10 Biggest Star Wars Retcons

It's impossible to imagine the Star Wars saga playing out in any other way, but yes indeed, quite possibly the biggest plot twist in cinematic history was actually retconned into existence, rather than being planned out from the very beginning.

"A young Jedi named Darth Vader betrayed and murdered your father" states Obi-Wan in A New Hope, alluding to the fact that Luke's old man and Anakin Skywalker were originally two separate characters.

Even when George Lucas came to hash out the story for The Empire Strikes Back, that was still the case, with Leigh Brackett's 1978 draft of the script featuring a scene where Luke meets his father, who is named "Skywalker" - and, crucially, isn't Vader. Sadly, Brackett passed away shortly after handing that draft in, and Lucas soon hired Lawrence Kasdan to continue developing the story.

It was during this time that Vader being Luke's daddy was added to the script, a twist so shocking that Lucas went to great lengths to keep it a secret - including telling the man in the suit, David Prowse, that the line was actually "Obi-Wan killed your father", and only adding the real line in a post-production dub. Very sneaky indeed.