LogFAQs > #983352136

You know, one of my favourite Star Wars "what-ifs" surrounds this movie, because it came surprisingly close to being a much better set-up for the remaining two films than it was. I had a revelation a few years ago - TPM and the PT as a whole would be drastically improved if you took Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan and swapped their personalities. In reality, Qui-Gon is a gentle, instinctive Force-hippie who is shown to not particularly care what the Jedi Council thinks and who is completely willing to disobey their orders if he thinks they're wrong. Meanwhile, Obi-Wan is the by-the-books rookie of their buddy-cop routine, an uptight stick-in-the-mud who refuses to break from doctrine and who calls out his older partner when he feels like he's straying from the path.

But... what if you took their personalities (but *not* their roles) and switched them? What if Qui-Gon became the stern, dogmatic elder trying to reign in the wild and eager young Obi-Wan, who is chomping at the bit to make a name for himself and live up to the legendary reputation of the Jedi title? What if, instead of Qui-Gon going in to get parts in Mos Espa, he opts to guard the queen (or at least who he thinks is the queen) and sends his apprentice off for the supply run (which, really, kind of makes a lot more sense when you think about it) and it's Obi-Wan who discovers Anakin and hatches the plan to get him offworld instead?

Cinematically, it solves some of the issues with character focus and motivation in TPM. Now you're not wasting huge chunks of screen time on a character that's going to be dead before the end credits roll; instead, you're spending more time exploring Obi-Wan in his younger, brasher days. Watto pulling the "I'm the only guy who has the parts you need," routine and Obi-Wan not thinking of any alternatives is now youthful naivete and inexperience rather than Qui-Gon's seemingly early onset of senility. His attempted theft of the parts (i.e. trading them for worthless currency) becomes a brute force solution to a problem he is not yet crafty or experienced enough to handle properly. His discovery of Anakin takes on new light as he realizes (and is hubristically-blinded by) the fact that he could go down in history as the Jedi who discovered the Chosen One. His participation in the pod race and his bet with Watto to try and win both the parts and Anakin is not a really stupid plan that somehow works out, but is a deliberately reckless attempt at freeing Anakin and bringing him with them before Qui-Gon can catch wind of things and put a stop to it.

And it lines up nicely with what we hear of Obi-Wan's younger days in the OT. Obi-Wan paints himself as overconfident ("I thought I could train him just as well as Yoda. I was wrong.") and brash (Yoda: "Much anger in him. Like his father." Obi-Wan: "Was I any different when you taught me?" Yoda: "You are reckless!" Obi-Wan "So was I, if you remember."), which are not really traits we see in PT Obi-Wan. But give him Qui-Gon's personality and a chip on his shoulder and all of a sudden things start falling into place.

But the biggest gain would be that it would finally do justice to the friendship between Anakin and Obi-Wan that we hear spoken of in the OT. Instead of being just another Jedi who thought Anakin was dangerous and shouldn't be trained, Obi-Wan becomes the only one who believes in him, the only one to support and champion him even when the rest of the Jedi looked down upon him and were ready to discard him. He becomes like a surrogate brother when he lifts Anakin out of slavery and takes him to the stars and the simple act of standing before the Jedi council and defending Anakin would give them an instant bond of cameraderie. And Anakin and his training, likewise, becomes a challenge that Obi-Wan's pride demands he pass, if only to prove that he was right about this boy and the rest of the Jedi were wrong.

Qui-Gon's death and Obi-Wan's promotion removes the last obstacle Obi-Wan faces to taking Anakin as his apprentice. In the actual story, it would make far more sense for the Jedi to assign Anakin to a more experienced master, especially since Obi-Wan wasn't really chomping at the bit to train Anakin before Qui-Gon's death. And, on that note, Obi-Wan's insistence that he will see Anakin trained, even to the point of wilful disobedience of the council's edicts, seems to come completely out of nowhere and contradicts everything the rest of the movie has shown us about his character. Yet in our alternate reality? Now it makes sense. Obi-Wan not only wants to train Anakin, he is veritably *demanding* that privilege, an unspoken acknowledgement of his role in finding the Chosen One with some youthful glory-hunting mixed in (a sign of the recklessness and inner-anger Obi-Wan refers to in the OT). He is willing to disobey the council because he sees the Chosen One and the fulfillment of the ancient prophecy as too important to be tossed away, no matter what anyone says.

And so Anakin and Obi-Wan become brothers in arms, sharing a chip on their shoulder and an "us against the world" mentality as they both seek to prove themselves to the Jedi for different, if related reasons. They become, in some ways, foils for one another - Obi-Wan is eventually able to rise above his pride and gain wisdom, while Anakin succumbs to his and falls to evil. And when that bond is finally destroyed in Episode III, it will be a legitimate brotherhood sundered, not like it actually felt like - the inevitable collapse of a mostly-antagonistic relationship that never seemed particularly stable or healthy to begin with.

......I may have spent too much time thinking about this.