Of course, if Lucas and company hadn't devoted so much effort to pushing the original movie out of continuity, the answer would be literally by the numbers.

••

Well, only if you want the lack of continuity to be even MORE glaring -- not to mention ICKY!!

Weirdest thing, to me, is that Lucas felt trapped by something he said in an interview (that Kenobi had chopped up vader and left him to die in a volcano*) but not by what he had characters say on screen (that Vader and Skywalker Sr. were distinctly separate people).

____________________________________

* We know this was not part of the plan "all along", since Vader's outfit being a walking iron lung was added in post.

•••

I didn't hear that as Vader saying he'd JUST left Kenobi. Saying he was then the "learner" (PUPIL, George, pupil), but now the "master" indicates a longish time lapse.

(In the shadow of the revisions, it seems odd that Kenobi should address Vader as "Darth". Why would he use a title the emperor had given his former pupil?)

You know, the story with which all us first viewers emerged from the theaters back in 1977. The story Ben Kenobi told, before Lucas changed him into a manipulative liar.

The ultimate fanfic. The one that would drive me finally, irrevocably insane.

AARRRGGGGHHHHH!!

•••

Originally, Lucas said he made STAR WARS as if it was the final episode of a serial. And that was a great part of its charm -- that we were walking in on a "work in progress".

But soon the myth-making began. It wasn't the final episode, it was the fourth. Of nine! No, six. No, nine! And that it wasn't a fun, nostalgic* romp. It was as SAGA.

sigh

----------------

* As we have moved further away from 1977, and thus also from those Saturday Matinee serials that were Lucas' inspiration, more and more of the ever growing audience has been increasingly unaware of the nostalgia aspect. The original movie itself is "nostalgia".

EMPIRE serves to underscore the fact that much of what was so brilliant about the original film sprang from its limitations. Once Lucas was off the leash, the limitations gone, the bloat set in.

(Actually, that was my second thought. My first was "What a clumsy title!")

What the first two sequels did, basically, was snip off the end of the first film, and pick up more or less right after the destruction of the Death Star, as if the rebels had to flee after accomplishing this victory.

It did not help that their flight looked like footage from BATTLESTAR GALACTICA.

••

Whether he FELT trapped or not, he was trapped. To change that part would be to admit everything was not worked out from the start. (And in this case we most definitely know it was not, since the "walking iron lung" aspect was an afterthought.)