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emperor-uncarnate · 6 years

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Old Ben: A Star Wars Story

Had some ideas for an Obi-Wan Kenobi movie I’d want to see... without Darth Maul in it. I’ve watched some Rebels and The Clone Wars but I’m gonna completely ignore them and most of the other expanded media (because let’s be real, Disney probably will too) and come up with a film synopsis that won’t end in just another lightsaber duel. I want a movie that’s gonna challenge Obi-Wan’s Jedi faith, and I think I came up with something that could be compelling. Read on and lemme know what you think:

The film opens with the familiar sight of a Star Destroyer coming out of hyperspace above Tatooine. An Imperial shuttle descends from the capital ship’s hanger and makes its way down to Mos Eisley, flying over a bustling marketplace as it nears its landing site. Down in the streets we see an awestruck trio of human children watching the shuttle pass overhead: Luke, Biggs, and Camie. The kids are around nine or ten years old at this point and they’re enamored - albeit naively - with the Galactic Empire. Camie’s mother, who we’re going to tentatively name “Diane” (mostly because I imagine her played by Diane Lane and I don’t feel like coming up with Star-Warsy names for hypothetical characters), is looking after the children for the day while she shops. Luke and Biggs, who dream of someday becoming TIE Fighter pilots, decide to slip away from Diane’s supervision while she’s haggling with a trader and go check out the shuttle at the docks. The responsible Camie objects and threatens to tattle on them but best bros Luke and Biggs can’t be deterred. They sneak near the landed vessel and observe an Imperial officer trudging menacingly down its boarding ramp. The boys overhear the officer saying something about locating a fugitive of the Empire and something else about making a deal with some shady Tatooine locals.

As the officer departs, the boys try to get a better look at the shuttle and are caught by a few Stormtroopers. The soldiers mock them and push them around, intending to arrest or otherwise harm them, until Diane arrives. She puts herself at risk and tries to protect her daughter’s friends, frantically attempting to coax the Stormtroopers into looking the other way. She fails to sway the brutish Imperials, who care nothing for the innocence of curious children, and it seems like all of them are in deep trouble when a cloaked man arrives just in time. The not-so-mysterious figure drops his hood and we get our first look at a 47-year-old Obi-Wan Kenobi. Dude’s looking grizzled with a little more than a touch of grayed hair. One Jedi mind trick later, the group is able to safely walk away and the Stormtroopers have no memory of the event. Diane thanks their rescuer and takes Camie and Biggs home while Obi-Wan, introducing himself with a smile as “Ben,” offers to take Luke home himself. Luke doesn’t know Ben very well but he knows him enough to trust him, and so they leave Mos Eisley together.

Luke is left pretty confused by the encounter. His first experience with the Empire leads him to conclude they’re not as great as he’d first thought, and Ben’s refusal to explain how he threw off the Stormtroopers left Luke with even more questions. Remember, Luke has no idea what the Force is until it’s explained to him in A New Hope. Ben delivers Luke to Owen and Beru Lars, who are grateful for Ben’s interference. At this point, Luke’s Uncle Owen has little reason to dislike Ben and is overjoyed that his nephew was returned safely.

Luke goes to his room while the adults chat (it’d be cool if little Luke was playing with the same T-16 Skyhopper toy he has later) and Ben gets to telling Owen and Beru what happened at the spaceport. He explains that the Galactic Emperor suspected Tatooine might be a possible hiding place for a Jedi named Obi-Wan and that the Empire would send a battalion to their Mos Eisley checkpoint every now and then to scope things out. Ben recounts that Obi-Wan was killed around the same time Anakin was, and he warns that Luke shouldn’t be allowed near larger settlements when the Empire is visiting (and the Empire’s presence in town was why Ben decided to keep tabs on Luke that day in the first place). According to Ben, the Empire doesn’t know Obi-Wan is dead so they’re still circling the galaxy hunting for any sign of him. Owen and Beru heed his warning but they have no idea that Ben is in fact Obi-Wan himself, and this later mirrors the way Luke is told Anakin and Vader are two separate people.

Ben goes on to offer to train Luke in the ways of the Force, stating the boy is at the ideal age to do so, but a protective Owen is hesitant to the proposal. Beru, who is much more open to the idea, convinces Owen to consider it. Owen agrees to think about it, and Ben leaves them both to ponder young Luke’s future. He mounts his eopie, a creature you might recall from the prequels, and rides off into the treacherous Jundland Wastes where he’s made his home. Unbeknownst to Ben, however, he has a follower...

Say what you will about the green milk scene in The Last Jedi but I really enjoyed the montage of self-exiled Luke’s daily routine. I’d want to see something similar here, showing us how Ben survives as a hermit in the harsh wilds of the Dune Sea. And while he’s rustling up some grub made from desert flora and fauna (maybe actual grubs?), he’s interrupted by an attractive human woman. She approaches him as a lost traveller, asking if she can take shelter in his dusty little hut for the night. She’s a little too nosy and flirtatious for Ben to trust, however, and his Jedi instincts lead him to concoct a plan. He invites her to join him in his home and share his meal before in some way calling on his classic Kenobi cleverness to reveal her true identity. Turns out she’s a Clawdite changeling, much like the one he and Anakin pursued in Attack of the Clones, and Ben’s trickery causes her to revert to her natural reptilian form. Maybe he dupes her into eating something spicy or sour and that causes her to lose concentration and shapeshift back to her real self. Something along those lines.

Ben interrogates her and tries to find out who she is and why she was trying to deceive him. The Clawdite woman explains that she was also there at the spaceport keeping an eye on the Imperials when she saw what Ben did to save Diane and the children. The changeling, who we’ll name... wait for it... “Changeling,” recognized his Jedi mind trick. Coupled with her intel that the Empire was looking for one such runaway force-user, Changeling suspected he was the one they were after. Ben is frustrated and perturbed that someone finally caught on to his true identity and asks if her intention was to turn him in to the authorities. Changeling denies this, claiming she’s in trouble with the Empire and he’s the only one who can help her (but she doesn’t say “you’re my only hope” because repeating little lines like that just feels shoehorned half the time). She only shapeshifted and lied about who she was so she could get to talk with him over dinner and confirm that he wasn’t some kind of lunatic.

Changeling gathered a great deal of information thanks to her latent transformative abilities, allowing her to spy on the Imperial officer Luke and Biggs listened in on earlier. Apparently, members of the Empire’s leadership were growing tired of sending teams all the way to the Outer Rim to look for signs of Kenobi. The Imperial High Command or the Grand Moffs or whoever would be in charge of that disagreed with Emperor Palpatine’s decision to continue searching Tatooine. They believed they were wasting resources on this insignificant desert planet because of the “baseless” inklings and hunches of their monarch. Palpatine still suspected Obi-Wan’s presence there but the Moffs and Admirals weren’t big believers in the Force, so they decided to compromise instead. The Empire was going to give the job of monitoring Tatooine to a crime syndicate they were in talks with in (the Empire and the crime syndicate definitely have to meet at a cantina called “Club Mola Ram” as a reverse reference to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom). The crime syndicate, which would be comparable to the one run by the Hutts, would be able to more thoroughly keep an eye out for any Jedi activity while the Empire could spend its time and resources on efforts they considered more important.

In exchange, the Empire agreed to construct a massive slave-processing facility for the crime syndicate. Slavery, which was outlawed by the Republic, was making a return in popularity thanks to the general shittiness of the Empire. And, wouldn’t you know it, the Empire was planning on seizing land from a number of moisture farmers in order to build it. You might be wondering why the Empire wouldn’t just pick a barren, unowned patch of land since Tatooine’s really just chock full of barren, unowned patches of land. They picked the part of the desert Changeling lives in because A, it’s within range of where the crime syndicate operates, B, it’s already equipped with the moisture farming infrastructure required to maintain it, and C, they can just turn the existing residents there into their first batch of slaves. The Empire and the crime syndicate wouldn’t lose a wink sleep over that, but Changeling and the moisture farmers in her community would suffer greatly.

Ben isn’t surprised that the Empire would stoop to that, but he does question why Changeling’s first impulse wasn’t to bring him in. If she captured Ben and handed him over, the Empire wouldn’t need to hire the crime syndicate and it wouldn’t need to build the “slave station” on her land. Ben is comforted to learn that Changeling, unlike most people at the time, is a supporter of the Jedi. She knows they’re the good guys, and she thought the right thing to do would be to tell Ben and at least try to work together with him.

Ben reluctantly refuses. He can’t risk himself as one of the last Jedi and he certainly can’t risk Luke, and he assures Changeling that he absolutely cannot get involved. Still trying to protect himself and the Jedi legacy, Ben denies the allegation that he’s a Jedi and continues to pretend he’s just some aging vagabond. He apologizes to her and it’s clear that he has to resist his desire to help people because he thinks it’s for the greater good. Changeling states her disappointment that he wasn’t more willing to help, and it is at that moment Ben realizes the two of them aren’t alone. He steps outside his hut to find it is surrounded by armed moisture farmers. They’re kind of a pathetic band of desperate people, obviously unsuited to be threatening anyone. Maybe one of them isn’t even holding his blaster correctly. Ben can clearly see they’re not really fighters but after a short bout (not involving any lightsabers or Force abilities because Ben’s still denying he’s a Jedi at all) the scene ends with him being stunned and taken captive anyway.

Ben awakens in an unfamiliar little house and slowly recognizes who was making sure he was alright while he was unconscious: Diane. Despite his grogginess, you can tell Ben’s happy to see her. He learns she and Camie also live on the endangered land before meeting a number of other farmers from their sector. So now we have Ben, Diane, Camie, Changeling, and room for a few other aliens or droids in their little crew. This is where the merchandise team has some real action figure opportunity. We’re going to name them “Huey, Dewey, and Louie” because Disney joke and also because they ultimately don’t matter much beyond comic relief or having cool/useful abilities. I’m not above throwing a few characters like this into a movie just to spice things up. Anyway, Ben learns that the half-dozen or so farmers he’s with are the only ones who know about him being there, although he still won’t admit he’s a Jedi. Changeling feels as if she isn’t left with much choice, so she finally sticks Ben with an ultimatum: help them stop the deal between the Empire and the syndicate or get knocked out again and be handed over to them against his will. Diane is a little taken aback by Changeling’s threat, protesting and claiming that the deal has already been struck and the Empire’s construction crews are already gathering in Mos Eisley. The way she says it, it seems like the slave facility is going to be built either way.

While Diane, Changeling, and the other farmers squabble, Ben quietly slips away and tries to escape them. But as he reaches his exit, he comes face to face with someone who had apparently been eavesdropping on the whole group. Ben is met with the violent screech-grunting of a Tusken Raider trying to assault him. Still avoiding the use of his fantastic Jedi abilities, Ben ducks and dodges as the enraged Sand Person swings wildly at him with his traditional gaderffii weapon. The other farmers hear all the commotion and run outside to meet them, trying to stop the fight, but Ben urges them to stay back for their own safety. He fights the Tusken Raider with his bare hands until he has no choice but to Force push his adversary away. The Tusken lands on his back while the onlooking farmers finally see proof Ben is indeed a Jedi, but the fight’s not over yet. “Tusk,” as I’m going to lazily name him, leaps to his feet and whips out a blaster, forcing Ben to finally ignite his blue lightsaber for the first time in the movie. He deflects the blaster bolts and Tusken, either in his native language or otherwise, reveals his motive:

Almost fifteen years earlier, Tusk’s people were murdered by a rampaging Jedi. He was just a Sand... Child (is “Sand Child” a thing? I don’t know how this works) at the time and was the only survivor. The one who murdered everyone else in his entire village, of course, was Anakin Skywalker during Attack of the Clones. The Tusken Raiders of other villages came to fear or worship Anakin as some kind of demon, but Tusk’s own village was wiped out and he subsequently grew up among the spacefarers and merchants of Anchorhead. The orphaned Sand Child grew into a Sand Man and eventually found a place as a farmhand on one of the threatened moisture farms, but his hatred for the Jedi who slaughtered his people never faded.

Tusk still had the image of a robed man with a blue lightsaber burned into his mind and suddenly there was one right in front of him. After he tells his tale in a little flashback, he angrily asks Ben if he was the one who did it all those years ago. Ben didn’t kill the Tusken Raiders, of course, but he knows Anakin did (somebody told him about it, but I’ll get to that). Still feeling guilty for failing Anakin ten years earlier, so to does Ben feel responsible for the deaths of Tusk’s people. And now here’s the kicker... Tusk senses Ben’s guilt with the Force. Tusk has no idea what the Force is and he thinks what he’s picking up is just his ancestors or something helping him seek the truth, but he can actually sense the shame Ben feels and that convinces him Ben is the murderer. Believing he’d found his chance at revenge, Tusk lashes out again with his gaderffii stick, forcing Ben to block with his lightsaber. That’s when we learn what Tusk has made his ceremonial weapon out of: cortosis. It hasn’t showed up in the films yet, but cortosis is a metal that can short out a lightsaber if it comes in contact with its energy blade. Ben’s lightsaber is extinguished and he can’t turn it back on right away, catching him by surprise and nearly costing him his life. But thanks to his Force powers and the help of Huey, Dewey, and/or Louie, Ben incapacitates Tusk and he’s locked up in some kind of storage unit as a makeshift jail cell.

The jig is up for Ben, who is at last revealed to actually be the Jedi they thought he was. He assures the rest of the group that he didn’t kill all those Sand People, and they choose to believe him since he made no attempt to kill Tusk in the skirmish earlier. Ben learns from the farmers that Tusk is known to be hot-headed and aggressive at times but is also considered a decent member of their farming community. The other farmers seem to know he has a troubled past involving Jedi and they knew it wouldn’t be a good idea to have him meet Ben, so they excluded him from their meeting. They didn’t expect Tusk to show up at their door like that, and Ben wonders if it was Tusk’s Force-sensitivity that guided him there. The farmers thank Ben for refraining from utterly slicing and dicing Tusk and Ben finally agrees to help them with their Empire problem.

Ben is staying with the moisture farmers for the night but he just can’t manage to catch some sleep. Troubled and uncertain, Ben is visited by the ghost of his former master, Qui-Gon Jinn (and you know it’s gotta be Liam Neeson reprising the role). The spectral Jedi Master sought to console his doubtful former apprentice, who was reflecting on all the pain and destruction Anakin and Darth Vader had dealt to the galaxy (there would definitely be some echoes to Force ghost Yoda visiting Luke in The Last Jedi here). Even ten years later, Ben still wonders where he went so wrong with his padawan that Palpatine could so effectively turn him to the dark side. Also, were you wondering how Ben knew about what Anakin did to the Sand People? Anakin wouldn’t have told Obi-Wan about that, but it’s mentioned in this scene that Qui-Gon’s ghost told Ben what Anakin did before the events of the film. Continuity! Anyway, Qui-Gon tries to reassure Ben and give him some words of wisdom and encouragement just before Diane unexpectedly arrives.

Qui-Gon’s spirit disappears and Diane says she came by because she saw the eerie glow of the ghost and wanted to investigate. She sees Ben can’t sleep and offers to make him some tea, or whatever they drink there, and the two stay up into the night talking. Diane eventually asks Ben about Luke and he momentarily lets his guard down to regale the story of his old friend Anakin Skywalker. Remember the story Ben tells nineteen-year-old Luke in A New Hope? She gets that same altered story but you can more obviously discern Ben’s censoring himself. He can barely keep the lie going but the subject of their conversation veers towards the celibacy of Jedi and how Luke came to be. During the conversation we learn that Camie’s father is no longer in Diane’s life and it leads Ben to question his sacred vows what with the Jedi Order as a thing of the past. Diane feels some type of way about Ben and they both know it, but he sees this as a test of his faith. Ben excuses himself before either one of them can make a move and says goodnight, finally getting a little sleep before he wakes up and learns...

...Tusk is gone. Guy somehow flew the coop in the middle of the night, hopping on his wooly Bantha steed and peacing the fuck out. The farmers kind of panic for a moment, realizing that he very well could’ve set off towards the Empire to report Ben. They figured Tusk would do that in an effort to simultaneously save their land and have his revenge, but perhaps Tusk overlooked the fact that the Imperials would kill them all for harboring a fugitive. They determine what time during the night Tusk must’ve left, and they realize that his slow-moving Bantha gave them a chance to head him off in time. Ben, Huey, and company board a landspeeder and go forth at blazing speeds across the desert with Dewey using his alien/droid abilities to track the Bantha (whatever those abilities may be). Take note - the farmers did have a ship at their disposal but Changeling said she had to stay behind and make repairs before they could fly it. Diane and Camie stay at the farm with her, leaving Ben and his inexperienced farmer companions to go out into the Dune Sea.

Unfortunately, a patrolling group of crime syndicate thugs catch them out in the open desert. A whole squadron of enemy speeders give chase, and I’m totally picturing Star War’s version of Mad Max: Fury Road. Imagine someone throwing Ben a blaster and asking “you ever use one of these before?” to which he casually replies “oh, once or twice.” Ben fights valiantly without using his Force powers until his landspeeder, driven expertly by Louie, is about to get wrecked. I’m imagining Ben would pull off some crazy maneuver with the Force, demonstrating the true mastery of his powers he’s refined over his years in solitude. He gets his lightsaber going too and it’d be quite the spectacle. I’d pay some seriously good money to see a scene like that, I dunno about you guys. I also wouldn’t say no to a scene where Ben hijacks one of the syndicate speeder bikes a la Luke in Return of the Jedi and I’m not going to pretend I don’t remember this awesome clip (I said I was gonna ignore Star Wars: The Clone Wars, never said anything about Star Wars: Clone Wars). Watch the clip, it’s great and Obi-Wan does the thing from Akira.

The chase scene ends with them entering a canyon, maybe even the same one from The Phantom Menace’s Boonta-Eve Classic if you want to throw in an extra easter egg. The criminals are killed or otherwise ejected from the chase one at a time until there are none left, you know how it goes. You see one of the syndicate thugs sending a signal to the Empire before it’s all over, letting them know Kenobi is located and is working with people from the farm. Ben on his stolen speeder bike and Huey, Dewey, and Louie in their landspeeder finally reach the wandering Bantha and are surprised to see it’s alone. Tusk’s not riding it, and that’s when Ben’s Jedi-sense gets tingling... Tusk’s not riding his Bantha because Tusk never left the farm.

Tusk sent his Bantha off alone, which would normally be a pretty serious offense in Tusken Raider culture. Sand People are bonded to their faithful Banthas for life, but Tusk sent his away so he could avenge his village and exact what he believed to be justice. He waited until Changeling had repaired her ship and taken off so he could kidnap Diane and Camie, knowing he could only do so if the other people in their group were led elsewhere. It was never his intention to go to the Empire because he desires to kill Ben himself.

Ben freaks when he realizes this and turns his bike around, zooming back towards the farm. Our trio of aliens/droids/whatever tries to go with him in their landspeeder but, conveniently, it breaks down and they have to wait for Changeling to swoop in for pickup with their ship. Ben makes it back to the farm and finds it empty. He discovers Tusk left a small tracking device behind for Ben to use, and so he immediately hops back on his bike and follows it despite knowing it’ll most likely be a trap. After Ben has left the farm again, Changeling and everyone on their ship make it back there too but they’re only inside for a few minutes before they hear the howls of incoming TIE Fighters. Their airspace is surrounded by several TIEs while that Imperial officer from earlier flies in on his shuttle. A platoon of Stromtroopers march out with the officer, who commands Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi exit the farmhouse. Little do they know, the real Ben is closing in on Tusk somewhere else entirely. Changeling decides to do something heroic, shapeshifting into Ben and making a daring escape. Diane’s farmhouse sustains heavy damage in the process but Changeling narrowly makes it to her ship, making sure to be seen in her Ben form and provoking the Imperial forces into chasing her. She pilots her small freighter away from the planet, drawing the Empire off the farm. Changeling thinks she can string them along and somehow make it back alive but she’s outnumbered and cannot escape them. Her ship is blown to smithereens, close enough to the planet’s atmosphere that the onlooking Huey, Dewey, and Louie see the explosion in the distance and cry alien/droid/duck tears. Sad time, but it leads the Empire to at long last confirm the fatality of the legendary Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Meanwhile, the tracking device leads actual Ben to this craggy, desolate wasteland. He finds Tusk, who is waiting for him at the edge of a cave along with an ensnared Diane and Camie. Classic “you killed the people I love so now I’m gonna kill the people you love” situation. Ben tries to ease Tusk into standing down and giving up the innocent woman and her child, even offering up his own lightsaber for their safe return. The enraged Tusken Raider rejects the lightsaber before the desperate Jedi Master also offers to train him in the Force. Ben levitates his lightsaber into Tusk’s hands, promising he’d find peace in learning the ways of the Force, but Tusk is hell-bent on revenge and won’t give up. He goes against Tusken Raider culture yet again, this time removing his head coverings and baring his face (gross) and his dark side-tainted eyes. Now consumed by the dark side of the Force, Tusk roars into the cave and receives a roar in return from what sounds like a large creature. Ben suddenly regrets giving up his lightsaber just as a titanic Krayt Dragon, a monstrous reptilian behemoth native to Tatooine, emerges from the cave. The beast is about to chow down on Diane but Ben uses the Force to demand its attention. He keeps the ravenous dragon focused on him while he evades its many attacks (including its acidic venom) until he finally is able to use enough Force mojo to pacify it.

Just when the hulking, hundred-meter lizard is calming down, a furious Tusk leaps into the fray, disrupting Ben’s attempt to placate it. This turns into a chaotic three-way battle between Ben, Tusk, and the overwhelmingly strong Krayt Dragon. Though already exhausted, Ben manages to get his lightsaber back but is careful not to let it connect with Tusk’s cortosis gaderffii stick. This proves to be challenging, pushing Ben’s middle-aged agility to its limits. The old Jedi Master eventually falters when his lightsaber is fizzled out by the brittle cortosis weapon and he drops it, leaving him open to be swatted away by the dragon’s whip-like tail. Then the monster disarms and pins Tusk down, ready to bite his fucking face off, when Ben uses the Force to lift the gaderffii and send the sharp end of it through the beast’s skull like a missile. The beast is instantly killed and collapses but an injured Ben can barely stand or defend himself anymore.

Tusk picks up Ben’s lightsaber just as the cortosis’ disabling effect wears off and he turns it back on. Sure looks like Tusk is about to finish Ben with his own weapon, but instead he slashes at the Krayt Dragon’s side and makes a deep gash. Tusk reaches into the dead wyrm’s guts and retrieves a dazzling, almost luminous pearl. He hands it and the lightsaber back to Ben and expresses his newfound understanding. During the whole battle, there was no point at which Ben tried to kill Tusk, and Ben even saved Tusk from certain death in the end. It was then that the remorseful Tusken Raider could sense the truth, and that his opponent was innocent. Ben apologizes despite being vindicated, telling Tusk is was his failure as a mentor that led to the tragedy of his village. He kind of vents his guilt to Tusk, who turns around and reveals a glob of acid venom burning through his back, slowly killing him. With his dying breaths, Tusk forgives Ben and voices his regret for sending his Bantha away and for going against the traditions of his people. He urges Ben not to make that same mistake, not for anything, and he ultimately helps Ben reaffirm his faith in the Jedi. Quelling the dark side within Tusk makes Ben think of redeeming Vader and how possible or not that might be.

Everyone regroups and they mourn Changeling’s sacrifice. The Empire believes Obi-Wan has been eliminated so they pack up and leave Tatooine, forsaking their deal with the crime syndicate, which is left in shambles after losing so many thugs in the desert chase. Tusk’s Bantha, who was spiritually linked to Tusk, is found to have died right when his master did. Spooky. Ben gives the valuable Krayt Dragon pearl to Diane, Huey, Dewey, and Louie so they can sell it and use the profits for their farms. The farmers explain that slaying a Krayt Dragon and claiming its pearl are actual rites of passage for young Tusken men, so Ben and Tusk inadvertently completed that ritual in a sense. Anyway, the farmers consider hiring some enforcers of their own to stave off the remnants of the syndicate and decide to pay to rebuild Diane’s farmhouse. Owen Lars later comes to learn that Ben was responsible for the destruction of Diane’s property, not believing the explanation that it was actually Changeling posing as him (and it was really the TIE Fighters’ faults anyway). Owen refuses to allow such a dangerous individual around his nephew or the Lars family farm and so Luke doesn’t really see Ben again for another decade. And by the time they meet again in A New Hope, Ben’s perfected his Krayt Dragon call... I think?

At last, Ben is ready to say his goodbyes to Diane. She’s not upset with him about her farm, but she’s more upset that Tusk would so spontaneously give in to the dark side. Ben explains how quickly revenge can turn someone Force-sensitive to the path of violence, and it wasn’t so surprising someone who’d vowed revenge for all those years could succumb to it. “Revenge, anger, ...and attachment.” With that, she understands what Ben is having difficulty saying: they simply cannot be together. She agrees with him, expressing her newfound fear and misunderstanding of the Force and its vast influence. Diane says she can see how difficult it would’ve been to watch Anakin go through that, and she wishes one day Ben can do for Anakin what he did for Tusk. Diane kisses him... nothing intense, more of a “thank you” than anything else. I think she’d feel kind of sorry for him that she can see he’s such a noble person and he’s so devoted to his values but he won’t allow himself what would likely make him happy. With that somber gesture, Ben tells her his true name is Obi-Wan, gets back on his speeder bike, and goes back to his hut. The end! Can’t believe you made it this far. In my head this was gonna be one page tops but whoops I guess its nine. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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