10 Deleted Scenes Which Totally Change Classic Films
2. Yoda Was Kind Of A Jerk
The original Star Wars trilogy has so many unresolved and overanalysed aspects that it's taken a prequel series, a galaxy of Expanded Universe Materials and now an upcoming bunch of movie sequels and spin-offs to properly explore every aspect of its fictional settings and characters. It's also pretty impressive that deleted scenes from the first three episodes in the epic series actually exist, considering the myriad controversial re-releases over the years which saw George Lucas cutting in new special effects, previously unreleased scenes and alternate takes from the original version audiences fell in love with at cinemas. And yet - and yet - there are a metric tonne of Star Wars scenes that disappeared in the editing room...until now.
So here's the mystery in question, first of all: how come Obi-Wan Kenobi just let Luke Skywalker believe that he was a simple farm boy, that his dad was dead, and didn't even bother to track him down when he probably knew that the kid would end up on the Galactic Empire's evil radar. Well, he did eventually show up to teach the cocky kid in the ways of the force and bequeathed him his own lightsaber but, for some reason, neglected to impart the rather important revelation that Darth Vader was actually Luke's father. Back in the day we could've believed that he might not have known, or forgot or something, but the prequel trilogy revealed they were pretty close during their years as master and padawan.
Kind of a douchey move to keep that from him, right? Well, yeah, but if you manage to unearth a particular deleted scene from Return Of The Jedi, it turns out that it was all Yoda's fault. The wrinkly green Jedi master had forbidden Obi-Wan for revealing the truth of Luke's parentage, so that he could be trained in the Jedi arts to kill Darth Vader without them having to worry about tricky feelings clouding his judgement. So with this deleted scene Yoda goes from elderly, kindly sensei to a manipulative, conniving machiavellian character who only cops to his true nature on his death bed. And no amount of hip-hop dancing can forgive that.