[Calling all Star Wars Experts]
Friend and I were talking last night about my heretical Star Wars theory. You remember: It's the idea that Lukas made the first movie before he had fully fleshed out the force mythology and the details of the Luke / Leah / Anakin back story.
Some of the clues we think we discovered:
1 - In the very begining of Episode IV Vadar uses his hands to lift and choke a rebel agent; later, most famously, when he strangles General Motti, the Force is used. In fact, aside from Ben's mind trick outside the famous bar (where they don't serve droids) I don't think the Force is ever used as a matter controlling power in episode iv.
2 - Is the word "Sith" ever heard in any of the old episodes? Is the Emperor himself even mentioned in "A New Hope?" I don't think so.
3 - Why are Vader's men so skeptical of the Force in the original movies? They disparage it as "a sorcerer's trick" and "old time religion" but they're all old enough to remember the Jedi. (Anyway the Phanton Menace revealed that the Force isn't a religion, but a genetic mutation of some kind.)
4 - In the first movie, Vader appeared to work for Tarkin. Here's the description of him in the original review of the first movie in The New York Times: "In opposition to these good guys are the imperial forces led by someone called the Grand Moff Tarkin (Peter Cushing) and his executive assistant, Lord Darth Vader (David Prowse), a former student of Ben Kenobi who elected to leave heaven sometime before to join the evil ones." Executive assistant? A Sith Lord? I'm sorry, but no. Yet, that's how I remember the movie, too. Vader was originally Tarkin's pit bull.
I'm sure there are plenty of similar examples.