2. Strengthening The Drama Between Luke And Vader
Episode 1 is what I like to call a meet and greet movie. We meet the players, see the situation and we build from there in the sequels. New Hope was largely that too and because of that we can begin to compare the two journeys that the two young Skywalkers took. From the get go, these are boys without fathers in their lives. They are both in relatively stable but under privileged situations and both on Tatooine. Both dream of bigger things as they go about their day to day lives. Anakin is extremely gifted but cannot get out of his slavery binds (something that continues throughout his life even when hes free), Luke is held back from the big wide world as his Uncle and Aunt know what waits for him out there and are trying to protect him from it ('it' being his father). Both boys have their world widened by the Jedi and both boys are offered a way off of their home planet but here is where the differences begin to sneak in. Luke is welcomed into the world of The Force with open arms. Hes told he has power, potential and trainable skills from day one. Luke is told that his father was a great Jedi and is very much encouraged to follow that path. Anakin on the other hand is protected from danger due to his young age and told by the Jedi that hes good but too much of a risk to support. They also stick a further boot in when Yoda explains that Anakin is full of fear and that will probably lead to the dark side (but of course the Jedi have grown lazy with no real enemies to worry about, so letting him simply go, without training seems like a good idea to them for now). Bringing the Skylwalker boys together again, both have a teacher that rebels against what they are ordered to do in order to train them. Luke was unaware that Obi-Wan was setting a much larger ball rolling when he met up with the young Skywalker but Anakin was very much aware that Qui-Gon was willing to work outside of the Jedi order to train him, giving Anakin a role model when it came to doing what you believed in, even when youre told not to. Both Skywalkers have a teacher that they look up to and want to learn from and of course they both lose that teacher to a Sith. Im not sure how a much of a difference there is between Luke witnessing his master dying and Anakin hearing about it via Obi-Wan but in both cases both Skywalker boys are supported by Obi-Wan Kenobi in their continued training. However, the differences are, young Obi-Wan is still very much trying to stick to the Jedis rigid rules whereas older, wiser Obi-Wan has had time to mull over the Jedi orders failure with Anakin and knowing that, he probably takes on a lot of that guilt himself and is determined to get it right this time and be more in tune with Qui-Gons original intentions.