George Lucas Explains WHY Obi-Wan Never Trained Leia
6,532George Lucas: "Because he was a male chauvinistic pig" XD
Well here we go folks. An Age old question that can be answered if we go back to the early 80’s when George Lucas was writing out the details to The Return of the Jedi. That’s right, we’re going back to the making of return of the jedi in todays video, I’m loving this book more and more each time I pick it up because we get to learn George’s reasons behind his writing.
Something that many people always ask online is in regards to why didn’t Ben just train Leia? Why did he go to Luke first?
Let’s check out the transcript and then we can discuss it.
Lucas: The “other” could be explained by Yoda or described by Ben. We could save that for Ben.
Kasdan: Ben doesn’t even know about it.
Lucas: Ben knows about it.
Kasdan: How come in Empire he says, “He is our last hope” and Yoda says, “No there is another.”
Lucas: He discounts women because he is a male chauvinist pig.
Kazanjian: Well, he forgot.
Kasdan: Wouldn’t that be weird that Ben has forgotten?
Lucas: She isn’t trained, she isn’t ready and Ben wasn’t thinking. Let’s assume that Ben knows there is the other.
Kazanjian: He has to.
Lucas: The other thing is, I think you can make Ben take the blame for Vader. “I should have given him more training. I should have sent him to Yoda, but I thought I could do it myself. It was my own pride in thinking that I could be as good a teacher as Yoda. I wish that I could stop the pestilence that I’ve unleashed on the galaxy.” His burden is that he feels responsible for everything that Vader has done.
Obi-Wan not training Leia was a big mistake in my opinion. Imagine if he had gathered both Leia and Luke, brought them together, and said, hey, look, you two are brother and sister, and you are this galaxy’s last hope of defence against the evil that is the empire. He wouldn’t even have to tell them about their father, he could just simply tell them that they need to start training immediately and take them to Dagobah. That said, I think if he had told Luke and Leia about their father, then at least one of them would be up for the adventure to learn the ways of the force and save the galaxy, maybe to turn their father back to the light, away from the emperor. Perhaps Leia would see this opportunity and would convince Luke who as George said, would have gotten frightened off had Obi-Wan told him the truth.
So besides George joking about Obi-Wan being a chauvinistic pig, I like the idea that he puts emphasis on Obi-Wan maturing and realizing that Anakin’s downfall was his fault. Look, Anakin did some terrible things, but all of that could have been avoided with the right guidance. If Qui-Gon Jinn had survived, as Dave Filoni said, then Anakin would have had the father he needed and none of this in the galaxy would have ever occurred. The issue is that Obi-Wan pushed Yoda and the council to train the boy, that he was ready. The council didn’t think it was a good idea for so many reasons, the boy was too old and full of attachments and anger, and on top of it, Obi-Wan had just become a Jedi Knight, he wasn’t nearly qualified to train a boy with such attachments, yet. Had qui-got jinn survived, it would have changed the entire fate of the galaxy in the sense that Anakin would have the father figure and might it add, the perfect father for him to guide him properly, instead of the rigid dogmatic inflexible views of obi-wan Kenobi who constantly thwarted any of Anakin’s deep concerns towards his mother or padme away.
Obi-Wan BLAMING himself for order 66 and the loss of everyone, including Anakin to the hands of Sidious is something I’m sure we’ll see in Obi-Wan’s spin off show Kenobi.
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