Luke Skywalker’s Family Tree Was Almost Way More Complicated

Like all of the films in the original trilogy, Return of the Jedi started out a lot weirder than it ended up. Some of the more well-known ideas that were cut include the original title, Revenge of the Jedi, and Han Solo’s death.

Fans are less familiar with Lucas’s initial idea to reveal Luke’s Uncle Owen as Obi-Wan Kenobi’s secret brother.

The scene where Obi-Wan admits he lied to Luke about his father originally included a line about Owen Lars being Kenobi’s brother. At some point before filming, George must have decided that having the poor kid hear about his dad turning evil was traumatic enough on its own.

He didn’t need Ben Kenobi to burn down the Skywalker family tree while he was at it.

Return of the Jedi came and went, but surprisingly, the rumor that Ben Kenobi and Owen Lars were brothers persisted. Part of the blame goes to the Return of the Jedi novelization, which, like most novelizations, was based on an early version of the film’s script rather than the finished screenplay.

As a result, author James Kahn included the line, “I took you to live with my brother Owen, on Tatooine.”

Meanwhile, Decipher, Inc., makers of the Star Wars Customizable Card Game, helped to further spread the myth with a 1995 card that described Owen Lars as the “brother of Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

They weren’t the only ones in the ’90s trying to disrupt the Skywalker Family. Jedi Apprentice: The Hidden Past, a 1999 Star Wars novel, also alluded to Obi-Wan’s brother during a dream sequence. In the book, Kenobi dreams of his life before the Jedi found him, including a brother named Owen.

George Lucas himself set the record straight with Attack of the Clones in 2002. As far as George was concerned, the Star Wars films were the only true canon, and he proved that in Episode II by officially making Owen Lars Anakin Skywalker’s stepbrother.

While the onscreen confirmation of the Lars-Skywalker extended family should have put the issue to bed, it didn’t.

This being Star Wars, the non-canon instances of Obi-Wan calling Owen his brother still had to be explained away in the most convoluted way possible. Specifically, Ben’s dream from Jedi Apprentice: The Hidden Past had to be retconned.

This was done by making Obi-Wan’s dream a vision of the future. Wait what? The things Lucasfilm will do to keep the Skywalker family straight…

A 2015 short story titled “Lone Wolf: A Tale of Obi-Wan and Luke,” clarifies that Obi-Wan was actually dreaming of Owen Lars and young Luke Skywalker in the future rather than he and his brother in the past.

As far as retcons go, it’s pretty weak, but Star Wars has done worse. The important thing is that it keeps the Skywalker family straight.

At least until a few years later, a Darth Vader comic book messed things up again by implying that Palpatine was secretly Anakin’s dad. What can we say? Star Wars is a messy fandom, but we wouldn’t have it any other way.