SPECULATION "No, I am your ____________."

hmm. I see. Maybe Luke and Leia have a special Force-twins connection? Also they knew each other for a few years before Empire. Maybe because they had become close is why they we're able to use their semi-telepathy(end of Empire, end of Jedi). Once Vader had met Luke face to face and knew he was alive(Empire), he was able to feel his presence when he was close (Jedi) and use the ol' Skywalker telepathy with him (end of Empire). Vader thought his kids were dead too, and didn't sense that the X-wing pilot he was trying to shoot down was his son (granted, he didn't know Luke at the time, and he did say the Force was strong with him). Grasping at staws, here...
But, with something as ethereal and mysterious as the Force, they can just as easily not explain the whys and why-nots, And just say "The Force is mysterious. Deal with it."

It would be interesting if the Big Bad kidnapped Lukes son, killed his wife, and placed a decoy dead baby as a ruse, so Luke wouldn't look for the child. Luke finds the Big Bad after years of searching, with Dark Side vengence on the mind, only to find his son fully grown and he has replaced the Big Bad, Sith style. Then you've got a train-wreck, half Dark Side Luke, versus his super badass twisted son who was raised by baddies. Then you can have a - *pulls off mask* "No. I am your son" - moment.

 

I had been thinking about this thread, and this very thing occurred to me. I was coming in to make this point when I saw you had alreaqdy made it...

Speculation, but... perhaps to reach out to someone, you have to know that person exists. Anakin never met his children, and thought they were dead at birth, so he never tried to reach out to them. Like a dog picking up a scent, he might have felt something, but not known what it was.

When our heroes arrived on the Death Star in ANH, Vader said, "I sense something; a presence I've not felt since..." He had not felt Kenobi on Tattooine, he did not feel him in the Falcon... it wasn't until they were close. One may assume that the bond between padawan and master is very close, while not sharing the blood of a parent and child, would be every bit as intimate as that..

 

Was there an analogous moment in the PT? Sorry if I've missed something, but the closest we get there is Palpatine's 'Plagueis' story, isn't it? Or maybe the moment Anakini is told HE killed Padme.... is that stretching it a bit?

The 'I am your father' line's impact came from what it changed: Luke thought Vader was his enemy because he HAD BEEN TOLD Vader killed his father. That belief was based on lies piled on lies (proffered later as a certain point of view): Vader did not kill Luke's father; Luke's father is not dead, Vader is Luke's father and Luke's mentors have been lying to him. Mind blowing for both Luke and the audience.

Pulling another unexpected family member out of the bag for someone would be pointless and crass unless it had the same impact. It is possible that Ridley and Boyega could turn out to be siblings and that might be a shock if they were "in (romantic) love", but we've kind of had that with Luke and Leia.

Also, the 'I am your father' moment is about to become THE pivotal moment at the heart of a nine movie saga. That's an awesome thought: when the ST is finished, ep V will be the centrepiece again (just as it was before the PT came along!) Imitating that moment would diminish its importance as the HEART of the story, both literally and chronologically, IMO.

I think the ST will bring a sense of symmetry to the saga and in order to that, the ST will need to draw upon and resolve thematic troupes established in the PT. And for me, that means investigating Plagueis, the Prophecy of the Chosen One and *gulp* midichlorians.... oh my....

 

It was much harder to do a "gotcha" moment in the PT... we knew what would happen.. we were just seeing it play out. The only shockers were seeing how they were going to do things, but we already knew (more or less) what was going to happen

 

No sure I agree with that, Tidmadt. I think there were attempts at a gotcha moment (Anakin having no father, Palpatine suggesting Anakin was wrought by the Force (or possibly even Plagueis), a Jedi ordering the Clone Army, Anakin choking Padme) but they didn't have the same impact because (in my opinion) the characterisation wasn't there as it had been in the OT. And I'm not a PT basher at all, but poor characterisation is a fault with those newer movies.

 

To a point I can agree with this... to a point... but while the details of things were open, the fact that a Jedi had ordered the clone army isn't really a gotcha moment... When the PT came out, we knew Ben Kenobi would be in it, that he would train Anakin, that Anakin would fall to the dark side and have twins that he did not know were alive, that Palpatine would "cause himself to be elected chancellor" and ascend to Emperor, and that there would be a clone war in which the Jedi were generals... whatever gotchas they tried to put in, we knew those things would happen.

This is vastly different than in the OT. When Vader said, "I am your father" we all said, "no... that's impossible" And then we debated it all to hell and back, because the truth was we just really didn't freaking know. There wasn't a whole trilogy already after it that we could use as a reference for what would follow. It could be, it might not be...

The PT wasn't afforded that type of gotcha moment, because regardless of what twists they put in, we already knew the outcome... You mention the Jedi ordering the Clone Army, and I say that they went Kimino, discovered that the army was ordered by Syfo, realized Syfo was dead and that they had been ordered by Tyranus, met Dooku and gleened that Dooku was Tyranus... all in one movie... no cliff hanger... nothing that made us sit and debate for 2 years whether this was true or not...

 

That's a a fair point.