George Lucas Nearly Retconned One of Star Wars’ Most Important Characters

Star Wars fans can’t stand when there are changes to canon. Ki-Adi-Mundi’s age is proof enough of that. However, George Lucas loved to take big swings without considering canon ramifications. In fact, he nearly retconned one of the Star Wars franchise’s most important characters.

The death of Qui-Gon Jinn is one of the saddest moments in the Star Wars series, as it’s clear from the jump that he knows what’s best for Anakin Skywalker and would be a great mentor for him. Killing the Jedi Master put Anakin in the care of Obi-Wan Kenobi, though, setting the stage for the showdown on the Death Star in A New Hope. But at one point, Lucas wanted to have his cake and eat it too.

“It’s interesting how things evolve,” The Phantom Menace concept and storyboard artist Iain McCaig said in an interview with StarWars.com (via Gizmodo). “For a time, the older Jedi was named Obi-Wan and the younger Jedi was named Qui-Gon. It was very poignant that at the end, as Obi-Wan dies and Qui-Gon defeats Darth Maul and stays with his Master as he passes away, he not only takes on his Master’s quest, but he takes on his name. Qui-Gon becomes Obi-Wan. That’s why when you see Alec Guinness in A New Hope, he puts his hood down and goes, ‘Obi-Wan? Now that’s a name I’ve not heard….’ Because he’s not Obi-Wan, he’s Qui-Gon. And right at the end, George changed it.”

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Making the change would have certainly solved some mysteries about Obi-Wan and his strange behavior in A New Hope. It also would have given the ending of The Phantom Menace a bit of a jolt and paved the way for a far more interesting Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, where Qui-Gon, aka Obi-Wan, trained Anakin in his own way, only to see him fall to the Dark Side. However, Lucas decided to keep things simple, having Obi-Wan just be Obi-Wan.

Of course, hindsight is 20/20, but had Lucas gone through with it, fans would have lost out on the majority of Ewan McGregor’s performance, and that’s not a timeline anyone wants to live in.