Why Jakku is Jakku and not Tatooine (speculation)

That is something interesting. Both Anakin Skywalker and Kylo Ren were introduced to The Force at a very young age, and the Dark Side was able to corrupt them. Would then, a wise Luke Skywalker, know that he must protect his child by distancing her from The Force, instead of introducing it to her at a young age? You bring up some great points, Bob Ross. I hope you paint some Star Wars for us.

 

It's called "Jakku" because they wanted a young orphaned hero coming from a desert planet like Luke came from in ANH but telling us that's Tatooine again would be just too much. Even they realised that too much "inspiration" from ANH wouldn't be good.

 

My guess is that they decided early on that they wanted a story that paralleled ANH in structure, so they decided to have their main protagonist be a loner on a desert planet. Beginning this way, they probably hoped, would instantly make the audience think "This feels like Star Wars." On the other hand, they wanted to balance this with new creature designs, and a big new variation on the desert planet theme (which ended up being a spaceship graveyard being slowly mined by scavengers). These new elements would have been harder to pull off in a fresh way on Tattooine, so they just decided: "Okay, let's make it a different desert planet!"

A large segment of the audience - probably the majority - will think it's the same planet as in ANH anyways: most people won't remember its name. So, the filmmakers get the best of both worlds. Easy peasy...

 

We was had!!

 

Other than the meta-"This is just the same as ANH" again, I think there's a similar reason as well- the Galaxy is a big place. In the OT, we had some pretty archetypal geographical planets- snow planet (Hoth), forest planet (Endor), gas giant (Yavin), ruins (Yavin's moon), swamp planet (Dagobah) cloudy planet (Bespin) and of course desert planet (Tatooine). Yeah, there's a little overlap that I purposefully sidestepped (Yavin's moon and Dagobah could also be lopped in with Endor for "forest planet") but they each had their own feel.

Realistically, though, even if terraforming was done to the GFFA, there would be more variety- not only with having multiple planets with a similar biome, but with having planets with MULTIPLE biomes.

 

Everyone forgets Naboo. Naboo haves forests, plains, lakes, mountains & oceans.

 

That's true, Naboo is a little closer.

I wonder what the Naboo equatorial area looks like.

 

Probably like r Amazon. With primitive native Gungans who wear leaves!

 

A very intriguing idea if Luke did abandon her to keep her from turning dark. Perhaps it will be brought up in TLJ

 

Yes.
Anakin had also left a huge mark on Tatooine : some 30 years ago, he was the ONLY human who could race a pod, and he was 9 YEARS OLD when he won the Boonta. Did Luke hear of him? No.
Here down on Earth, we had Fangio. Fangio raced in the 50's : it was sixty years ago and we still remember him. Ayrton Senna died 25 years ago : we still remember him. It is strange nobody even noticed to Luke SKYWALKER that a young SKYWALKER was a champion 30 years ago - even if only to joke on his name.

So, as Luke never heard of a champion, if Rey had been sent to the other side of Tatooine, she would probably have never heard of a poor farmer or a lone hermit lost "like a rat in the desert" (c) maul

 

Alot of kids never heard of AJ Floyt or Mario Andretti. Well at least here on the moon of New Jersey.

 

We needed a new sand planet to remember, Tatooine had it's moment over two movies.

 

The big regret is that the graphic palette wasn't functionning on the system Abrams used to edit the movie.
We could have had a desert planet that did not look so much like Tatooine.

Two movies, only ? You only watched two movies out of the three of the OT ? and none of the PT ?

 

I can stand the OT viewings more,

 

The question I still wonder is : should Tatooine have been in Rogue One ?
This is the big issue.
No Tatooine, no Shmi. No Shmi, no Vader. No Vader, no Star Wars. It's true.
We can now give a first answer to the opening question of this thread: Jakku is not Tatooine, simply and first of all, because Vader is not born on Jakku.

 

I personally think that Jakku became Tatooine v2.0 about November of 2013. This was the point Mike Arndt left, and we are told that JJ and Larry created in 2 months over iPhones what they could not do in 8 months with additional time and manpower. (Rogue One has made me change my opinion on the validity of this story [may 2015 vanity Fair piece]) Up until that point I think the TFA treatment sounded a lot like Belated Media's 'better treatment' of TFA: a scavenger hunt for the star map pieces. Like the 'corn syrup' plot in early versions of Logan, it remains in a vestigial form in the movie.
Jakku, however, was always meant to a junk world of some kind. This is because it is meant to emulate a destitute county in the Missouri Ozarks. And this is because, like Rey, Jakku is a direct port of the 2010 film Winter's Bone. Tatooine cannot be divorced fully from inspiration, true.. but I think the concept art indicates the world was meant to look more like Jeddha in it's original envisioning.
(Allegedly)Then something happens. I don't know why, but by November Bob Iger has a change of heart. He wants the one thing his deal with Lucas did not buy.. and if he cannot have the diamond then By the Force he will have the CZ. Arndt opts out. The next two months are spent creating the TFA we know today, and Jakku becomes a pseudo-Tatooine in the process.

 

Wasn't at 1 point Jakku was 2 be Dagobah 2.0?

 

I.. don't recall hearing that.. There was talk of a jungle like planet.. IIRC it involved the rathtars and someplace called 'pirate's cove' and 'Rose's room'. That eventually went two different ways.