he is nuts or not

@movie_nazi

This is where I think Lucas made one of his biggest mistakes and that was to write the entire script himself on the prequels. If he would have brought in another writer then there would have been someone to point out the discrepancies from the original films

To be fair they had that in place for Rogue One and arguably failed to address, or ensure, that there wasn't any discrepancies there either.

In fact you could even argue that bringing in other writers may have been what caused the discrepancies in that case, so who knows...

@The Midi-chlorian Count said:

@movie_nazi

This is where I think Lucas made one of his biggest mistakes and that was to write the entire script himself on the prequels. If he would have brought in another writer then there would have been someone to point out the discrepancies from the original films

To be fair they had that in place for Rogue One and arguably failed to address, or ensure, that there wasn't any discrepancies there either.

In fact you could even argue that bringing in other writers may have been what caused the discrepancies in that case, so who knows...

I don't think writing discrepancies would be a big problem, providing you had a writing team that met regularly to discuss plot elements and to point out any potential overlaps. Lucas made the film he wanted, and even though the public can be highly critical of the works, for all we know, Lucas intended it to be the way it was. We may not like it, but final creativity started and ended with Mr. Lucas. It made sense to him, and I suppose as the creative force, that is all he cared about. He already had enough money to finance a small country.

@Leigh Abbott

I don't think writing discrepancies would be a big problem, providing you had a writing team that met regularly to discuss plot elements and to point out any potential overlaps.

The thing is though, what with that Pablo Hidalgo chap and the story group team, Disney Star Wars is supposed to have that in place. With this set up I honestly thought we'd never see prequel style continuity slip ups ever again.

The reality though is that you probably can't have these guys hanging over the shoulders of the actual film makers, like The Simpsons' comic book guy, saying "no, no you can't do that because in Episode..."

I know a lot of people hated the "several transmissions" line being seemingly contradicted in Rogue One (whilst admittedly others didn't care - I suppose in the same way people mentally worked around the PT issues) but the fact is that issue only came about as a result of another writer being brought in and writing a "cool scene" to make a creative improvement to the film.

So perhaps we were all a bit too harsh with Mr Lucas and his prequels, at least on this score 🤔

In his book The Secret History of Star Wars, Michael Kaminski painstakingly demonstrates through documentation and insider interviews, that George Lucas did - not have a six part story arc before Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, but attempted to position himself as having the entire story in one piece and choosing to start the story-telling in mid-story, in episode 4, because "it was the easiest to shoot", or some such blather.

Kaminski, in piecing together the real story of how these movies got made, was attempting to help us fans understand the real reasons why there are so many discrepancies between the original trilogy (OT) and the prequel trilogy (PT).

If there was one entire six part story in existence before the start of shooting episode 4 for release in 1977, so many of those questions we have would not exist, because all the action in the PT would have been worked out to lead into the OT as one story. These discrepancies do exist, however, because, in seeking to cash in on the surprise popularity of his little budget film that he could hardly find a studio to produce, he threw together the PT and even changed direction in that sub-arc because, again, there was no full story he was working with. And, in so doing, came up with all kinds of new ideas that had absolutely zero anchor in the OT.

One great example of the change in arc within the PT was the development of Jar Jar Binks as the sith lord pulling strings to get Palpatine to take over the Senate, the shadowy puppet master pulling all the strings to make things happen (look it up, there's at least one terrific video on youtube exploring this in depth and its quite compelling). At any rate, it was so complicated and layered and beyond the perception of most fans that the public reaction to Jar Jar was overwhelmingly negative; in response, Lucas tucked his tail, downgraded Jar Jar and up, seemingly out of nowhere, rose...Count Dooku. Yep, Dooku became what he was as a quick filler for the gap created when Jar Jar was demoted.

It was this Dooku oddity that resonated in my mind when I went searching the internet to find if there were any other people out there asking "who is this guy? Where did he come from?" I bumped into Kaminski on a discussion board somewhere out there, and our discussions during the time he was working on his book resulted in his including my name in the intro among those who helped him during his working on his book. Pretty cool, eh?!

One of the great evidences of the lack of a full story, as late as during shooting episode V, is that, when they were shooting one of the great twist scenes of all time, the "I am your father" scene, what the actor actually said during the takes was "No Luke. OBI WAN is your father." That is what was in the script, that's what the actors understood, that's what was shot. It was in post editing that the voice over was laid down - this way, the sense of shock and surprise from even the actors would be genuine, which is to say, emphatically - if the actors had been in on a complete six part story and were settling on shooting part 4-6 first, they still should have known about Anakin being Luke's father, there'd have been no surprise and therefore no need to shoot one thing, and voiceover another.

Bottom line is, the wrinkles between the two trilogies should not be ironed out within the universe's logic. The discrepancies are real, there's no true explanation within the story itself. Even though the OT actually takes place AFTER the events of the PT, in fact what was established by a poor job of reverse-engineering was not known previously, when the OT was being scripted, cast and shot. All the discrepancies make perfect sense in light of this reality.

@DRDMovieMusings said:

when they were shooting one of the great twist scenes of all time, the "I am your father" scene, what the actor actually said during the takes was "No Luke. OBI WAN is your father." That is what was in the script

Interesting post @DRDMovieMusings!

What I was wondering though if this was a typo or another take on that which I hadn't heard before? The more common tale I've heard was that the line was "No, Obi-Wan killed your father"...

Either way, the ESB revision is actually pretty good because it still fits in with Obi-Wan's shiftiness in ANH - it doesn't grind against the established because Obi-Wan was presented to us as obviously lying.

@The Midi-chlorian Count said:

What I was wondering though if this was a typo or another take on that which I hadn't heard before? The more common tale I've heard was that the line was "No, Obi-Wan killed your father"...

Yep, I think you're right. I recalled that incorrectly.

Notwithstanding, the main takeaway remains - the prequel trilogy was a poorly reverse-engineered attempt to return to the well and draw more profit from it. As wrong as Lucas was for doing it in the way he did, he was clearly right, because two movies have already been staged since the release of the PT, and there are more to come. There remained money to be made...we just wish it hadn't been first attempted so disingenuously.

@movie_nazi said:

At the end of episode III, we see that Obi-wan hands baby Luke over to Owen and Beru (who look way too young BTW). Then when Luke mentions R2D2 message about Obi-wan they look at each other like "Oh sh!t" and Owen even says that he's a crazy old dude and pay that fker no mind. What is up with that?

Er, even if we're only taking the original movie into account, Owen and Beru obviously do know who Obi Wan is, and they know he is a Jedi knight who the Empire would very much like to destroy, and was personal friends with Luke's father who just so happened to be a Jedi knight who was destroyed by the Empire. They pretend not to know anything about him because they know Luke would find Obi-Wan's connection to his father fascinating and could attract him into a dangerous lifestyle, get involved into the war with the Empire and get himself killed (or worse) and end up generally just like his father.